Climate Change and Drought
A major factor in the decline of Maya civilization Land bridge between reservoirs. Tikal, Guatemala In the Late Classic period (A.D. 500-900) this path separated two immense reservoirs in Tikal’s city center. When I was there in 2008 it was overgrown and difficult to see the bottom on either side. I estimated them to be about as deep as an eight-to-ten-story building. Maya farmers are still around today; kings, however, disappeared 1,000 years ago. There is a lesson here on how people and water managers respond to long-term climate change, something… Read More
The Sacred Calendar of The Maya
Time was cyclical rather than linear Calendar glyphs. Copan Stela N (Back) Sacred time is that in which the gods manifested themselves and created; so each time man wants to ensure a fortunate outcome for something, he re-actualizes the original sacred event—creation; what is actually sought is the regeneration of the human being. Sacred time is reversible, it’s a primordial mythical time made present. Mircea Eliade Many of the ideas put forth by professor Eliade in his groundbreaking book, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion applies to the ancient… Read More
Ancient Maya Infancy And Childhood
It was steeped in symbols and tradition from birth Panajachel, Guatemala At birth, a child is anointed and slapped three times, a reference to hearthstone symbology. Maya hearths for cooking consist of three stones. The ancients believed that the stones replicate three prominent stars in the constellation Orion, set in the sky by the maize god at the beginning of creation. Because every day in the ancient Maya calendar had personal characteristics, a person’s birth date controlled his or her temperament and destiny. The given name was determined by a shaman at… Read More
Dugout Canoes And Classic Maya Mythology
Paddler gods escorted the Maize God across the Milky Way Lake Peten Itza, Guatemala By 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… Read More
Maya Bloodletting Rites And Elite Initiation
Rollout vase photo courtesy of Justin Kerr The theme of the past three posts was initiation. Examples were from my novel, Jaguar Rising. In the story I added another ceremony, a 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. Inherited royal blood, whatever the status, was perceived as the rarified essence or “breath” of the ch’ulel “soul, ”a conduit between the world of the living and the… Read More
Hunting Deer
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 and reserves where deer weren’t afraid of people because they were not killed. Hernando Cortés, Conquistador (Referencing the Aztec) Hunting among… Read More
The Dancing Maize God
A ritual loaded with symbols that legitimized the ruler’s connection to the Maize god Vessel of the Dancing Lords (A.D. 750/800) Photo courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Maya Image Archive This vessel was produced in the Naranjo, Guatemala workshop for Lord K’ahk’ Ukalaw Chan Chaahk. At the top, above a band of symbols indicating the sky (a “sky band”), the hieroglyphs read: “His painting, (artist’s name?), artist sage, Lord Maxam, child of woman, Holy Lady Water-Venus, Lady Lord of Yaxhá (title?)(title?), child of man, Three Katun (60 year) Sacrificer, Lord… Read More
Ch’ulel: “Soul” or “Spirit”
The animating spirit within all things and people Plumeria, San Ignacio, Cayo, Belize For the Tzotzil Maya, ch’ulel is the inner, individual soul which has thirteen parts and is centered in the heart. This life essence that animates the person is placed in the embryo at conception by ancestral deities and is inherited from the grandfather, not the father, because, after a person dies, the soul remains at the gravesite for the same period of time as the person lived. And once the ch’ulel has been placed in the new grandchild, he… Read More
Prophecy And Order
That which happened in the past, the future will bring Prophecy was a prominent feature in all the known ancient cultures. Feeling at the mercy of the gods who represented the forces of nature, complex societies needed a way to understand their behavior so they could brace themselves for the next god-made flood, drought or other catastrophe and hope the gods would yield to the petitions and bargaining sacrifices of their kings and holy men. Maya kings established order by relying on observations of the motions of the sun, moon and other… Read More
Ancient Maya Cultural Traits 