Piuhtecuhtli And The Fire Ceremony

Xiuhtecuhtli is often displayed with a red or yellow face, with a censer on his head. As a patron of kings and warriors he is shown wearing a crown and ornaments made of a Turquoise blue stone. Xiuhtecuhtli is the main deity in the Fire ceremony, held every 52 years in year 2 Acatl.

These ceremonies represented the regeneration of the cosmos through the lighting of a new fire. Xocotl Huetzi ceremony was one of many fire ceremonies dedicated to Xiuhtecuhtli. This ceremony was related to the collection of the fruits of the earth and the ritual death of plants. It involved cutting a tree and placing an image of the god on the top. Copal and food were then presented to the sacred tree. Young men were aided to climb the tree to get the image
and gain a reward. Following, four captives were sacrificed by being thrown into a pit of fire.

ORIGIN OF THE GODS, POLYTHEIST

The Mayans built two types of pyramids, and one type was meant to be climbed.
These pyramids were used during human sacrifices, which were built in order to please their gods with the sacrifices .

The other type was not to be climbed, or even touched as these pyramids were reserved for the priest-kings rituals. These pyramids were considered very sacred and cherished. These pyramids were often were built with too steep of steps to climb, or a false door. When these pyramids were being used, a priest would use the dangerous steps and get closer to the Gods. Each pyramids usually had two or four staircases, often including a platform between steps near the middle. he Maya worshipped a pantheon of nature gods, each of which had both a benevolent side and a malevolent side.

There were more than 165 gods in the Mayan religion. Their religion was called Polytheist. In this religion the gods were depict as human-like.
The Gods were born, grew up and died. Gods were believed to do other human like activity that was deemed acceptable behavior. This included: creating, planting and harvesting maize, performing divination, conducting business, fighting wars, forming alliances and intermarrying. This act led to the Gods having interrelated jobs within their ranking
system.
Mayans viewed the gods as almost humans.

Also, The Mayans believed that every person had an animal partner who shared their soul - “Way’ ob”.
The Mayan religion told that one could transform into their animal companion. Every King had a jaguar as their animal companion spirit, and were often related with jaguars in Mayan art. Most Mayans had one animal companion, but occasionally dominant and admired Mayan priests would be able to have more than one.

BEAUTY The Beauty god that the Maya worshiped was Yum Kaax, the maize god. they believes that this god had every feature they looked for. However, there is a huge difference between what the Maya considered beautiful and what people find lovely today.

For example, Maya found an Elongated head attractive. The process of getting an Elongated head is called Trepanning. To achieve this look, parents would flatten a newborn baby's soft vulnerable skull so the forehead would slope backwards to accomplish the perfect head shape for the Mayans. Two boards would be attached to the days-old baby's head at an angle that pressed against the forehead. As days went by, Maya parents would increase the pressure on the board until the head was elongated. Additionally, sometimes they would put kids between two huge planks of woods and allow the joint of the wood to push the babies head to the right position. Evidence revealed that 90 percent of the Maya skulls examined were elongated. Parents would want their kids to acquire this appearance as they found this very alluring.

Furthermore, Maya found slightly crossed eyes attractive. Parents would attach a headband on their infants and hung a piece of string between the baby's eyes, hoping to ensure their babies had this desirable feature. Sometimes the string would be attached to the infants hair too.

Accompanying, a perfect shaped nose for the Maya was rather large. They found beaked proboscis attractive and if Maya didn't have this feature naturally, they would use a removable artificial nose bridge to allow their nose the wanted shape.

Pointed teeth were seen beautiful and fascinating. They would often try to create a pattern with their teeth. Wealthy maya would have decorated their teeth with special stones like jade or turquoise drilled into their teeth. This would be a painful experience for the person undergoing the drilling process. The early dentists used a drill-like device with a hard stone such as obsidian, which is capable of puncturing bone.

Ancient Maya men and women wore the same kinds of jewelry, except that women didn't wear lip or nose plugs.
The nose plugs were sanctioned for an elite status symbol among men, mainly during the Terminal Classic Period. The plugs, lip, nose and ear, were two-piece assemblages with a ring secured in the body by a thick plug. The earplugs were usually so heavy that they would distort the ear lobe (Similar to modern ear plugs). These plugs were usually made from jade, semiprecious stones and shell. However, by the Early Post classic Period the jadeite resources were nearly used up, so turquoise and serpentine were used more
frequently.

Mayans offered sacrifices of their own blood, cutting themselves into pieces and leaving them in this way as a sign, other. Furthermore sometimes they pierced their cheeks, and at other times their lower lips. Sometimes they scarify certain parts of their bodies, at others they pierced their tongues in a slanting direction from side to side and passed bits of straw through the holes with horrible suffering.

Maya standards of beauty based on the Maize God applied to men as well as women.