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The Maya religion of Chiapas and Yucatan (Mexico), Guatemala, Belize, and western Honduras is an arena in which the traditional, ancestral religion coexists and interacts with pan-Mayan syncretism, the 're-invention of tradition' by the Maya Movement, and christianity in its various denominations. In this article, however, the focus is on traditional Maya religion, a southeastern variant of Mesoamerican religion, and on its pre-Spanish and Classic period (ca. 200-900 AD) antecedents in particular. As a recognizably distinct phenomenon, traditional Maya religion exists for at least two millennia, only the last five hundred years of which witnessed a symbiosis with another, non-Mesoamerican religion. Before the advent of Christianity, it was spread over many indigenous kingdoms, each with its own local traditions.
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Sources of Traditional Mayan Religion
What is known of pre-Spanish Maya religion stems from heterogeneous sources: (1) Primary sources from pre-Spanish times, first of all the three surviving hieroglyphic books and the earlier hieroglyphical texts; (2) primary sources from the early colonial period, such as the Popol Vuh, the Ritual of the Bacabs, and (at least partly) the various Chilam Balam books; (3) secondary sources, chiefly Spanish treatises such as those of Landa and Las Casas; (4) archaeological, epigraphic, and iconographic studies; and (5) extrapolations made from anthropological reports of traditional Maya religion over the last century and a half. The Popol Vuh is probably the most often quoted source, with a tendency to view Classic Maya religion too exclusively through this prism, while abstracting from its temporal and geographical specificity.
Ritual
Times and Places
Present-day traditional Maya religion, in its public aspect, is largely governed by the Catholic feast cycle. Formerly, however, ritual had a complex organization governed by various interlocking calendars and by the lay-out of shrines and temples spread through the landscape, perhaps assigning specific numbers, or combinations of day-names and numbers, to them (as in the system described by B. Tedlock for Quichean Momostenango). An important part of the rituals took place in large caves, where the rain deities were believed to dwell, and in Yucatan also around karstic sinkholes (cenotes).
The main calendar governing ritual was that of the eighteen months (the Haab') and their feasts which, together with the elaborate New Year celebrations, have been described for the Yucatec kingdom of Maní by Diego de Landa. It is not known in how far this festival cycle was shared by the other Yucatec kingdoms, and if it was also valid for the earlier Petén kingdoms.
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Priesthood
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Little is known about the Classic Maya priesthood, although one surmises that the aged, ascetic figures depicted as blessing and inaugurating officials are likely the representatives of the priesthood at court. Our picture of the Mayan priesthood is almost entirely based on what their Spanish missionary colleagues have to say about them (Landa for Yucatan, Las Casas and others for the Guatemalan Highlands).
Around 1500 A.D., the priesthood was hierarchically organized, from the high priest living at the court down to the priest-shamans in the villages, and the priestly books were distributed along these lines. In the Quichean kingdom, the two most important deities, Gucumatz and Tohil, had their own high priests. The Maya priesthood had multiple tasks, running from performing life crisis rituals to divination. The amount of professional specialization is unclear. Special offices existed, such as that of of predicting the future for the major divisions of time (katunob) and of giving oracles (chilan), and also, of course, that of reading the sky.
Offerings and Sacrifices
Offerings serve to establish and renew relations ('contracts', 'pacts', or 'covenants') with the other world, and the choice, number, preparation, and arrangement of the offered items (such as food, incense nodules, flowers) obey to stringent rules. An example is the 'meal' offered to the rain deities in the Yucatec Cha-chaac ritual.
The forms sacrifice might take varies considerably. In the pre-Spanish past, it usually consisted of small animals such as quails and turkeys, or of deer meat, but on exceptional occasions (such as accession to the throne, severe illness of the ruler, royal burial, or drought) also came to include human beings. Partaking of the sacrifice was common, but ritual anthropophagy ('cannibalism') appears to have been exceedingly rare. A characteristic feature of Mayan ritual were the "bloodletting" sessions held by high officials and members of the royal families, during which the earlobes, tongues, and penises were cut with razor-sharp small knives.
Prayer
Mayan prayer almost invariably accompanies acts of offering and sacrifice, and often takes the form of long litanies in which the names of personified days, features of the landscape connected with historical or mythical events, and mountains are particularly prominent. 1 These prayers, with their hypnotizing scansion, often show a dyadic couplet structure which has also been recognized in Classic period texts. The earliest recorded prayers are in Quiché, and are embedded in the creation myths of the Popol Vuh.
Impersonation of Deities
The theatrical impersonation of deities is a Mesoamerican practice shared by the Mayas, and often took place in the context of procession, dance, or ball game. It is especially noticeable in the case of the Classic Mayan king or queen. Quite commonly, the king, as depicted on his steles, shows the attributes and mask of the rain deity and of a rain serpent, but he (or the queen) could also represent other important deities, such as the Tonsured Maize God. Little is known about the way this impersonation was conceived: as a vicarious representation, a temporary possession, or an identity in kind.
Sorts of Ritual
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Sciences of Destiny
Numerology and Calendrics
Apart from writing, the fundamental priestly sciences were arithmetics and calendrics. Within the social group of the priests at court, it had by Classical times become customary to deify the numbers as well as the basic day-unit, and - particularly in the south-eastern kingdoms of Copan and Quirigua - to conceive the mechanism of time as an estafette in which the 'burden' of the time-units was passed on from one divine numerical 'bearer' to the next one. The numbers were not personified by distinctive numerical deities, but by some of the principal general deities, who were thus seen to be responsible for the ongoing 'march of time'. The day-units were depicted as Howler Monkey Gods, the patrons of the priestly scribes themselves. In the Postclassic period, the time-unit of the katun was imagined as a divine king, as the 20 named days still are among the traditional 'day-keepers' of the Guatemalan Highlands.
Divination
Like all other cultures of Mesoamerica, the Mayas observed a 260-day calendar, usually referred to as tzolkin. The length of this calendar coincides with the average duration of human gestation. Its purpose was (and still is) to provide guidance in life through a consideration of the combined aspects of the 20 named days and 13 numbers, and to indicate the days on which sacrifice at specific 'number shrines' (recalling the number deities of Classic times) might lead to the desired results. The days were commonly deified and invoked as 'Lordships'. The general Yucatec word for 'priest' (ah k'in) referred to the counting of the days.
The mantic calendar has proven to be particularly resistent to the onslaughts of time (that is, of colonial repression, liberalism, ethnocide, and free market). Nowadays, a 'daykeeper' (divinatory priest) may stand in front of a fire, and pray in Mayan to entities such as the 260 days; the cardinal directions; the ancestors of those present; important Mayan towns and archaeological sites; lakes, caves, or volcanoes; and deities from the Popol Vuh. People also come to these daykeepers to know about baby names, wedding dates and other special occasions.
Astrology
What is often called Mayan 'astronomy' was really astrology, since it was a priestly science resting on the assumption of a correspondence between earthly events and the movements of specific heavenly bodies and constellations. Contemporary traditional Mayan astrology is extremely empoverished and fragmented. Usually, the names of certain stars and constellations is all that has been preserved. Some of the Books of Chilam Balam testify to the great interest the colonial Mayas had for the astrology of their conquerors. The highly sophisticated pre-Spanish astrology is mainly found in the relatively late Dresden Codex, and concerns lunar and solar eclipses and the varying aspects of Venus (personified by different aspectual deities) in the course of its cycles; the Paris Codex contains what some consider to be a zodiac.
Cosmology
Earth, Sky, Underworld
Horizontally, the earth could be conceived as a square with its four directional - or, perhaps, solstitial - points, each with its own colour, tree / mountain, deity, and aspect, or as a circle without such fixed points; in the centre is the tree of life / dominant mountain. The square earth could be conceived as a maize field, the circular earth as a turtle floating in the waters; the centre as a ceiba or a maize tree. Vertically, the sky was divided into thirteen layers, while the underworld is usually assumed to have consisted of nine layers, even though the underworld of the Popol Vuh (xibalba) does not know such a division; a central axis served as a means of communication between those various spheres. In Classic Maya texts and iconography, it is rather common to find deities linked to some of the thirteen skies, but similar references to the layers of the underworld have not been identified.
Eschatology and Cosmogony
Within the framweork of the post-Classic cycle of thirteen katuns (the so-called 'Short Count'), some of the Yucatec Books of Chilam Balam describe the collapse of the sky, the subsequent deluge, and the re-establishment of the world and its five world trees. In this cosmic drama, the Lightning deity (Bolon Dzacab), the Earth Crocodile (Itzam Cab Ain), and the divine carriers of sky and earth (the Bacabs) had an important role to play. The Quichean Popol Vuh does not mention the collapse of the sky and the establishment of the five trees, but focuses instead on a a succession of previous mankinds, the last of which was destroyed by a flood.
For the Classic Mayas, the base date of the Long Count (4 Ahau 8 Cumku) is generally assumed to have been the focus of acts of creation especially, though not exclusively, connected to the mythology of the Maya maize god. References to these primordial events (as on Quirigua stela C) are few in number, seemingly incoherent, and hard to interpret (among these is an obscure conclave of seven deities in the underworld, and a concept of "three stones", usually taken to refer to a hearth).
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Man
Soul and 'Co-essence'
The traditional Mayas believe in the existence, within each individual, of various souls, usually described in quasi-material terms (such as 'breath', 'blood', and 'bone'). The loss of one or more souls results in specific diseases (generically called 'soul-loss', 'fright', or susto). In Classic Maya texts, certain glyphs are read as references to the soul. Much more is known about the so-called 'co-essences', that is, animals or meteorological phenomena linked with the individual and protecting him. In some cases (often connected to black sorcery), one can change into these 'co-essences' (see also nagual). The Classic Mayan grandees had a whole array of such 'soul companions', usually of a menacing nature, and called wayob; these were distinguished by specific hieroglyphic names. Among them were also stars.
Afterlife: Underworld and Paradise
In the pre-Spanish past, there probably never existed a unified concept of the afterlife. Among the Pokoman Mayas of the Verapaz, Xbalanque was to accompany the dead king,2 which suggests a descent into the Underworld like that described in the Popol Vuh Twin myth. On the other hand, one finds that the ancestors of Maya kings (Palenque tomb of Pakal, Berlin pot) were sprouting from the earth like fruit trees, suggestive of some concept of Paradise; and into such a Paradise, those who had committed suicide were conducted by the goddess Ixtab.
Powers of the Other World
Ancestors
The traditional Mayas live in the continual presence of the 'grandfathers and grandmothers', or ancestors; in Classic courts, tombs are found integrated in the residences of the nobility. As a consequence, ancestor worship had an important role to play. Around 1500 A.D., the incinerated remains of the (male) members of important families were enclosed in images for veneration, and, in the Verapaz, a statue of the dead king was placed on his burial mound, which then became a place of worship.3 As reliefs from the Classic kingdom of Yaxchilan show, royal ancestors were sometimes approached during bloodletting rituals, and then appeared to their descendants, emerging from the mouth of a terrestrial serpent (see also Vision Serpent).
Deities
For the traditional highland Mayas (as for other Mesoamerican highland cultures), the mountains are predominant, and a focus of ritual activity; they are considered to be alive, and to be endowed with a specific character and function. Like the deities governing the wild vegetation and the game animals, they are often referred to as 'Owners' or 'Masters' (Dueños).
The ancient Mayan concept of 'deity' (k'u in Yucatec, qabuvil in ancient Quiché) is poorly understood, but should not be reduced to a mere personification of natural phenomena; the deities' functions and interactions with other deities are much too complicated for that. The life-cycle of the maize, for instance, lies at the heart of Maya belief, but the role of the Maya maize god transcends the sphere of agriculture to embrace basic aspects of civilized life in general (such as writing). Nor can the deities easily be arranged hierarchically, although there was a concept of an upper god (called Itzamna in 16th-century Yucatec).
From the multitude of deity names occurring in early-colonial sources (and especially in the medical 'Rituals of the Bacabs'), about twenty have been linked to deity figures from the codices and their correspondences in the corpus of ceramic representations (Schellhas-Zimmermann-Taube classification). This leaves out a considerable number of deities only known from Classic art. There are various ways of bringing some order in the many names and depictions of deities, but these are all artefacts of scholarship, rather than reflecting some permanent division in the heads of the traditional Mayas. The three remaining codices are there to show that deities were permanently being arranged and rearranged according to cultic criteria which usually are not immediately accessible to us.
Cosmic Serpents and Dragons
Serpents and dragons are here distinguished from the humanized deities, since they often serve as vehicles for these deities, and make them appear from their maws. Dragons combine the features of serpents, crocodiles, and deer. Both the cosmic serpents and dragons embody earth and sky.
Goblins, Spooks, and Demons
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Religious Narrative
There is considerable diversity in recent Maya mythology. Particularly in narratives concerned with the creation of the earth and the origin of useful plants, a reworking of Catholic imagery is often noticeable. Among the best-known myths are those about the opening of the Maize Mountain by the Lightning deities, the struggle of Sun and his Elder Brethren, and the marriage of Sun and Moon. The early-colonial Quichean Twin myth, set out in the Popol Vuh, has not been transmitted, although fragments are recognizable in recent narrative; the name of one of its heroes, Xbalanque, was around the turn of the 20th century still known in the Alta Verapaz. Early creation mythology has been preserved in the Popol Vuh and in some of the Books of Chilam Balam.
Notwithstanding the progress in hieroglyphic decipherment, the most important sources for Classic mythology are still scenes painted on pottery (the so-called 'ceramic codex') and monumental iconography. The two principal narratives recognized thus far are about demi-gods close to humanity (the Hero Twins and the Maya maize god), and have to be reconstructed from scenes in which often, narrative and ritual concerns are intertwined.
References
Bibliography
- Michael D. Coe, Death and the Ancient Maya, in E.P. Benson ed., Death and the Afterlife in Pre-Columbian America, pp. 87-104. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington 1975.
- David Freidel, Linda Schele, Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos. William Morrow, New York 1993.
- Ulrich Köhler, Chonbilal Ch'ulelal - Alma Vendida. Elementos fundamentales de la cosmología y religión mesoamericanas en una oración en maya-tzotzil. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico 1995.
- Susan Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya. University of Texas Press, Austin 1999.
- S.W. Miles, The Sixteenth-Century Pokom-Maya. The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia 1957.
- Mary Miller and Karl Taube, An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. Thames and Hudson, London 1993.
- Ralph L. Roys, The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1967.
- Ralph L. Roys, Ritual of the Bacabs. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1965.
- Karl Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington 1992.
- Barbara Tedlock, Time and the Highland Maya. University of New Mexico Pres, Albuquerque 1992.
- Tedlock, Dennis (trans.) (1985). Popol Vuh: the Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-45241-X.
- J.E.S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1970.
- Alfred M. Tozzer, Landa's Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. A Translation. Peabody Museum, Cambridge MA 1941.
See also
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