Maya death gods

As a ruler over the world of the dead (Metnal or Xibalba), the principal death god corresponds to the Aztec deity Mictlāntēcutli.

Kisin is the name of the death god among the Lacandons as well as the early colonial Choles,[1] kis being a root with meanings like "flatulence" and "stench."

(An Ah Puch is mentioned in the opening of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel in passing as a ruler of the North, and one of the Xibalba attendants in the Popol Vuh is called Ahal Puh.

)[4] In the Popol Vuh, the Hero Twins descend to the "Place of Fright" (Xibalba), where a pair of Death Gods, Hun-Came ("One-Death") and Vucub-Came ("Seven-Death"), rule over a series of disease-bringing deities.

According to one of the earliest sources on Maya religion (Francisco Hernández 1545), Eopuco (i.e., Ah Pukuh) mistreated and killed the Bacab, who was resurrected three days later.

[5] The skeletal death god Kisin plays a prominent role in Lacandon mythology, chiefly in the following tales:[6] During the Classic period, his abdomen is sometimes replaced with out-pouring swirls of blood or rotting matter.

To ward off evil during this year, men would walk over a bed of glowing embers that possibly represented the fires of the Underworld.

[10]With varying hieroglyphic names and attributes, God A figures in processions and random arrays of were-animals and spooks (wayob).

On the famous peccary skull from Copan, for example, such a deer way appears to be welcoming the death god returning from a hunt.

[13] His iconography shows considerable overlap with that of an anthropomorphic way (labeled Mokochih) and of a demonic flying insect sometimes carrying a torch (possibly a blowfly, firefly, or wasp).

[14] A text from the early colonial songbook of Dzitbalche states the Underworld (Miitnal) to be opened and Kisin (Cizin) to be liberated during the concluding twenty days of the year (Uayah-yaab).

[15] In the Classic period, the head of the skeletal God A serves as (i) the hieroglyph for the day Kimi, "Death," corresponding to Kame' in Quiché, also the name of the paired rulers of Xibalba in the Popol Vuh; (ii) the hieroglyph for the number ten (lajun), perhaps because the verbal stem laj- means "to end;" (iii) a variable element in glyph C of the Lunar Series, registering one to six completed lunations, probably for the prediction of lunar eclipses.