The portion of the legend which narrates the return of Xbalanque to the upper world, and what befell him there, as referred to in the myth preserved by Las Casas, is not preserved in the _Popol Vuh_.
The faint resemblance which the early missionaries noticed in this religious tradition to that of Christ would not lead any one who has at all closely studied mythology to assume that this is an echo of Christian teachings. Both in America and the Orient the myths of the hero god, born of a virgin, and that of the descent into Hades, are among the most common. Their explanation rests on the universality and prominence of the processes of nature which are typified under these narratives. It is unscientific to attempt to derive one from the other, and it is not less so to endeavor to invest them with the character of history, as has been done in this instance by the Abbé Brasseur and various other writers.
The Abbé maintained that Xibalba was the name of an ancient State in the valley of the Usumasinta in Tabasco, the capital of which was Palenque.[153] He inclined to the belief that the original form was _tzibalba_, which would mean _painted mole_, in the Tzendal dialect and might have reference to a custom of painting the face. This far-fetched derivation is unnecessary. The word _Xibalba_, (Cakchiquel _Xibalbay_, Maya _Xibalba_, _Xabalba_, or _Xubalba_) was the common term throughout the Maya stock of languages to denote the abode of the spirits of the dead, or Hades, which with them was held to be under the surface of the earth, and not, as the Mexicans often supposed, in the far north. Hence the Cakchiquels used as synonymous with it the expression “the centre or heart of the earth.”[154]
After the conquest the word was and is in common use in Guatemalan dialects to mean _hell_, and in Maya for _the devil_. Cogolludo states that it was the original Maya term for the Evil Spirit, and that it means “He who disappears, or vanishes.”[155] He evidently derived it from the Maya verb, _xibil_, and I believe this derivation is correct; but the signification he gives is incomplete. The original sense of the word was “to melt,” hence “to disappear.”[156] This became connected with the idea of disappearance in death, and of ghosts and specters.