Cultural Manifestations – The Mayan Civilization

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Religion

Religion played a dominant role in the lives of the Maya, influencing agricultural rites, public ceremonies, art, and culture. Its importance was significant, as it was closely tied to political control and the ideology that underpinned Maya civilization. Like the sciences, religion was the domain of a specialized group: the priests. Maya religion had three fundamental characteristics:

Polytheistic Religion: They worshiped multiple gods simultaneously.
Naturalistic Religion: The gods represented natural elements, atmospheric phenomena, and celestial bodies.
Dualistic Religion: It was based on the belief that good and evil are equally divine. The gods of good were in constant struggle with the gods of evil, but they were inseparable from each other, much like day and night. Other examples include the impregnating father and the impregnated mother, life and death (the closest comparison might be the yin and yang).
The destinies of humanity were always influenced by this cosmic struggle. The benevolent gods brought positive things such as thunder, lightning, rain, maize, and abundance. The malevolent gods, on the other hand, were blamed for hunger and misery caused by hurricanes, droughts, and the war that sowed death and destruction. An excellent example of this is a representation in a codex where Chac, the god of rain, plants a tree, while Ah Puch, the god of death, uproots and breaks it in two.

Mayan Gods

Hunab Kú

(His name means «god creator of everything») Creator god. The concept of Hunab Ku is relatively recent. Its earliest reference comes from the colonial era. According to these references, Hunab Ku was the main Maya god, creator of the world and humanity from maize.

In relation to this, Domingo Martínez Paredes in his book Hunab Ku: Synthesis of Maya Philosophical Thought, tells us: Upon careful analysis of the ethical and aesthetic concepts of the Maya people, from material works to intellectual ones, we came to know – thanks to linguistic and philological analysis – the reality of the expression hunab ku, as «giver of movement and measure,» since its constituent elements reveal it as such: hun, «unique,» «alone»; nab, «measure» and «movement»; and ku or kub, «giver.»

Itzamná, also known as Zamná

Lord of the heavens, night, and day, and son of Hunab Kú. He possibly also manifested as Ahau or Kinich Kakmó, the sun god. He is depicted in codices as an elderly figure with toothless jaws, sunken cheeks, aquiline nose, and sometimes bearded. He is attributed with the invention of writing, the calendar, and therefore, his origins date back to the early history of the Maya.

Kukulkan

Represented the god of wind, also known as the ‘feathered serpent,’ brought from the central highlands by the Putún Itzáes and Toltecs. Ix Chebel Ya’ax: wife of Kinich Ahau. Kinich Ahau: sun god, son of Itzamná. Ixchel: goddess of the moon, floods, pregnancy, weaving, and wife of Itzamná. She is depicted as an old woman pouring a jug onto the earth or also as an old woman weaving with a backstrap loom.

Chaac

God of rain who is divided into the four cardinal directions, east (red), north (white), west (black), and south (yellow).

Chac, the rain god, is depicted with a nose resembling a trunk and two curled fangs that extend downward from his mouth. The ornament he wears on his head is usually a knotted sash, and the hieroglyph of his name features an eye that in the Tro-Cortesianus Codex unmistakably takes the form of a «T». He was the most popular god, being the deity of fertility and agriculture by extension. Image of Chac.

Wakax Yol K’awil or Nal

God of maize or agriculture (alternate versions exist with the name Yum Ka’ax). Lord of the forests, he always appeared as a young man and sometimes with a corn cob on his head or holding a vessel with three ears of corn.

Ah Puch, Kisin, Kimil or Hun Ahaw

God of death.

Yum Kaax

God of maize and war.

Xaman Ek

North Star (likely the Pole Star).

Ixtab

Goddess of suicide, wife of Kisin.

Ek Chuah

«Black Star.» Black scorpion of war, patron of cocoa and merchants. He is the M god of the codices, depicted with a very long nose, a body painted black, wearing a headband, and carrying a bundle on his back.

Ik

God of wind.

Kakupakat

God of war. There is a god presiding over war, human sacrifices, and violent death. The main or most well-known gods include Kukulkan in the Postclassic period, Chac, Itzamná, Ah Muken Kab (the descending god), and thirteen gods of the upper world (Oxlahun Ti K’u) and nine of the underworld (Bolon Ti K’u).

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