Two women lived in a village. The villagers called one of them “X’keban”, which means “the Sinner”, and the other “Utz-colel” or “Good Woman”. X’keban was very beautiful, but often surrendered to the sin of love. This is why honorable people despised and avoided her like one would a stench. More than once was she threatened with being banned from the village, although in the end her harassers always chose to keep her at hand to look down upon. Meanwhile, Utz-colel was virtuous, honest and severe, in addition to being beautiful. Never had she committed a love indiscretion and, hence, was held in high esteem by her neighbors.

Her sins notwithstanding, X’keban was compassionate and always came to the aid of the destitute, cared for the abandoned ill and sheltered animals. She was humble in heart and resignedly suffered the insults people cast at her. In contrast, Utz-colel kept her body virtuous, but she was strict and ill-tempered. Considering them beneath her, she despised the poor and found the ill repulsive. Her life was straight as a pole, but her heart was shrouded in snakeskin.

One day, the neighbors did not see X’keban come out of her house. A day went by and there was no trace of her. And another. And another. The neighbors then realized that X’keban must have died alone, her animals the sole keepers of her body, licking her hands and keeping the flies away. Amazingly, her body gave off a sweet perfume that soon spread throughout the village. When the news of this reached Utz-colel, she snorted in contemptuous laughter.

“It is simply impossible that a sinner’s body can smell of anything but rotten meat”, Utz-colel uttered. But she was a curious woman and decided to go to X’keban’s house and convince herself. When she reached the place and sensed the lovely smell, she said with scorn: “This must be the devil’s work to seduce men”. And she added: “If this sinful woman’s corpse smells like this, mine will smell even better."

Only the poor and humble attended X’keban’s funeral, but her perfume spread even further as the funeral procession made its way through the village. The next morning, Xkeban’s grave was covered in wild flowers.

Utz-colel died soon after. She had died a virgin and surely Heaven would open immediately to take her soul. But Alas! against her beliefs and those of her neighbors, her corpse gave off an unbearable smell of decay. The villagers attributed this to the devil and flocked to the funeral with flower bouquets to adorn her grave. The villagers also thought it was the devil’s work when all the flowers had disappeared by the next morning.

It is well known that as time went by, X’keban turned into a modest sweet-scented flower called Xtabentun. The nectar of this flower is sweetly intoxicating, just as X’keban’s love once was intoxicating to men. In contrast, Utz-colel turned into the flower of the Tzacam, a cactus covered in thorns. This flower is beautiful, but it has an unpleasant scent, if it has one at all.

Seeing herself transformed into the Tzacam flower, the false woman enviously reflected on Xkeban’s fate, and concluded that Xkeban’s sins of love must have been the reason of the good that came to her after her death. She thus decided to imitate Xkeban and give in to carnal love. She did not realize that things had turned that way for Xkeban due to her kind heart, which always led her to abandon herself to love on a selfless and natural impulse.
Utz-colel summoned the evil spirits and they granted her the ability to come back to the world as a woman whenever she wished to and enrapture men. However, she could only do the latter with harmful love, as her cold heart did not allow for anything else.