At the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán (1527–1546), Ix Tab or Ixtab ([iʃˈtaɓ]; "Rope Woman", "Hangwoman") was the indigenous Maya goddess of suicide by hanging.

The only description of the goddess occurs in the Relación of the 16th-century Spanish inquisitor Diego de Landa:[1] They said also and held it as absolutely certain that those who hanged themselves went to this heaven of theirs; and on this account, there were many persons who on slight occasions of sorrows, troubles or sickness, hanged themselves in order to escape these things and to go and rest in their heaven [gloria], where they said that the goddess of the gallows [la diosa de la horca], whom they called Ix Tab, would bring them.

Ix Tab could be understood as a specialized, female form of such a deity, luring the human quarry into the hanging rope personified by her.

On the other hand, the Xtabay of contemporary folklore is a seductive female demon "ensnaring" or "deceiving" her male human preys so as to madden and destroy them.

[6] The Dresden Codex picture (DC53b) of a dead woman with a rope around the neck, suspended from a celestial bar, is often, and without further proof, taken to represent Ix Tab.