K’awiil: Ancient Maya God of Fertility, Abundance and Energy Exchange
Drawing courtesy of Schele, Linda. Linda Schele Drawings Collection. 2000. 11-18-19. FAMSI.<http://research.famsi.org/schele_list.php?rowstart=15&search=k%27awiil&num_pages=4&title=Schele%20Drawing%20Collection&tab=schele> Linda Schele, who made the above drawing from four identical, stucco-covered figurines found in Burial 195 at Tikal, spoke with a Maya ritualist who said K’awiil was a supernatural “host object.” (Schele, Maya Cosmos, p.199). This aligns with the god’s frequent appearance in Maya Art as the scepter of rulers, likely to indicate royal lineage. Rulers who are shown wearing a smoking headdress do so after death to denote royal ancestry, the most famous example being the curls of… Read More
Dowsing / Divination
Xunantunich, Belize Dowsing is a type of divination, used to locate ground water, buried metals, gemstones, oil and gravesites without the use of scientific instruments. It’s consider a pseudoscience and there is no scientific evidence that it is any more effective than random chance. The dowsing rod only moves due to accidental or involuntary movements of the person using it. As practiced today it probably originated in Germany in the 16th century. So says Wikipedia. I used to believe that its effectiveness was due to random change combined with the mental state… Read More
Dugout Canoes
Lake Peten Itza, Guatemala As early a 400 B.C., salt was being “shipped” by canoes from northern Yucatan to Tikal in the Guatemalan jungle by way of Cerros, Belize down the New River. In 1502, Ferdinand Colon, a member of Christopher Columbus’s fourth voyage, described an encounter with a large group of Maya—or Maya-related people—in a seagoing canoe around the Bay Islands off modern Honduras. By good fortune there arrived at that time a canoe long as a galley and eight feet wide, made of a single tree trunk like the other… Read More
Bloodletting
Photo courtesy of Justin Kerr The theme of the past three posts was initiation, specifically the trials an initiate goes through in order to become a “man of the community.” Following on that ceremony would have been another rite of passage for individuals who would enter the brotherhood of elites. Typically for the Maya this involved bloodletting. More than a ritual of endurance, the symbolism around blood was complex and powerful. It signified noble lineage and descent based on blood, which was perceived to be the rarified essence or “breath” of the… Read More
Xibalba: The Maya Underworld (2nd Initiation)
Rollout vase photo courtesy of Justin Kerr The Maya Underworld, called Xibalba (She-balba), “The Place of Fright,” was the realm beneath the surface of the Earth and under water. It was perceived to have nine descending levels arranged like an inverted pyramid, was ruled by the Bolontik’u, “Nine Lords of Death” and was often depicted on vases as a giant conch or snail shell which enclosed a mysterious other reality interpreted by some to be an infinite, eternal and bloody ocean of bliss. The Underworld was always pressing upward through portals—volcanoes, floods,… Read More
Deer Hunting and Initiation Trial One
Vase rollout courtesy of Justin Kerr They joined together in companies of fifty and roasted the flesh of deer so it would not be wasted; they make presents of it to their lord and distribute the rest among friends. Fray Diego de Landa, Bishop Inquisitor of Colonial Yucatan Deer were treated like gods because their main god had appeared to them in that form. In some places there were deer parks… Read More
The Sacred World Tree (Ceiba)
A young ceiba. The thorns protect the tree from animals, especially the peccary who like the bark. The spikes disappear when the tree matures. The ceiba is the largest tree in the tropical forest, so it’s not surprising that the Maya would use it as a model for the cosmos. The stature of the actual tree with roots deep in the underworld, tall trunk and branches that touched the sky, it well represented the three realms which were inhabited by gods and demons. The ideological version, an imagined replica was known as… Read More
Termination Rituals
Caracol Structure B5 For the ancient Maya the most important interaction was not between persons, objects or buildings, it was their relationship with the spirits that resided in them. While everything was perceived as being alive, only those things that were useful were ritually ensouled with a guardian spirit—or a god in the case of temples, palaces and sacred places. When a ceramic vessel was made or a house built, a och’ k’ak’ “fire-entering” ritual was held to invite a spirit, often a deceased ancestor, to take up residence in it…. Read More
Kakaw (Chocolate)
Kakaw trees can’t tolerate high altitudes or temperatures below 60º F. They need moisture year-round, so during prolonged dry seasons irrigation is necessary. Given these considerations, they were domesticated in the Pacific coastal plains of Guatemala and Chiapas around 1000 B.C., at the height of the Olmec civilization at San Lorenzo. The area around Izapa, a Late Formative site in Chiapas, was a particularly rich source of kakaw (cacao) because it was very hot with volcanic soil. The variety of cacao grown in the Maya area is called theobroma bicolor—“pataxte” in… Read More
