Mayan Religion Research Paper
The Mayan Religion
Tiffany Frost
English III
Teacher Shirley Malett
April 24, 2013
Tiffany Frost Frost 1
Shirley Malett
English III
3 April 2013
The Mayan Religion With its variety of temples, gods, and astounding astronomical data, the Mayan religion certainly draws our attention to it today. The Mayans had varying thoughts about life which was probably influenced, at least in part, by their interest in the horrifying Underworld. This interest was also sometimes displayed in the bloody rituals performed in their religious ceremonies. The Mayans all had a common culture and religion, however; each Mayan city had its own type of government and ruler (Baquedano 6). Every Mayan capital city’s story varies, …show more content…
probably due to the retelling of it over the centuries; much like what happens in the game “Telephone,” where every time someone tells a story, it becomes distorted. However, all stories include the basic Creation myth. Mayan people thought of life as a cycle of creation and destruction, with our world being one in a succession of universes. Each time period before the destruction of the world was, at max, 5,200 years long. Mayans believed that during the thirteen days of Armageddon, sections of the world were destroyed daily and that on the thirteenth day, the Great Cycle starts again. The Mayans say the Last Creation, prior to ours, ended with a great flood (Coe 202) and even classic Mayan art shows the earth resting flat on the back of a monstrous crocodile located in a pool of water-lilies, while the sky, (a homonym for snake), is a double-headed serpent (Coe 203-204). Frost 2
A variety of temple ruins lie throughout the Mayan civilization areas. These ruins tell archeologists and other explorers many stories. There are three main temples in Palenque, located on the edge of the Mexican rain forest. While the Temples of the Sun, Cross, and Foliated Cross contains some similarities, there are differences as well. For example, they all three house a sanctuary containing a stone tablet, each with different hieroglyphs, yet, all three stone tablets have two Mayan men carved into it. The Temple of the Sun tablet has a mask of the Jaguar God from the Underworld carved in-between the men. The Temples of the Cross and Foliated Cross contain a statue of a bird sitting on a tree that resembles the form of a cross. Another temple is the Temple of Inscriptions. To reach this temple, a person must climb the sixty-five foot stairway. There are four main supporting pillars. Life-sized stucco, cement, figures located in the temple holds a statue of a baby or small child in their cold, stone arms. A funeral crypt, belonging to Lord Pakal, is located in the temple as well. His sarcophagus holds some of the most beautiful jade objects found in Mesoamerica (Baquedano 16). During Sun Lord Pakal’s lifetime, a majority of pyramids and palaces, that define Palenque, were constructed (Ackroyd 98). The Mayans worshipped over 166 gods. The reason for so many gods is because some were not just one. They had alter-egos assigned to the color directions. For example, one of the alter-egos would be assigned to the northern part of the world which would be known as the white direction. Also, there would be both a female and male god there to represent the unity of opposite principals (Coe 204). In addition, these gods also have young and old aspects and fleshed and fleshless guises. There was no clear dividing line between animals and humans, so often supernatural beings combined these elements in a variety of ways.
Frost 3
Astronomical gods had avatars, an incarnation of themselves, which lived in the Underworld. There are the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who helped create mankind. They were avid players of the famous ball game that was usually played to the death (Ackroyd 83). Another god is the Maize (Corn) God who is also known as Hun Nah Yeh, meaning One Maize Revealed (Coe 202-203). Then there is the Underworld, Xibalba. The entrance to the Underworld is thought to be located at the Temple of Inscriptions where a sculpture of the storm god on a ball court stands. Xibalba, the final destination for most Mayans, is cold and unhappy place. Pakal’s sarcophagus has a sculpture on the lid representing the dead king descending into the giant jaws of Xibalba (Coe 203). Multi-layered and with nine corresponding Lords of the Night, the Underworld contains several dark and cold torture houses. Many references were painted and engraved on Mayan pottery (Coe 207). Mayan studied astronomy. They believed that the Milky Way was a road of dead souls that lead into the Underworld. The constellation, Orion, is made up of three main stars that represent three different thrones. They are the Jaguar, Snake, and Water-Lily Thrones (Coe 203). Believing the earth to be flat and four-cornered, the Mayans gave angles a color value. White represented the north, red portrayed the east, south equaled yellow, west was represented by black, and finally a bluish-green color stood for the center (Coe 203). The earth was supported by four aged quadripartite Pawahtuns, gods given the responsibility of bearing the world’s weight, and they ruled over many days at the year’s end. Bakabs, the gods of Atlantis, held up the corners of the sky by the appropriate color associations. Often times it is difficult for people to distinguish scientific knowledge from ritual context. The Mayan people
Frost 4 were famous for predicting eclipses and incredibly accurate astronomical data; they developed for religious purposes (Coe 199). Measuring the lunar month precisely, these advanced people successfully predicted the time of a solar eclipse using only a wooden device and a form of a magnetic compass (Ackroyd 90). In the ceremonial centers, certain buildings were designed for use as observatories. The ceremonial centers engraved their beliefs in stone and were patterned in a way to reflect the cosmos while the central squares portrayed the Underworld surface (Ackroyd 90-91). Pyramids were shaped after sacred mountains that connected the earth to the sky. Only four books, of thousands, survived to modern times and they are all completely ritual related and created from long strips of bark paper covered with gesso, the glue of the past. A popular quote by an unknown author about the Mayans is, “All that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim’s Progress” (Coe 199-200). The Popul Vuh explains how, before a new and perfect world forms, all of the imperfections of the old one must be annihilated. Rituals provided the Mayans with meaning and a sense of security. Ritual acts were dictated by their many calendars, but above all the 260-day count which originated from the time it takes from planting seeds to harvesting crops. Mayans thought that human sacrifice would help keep cosmic order, since they were ‘feeding’ the gods. These people believed that since the gods sacrificed themselves in the process of creating the sun and the moon, they needed to do the same (Baquedano 36). Whether they knew it or not, the Olmecs, the first major civilization in Mexico, were the people who first introduced the practice of blood sacrifice to the Mayan people. Eating food was forbidden before and during rituals. Self-mutilation included people stabbing needles and sting-ray spines through their
Frost 5 ears, cheeks, lips, and tongue then spattering the shed blood on bark paper or used it to anoint their idols (Coe 210).
Prisoners and slaves were used as sacrifices. Even children, some of which were orphans, bought especially for ritualistic sacrifice, were used. Mayans would also drown kids in wells, to honor Chac, the god of rain (Baquedano 33). In the Pre-Toltec Era, animals like wild turkeys, dogs, squirrels, quail, and iguanas were the more common sacrifice to the many gods. During that time period, they sacrificed people as well, but not very often. The majority of the time, the Mayan people would torture their victims before killing them. Their favorite method to use was beheading, rather than the heart-tearing the Aztec people preferred (Ackroyd 85). Mayans usually buried their dead people under house floors or in the ground. Occasionally, they cremated the remains or buried them in caves, underground tanks or urns (Baquedano 34). Above all, however complex the Mayan religion is with their varying life thoughts, many temples, gods, horrifying Underworld, incredible astronomical data, and bloody rituals, their beliefs are a part of their culture and history that defines them to this present day.
Frost 6
Works Cited
Ackroyd, Peter. Cities of Blood Voyages Through Time. New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2004.
Baquedano, Elizabeth. Aztec Inca & Maya. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1993.
Coe, Michael D. The Maya Sixth Edition. New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 1999.
Gilbert, Adrian G., and Maurice M. Cotterell. The Mayan Prophecies. Barnes & Noble, Inc. 1996
“Palenque: A Mayan Ceremonial Centre.” The Atlas of Mysterious Places.
1987.
Tiffany Frost
English III
Teacher Shirley Malett
April 24, 2013
Tiffany Frost Frost 1
Shirley Malett
English III
3 April 2013
The Mayan Religion With its variety of temples, gods, and astounding astronomical data, the Mayan religion certainly draws our attention to it today. The Mayans had varying thoughts about life which was probably influenced, at least in part, by their interest in the horrifying Underworld. This interest was also sometimes displayed in the bloody rituals performed in their religious ceremonies. The Mayans all had a common culture and religion, however; each Mayan city had its own type of government and ruler (Baquedano 6). Every Mayan capital city’s story varies, …show more content…
probably due to the retelling of it over the centuries; much like what happens in the game “Telephone,” where every time someone tells a story, it becomes distorted. However, all stories include the basic Creation myth. Mayan people thought of life as a cycle of creation and destruction, with our world being one in a succession of universes. Each time period before the destruction of the world was, at max, 5,200 years long. Mayans believed that during the thirteen days of Armageddon, sections of the world were destroyed daily and that on the thirteenth day, the Great Cycle starts again. The Mayans say the Last Creation, prior to ours, ended with a great flood (Coe 202) and even classic Mayan art shows the earth resting flat on the back of a monstrous crocodile located in a pool of water-lilies, while the sky, (a homonym for snake), is a double-headed serpent (Coe 203-204). Frost 2
A variety of temple ruins lie throughout the Mayan civilization areas. These ruins tell archeologists and other explorers many stories. There are three main temples in Palenque, located on the edge of the Mexican rain forest. While the Temples of the Sun, Cross, and Foliated Cross contains some similarities, there are differences as well. For example, they all three house a sanctuary containing a stone tablet, each with different hieroglyphs, yet, all three stone tablets have two Mayan men carved into it. The Temple of the Sun tablet has a mask of the Jaguar God from the Underworld carved in-between the men. The Temples of the Cross and Foliated Cross contain a statue of a bird sitting on a tree that resembles the form of a cross. Another temple is the Temple of Inscriptions. To reach this temple, a person must climb the sixty-five foot stairway. There are four main supporting pillars. Life-sized stucco, cement, figures located in the temple holds a statue of a baby or small child in their cold, stone arms. A funeral crypt, belonging to Lord Pakal, is located in the temple as well. His sarcophagus holds some of the most beautiful jade objects found in Mesoamerica (Baquedano 16). During Sun Lord Pakal’s lifetime, a majority of pyramids and palaces, that define Palenque, were constructed (Ackroyd 98). The Mayans worshipped over 166 gods. The reason for so many gods is because some were not just one. They had alter-egos assigned to the color directions. For example, one of the alter-egos would be assigned to the northern part of the world which would be known as the white direction. Also, there would be both a female and male god there to represent the unity of opposite principals (Coe 204). In addition, these gods also have young and old aspects and fleshed and fleshless guises. There was no clear dividing line between animals and humans, so often supernatural beings combined these elements in a variety of ways.
Frost 3
Astronomical gods had avatars, an incarnation of themselves, which lived in the Underworld. There are the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who helped create mankind. They were avid players of the famous ball game that was usually played to the death (Ackroyd 83). Another god is the Maize (Corn) God who is also known as Hun Nah Yeh, meaning One Maize Revealed (Coe 202-203). Then there is the Underworld, Xibalba. The entrance to the Underworld is thought to be located at the Temple of Inscriptions where a sculpture of the storm god on a ball court stands. Xibalba, the final destination for most Mayans, is cold and unhappy place. Pakal’s sarcophagus has a sculpture on the lid representing the dead king descending into the giant jaws of Xibalba (Coe 203). Multi-layered and with nine corresponding Lords of the Night, the Underworld contains several dark and cold torture houses. Many references were painted and engraved on Mayan pottery (Coe 207). Mayan studied astronomy. They believed that the Milky Way was a road of dead souls that lead into the Underworld. The constellation, Orion, is made up of three main stars that represent three different thrones. They are the Jaguar, Snake, and Water-Lily Thrones (Coe 203). Believing the earth to be flat and four-cornered, the Mayans gave angles a color value. White represented the north, red portrayed the east, south equaled yellow, west was represented by black, and finally a bluish-green color stood for the center (Coe 203). The earth was supported by four aged quadripartite Pawahtuns, gods given the responsibility of bearing the world’s weight, and they ruled over many days at the year’s end. Bakabs, the gods of Atlantis, held up the corners of the sky by the appropriate color associations. Often times it is difficult for people to distinguish scientific knowledge from ritual context. The Mayan people
Frost 4 were famous for predicting eclipses and incredibly accurate astronomical data; they developed for religious purposes (Coe 199). Measuring the lunar month precisely, these advanced people successfully predicted the time of a solar eclipse using only a wooden device and a form of a magnetic compass (Ackroyd 90). In the ceremonial centers, certain buildings were designed for use as observatories. The ceremonial centers engraved their beliefs in stone and were patterned in a way to reflect the cosmos while the central squares portrayed the Underworld surface (Ackroyd 90-91). Pyramids were shaped after sacred mountains that connected the earth to the sky. Only four books, of thousands, survived to modern times and they are all completely ritual related and created from long strips of bark paper covered with gesso, the glue of the past. A popular quote by an unknown author about the Mayans is, “All that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim’s Progress” (Coe 199-200). The Popul Vuh explains how, before a new and perfect world forms, all of the imperfections of the old one must be annihilated. Rituals provided the Mayans with meaning and a sense of security. Ritual acts were dictated by their many calendars, but above all the 260-day count which originated from the time it takes from planting seeds to harvesting crops. Mayans thought that human sacrifice would help keep cosmic order, since they were ‘feeding’ the gods. These people believed that since the gods sacrificed themselves in the process of creating the sun and the moon, they needed to do the same (Baquedano 36). Whether they knew it or not, the Olmecs, the first major civilization in Mexico, were the people who first introduced the practice of blood sacrifice to the Mayan people. Eating food was forbidden before and during rituals. Self-mutilation included people stabbing needles and sting-ray spines through their
Frost 5 ears, cheeks, lips, and tongue then spattering the shed blood on bark paper or used it to anoint their idols (Coe 210).
Prisoners and slaves were used as sacrifices. Even children, some of which were orphans, bought especially for ritualistic sacrifice, were used. Mayans would also drown kids in wells, to honor Chac, the god of rain (Baquedano 33). In the Pre-Toltec Era, animals like wild turkeys, dogs, squirrels, quail, and iguanas were the more common sacrifice to the many gods. During that time period, they sacrificed people as well, but not very often. The majority of the time, the Mayan people would torture their victims before killing them. Their favorite method to use was beheading, rather than the heart-tearing the Aztec people preferred (Ackroyd 85). Mayans usually buried their dead people under house floors or in the ground. Occasionally, they cremated the remains or buried them in caves, underground tanks or urns (Baquedano 34). Above all, however complex the Mayan religion is with their varying life thoughts, many temples, gods, horrifying Underworld, incredible astronomical data, and bloody rituals, their beliefs are a part of their culture and history that defines them to this present day.
Frost 6
Works Cited
Ackroyd, Peter. Cities of Blood Voyages Through Time. New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2004.
Baquedano, Elizabeth. Aztec Inca & Maya. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1993.
Coe, Michael D. The Maya Sixth Edition. New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 1999.
Gilbert, Adrian G., and Maurice M. Cotterell. The Mayan Prophecies. Barnes & Noble, Inc. 1996
“Palenque: A Mayan Ceremonial Centre.” The Atlas of Mysterious Places.
1987.