Xibalba — The Maya Underworld

The Maya underworld was not a place of punishment. It was a place of trials. Xibalba — the Place of Fear — was ruled by twelve lords of death who presided over houses of darkness, cold, fire, jaguars, bats, and razors. Heroes who died honorably descended through Xibalba, defeated its lords through cleverness and courage, and were reborn as the sun and moon. The Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque traveled to Xibalba, outwitted the death lords through ingenuity rather than strength, and in doing so made the world possible. Death in Maya cosmology is not the end of the story. It is the most important chapter.

These signs carry the Jaguar God of the Underworld, the death lords, the Hero Twins, and the flowering path of rebirth through the dark.