Maya religion
To a large extent, Maya religion is indeed a complex of ritual practices; and it is, therefore, fitting that the indigenous Yucatec village priest is simply called jmen ("practitioner").
[3] Through pilgrimages, which create networks connecting places regionally as well as over larger distances, Maya religion transcends the limits of the local community.
[8] A well-known example of a ritual meal is the "Holy Mass of the maize farmer" (misa milpera) celebrated at an improvised altar for the Yucatec rain deities.
In the pre-Hispanic past, sacrifice usually consisted of animals such as deer, dog, quail, turkey, and fish, but on exceptional occasions (such as accession to the throne, severe illness of the ruler, royal burial, or drought and famine) also came to include human beings, adults as well as children.
A characteristic feature of ancient Mayan ritual (though not exclusive to the Mayas) were the "bloodletting" sessions held by high officials and members of the royal families, during which the earlobes, tongues, and foreskins were cut with razor-sharp small knives and stingray spines;[12] the blood fell on paper strips that were possibly burnt afterwards.
In the ancient Maya cities, all sorts of offertory items including sacrificial implements were also stored and buried in deposits (caches) below architectural features such as floors, stelae, and altars; in these cases, the intention may often have been a dedication to a specific religious purpose, rather than an offering to a divine recipient.
It often takes the form of long litanies, in which the names of personified days, saints, angels (rain and lightning deities), features of the landscape connected with historical or mythical events, and mountains are particularly prominent.
The traditional Maya have their own religious functionaries, often hierarchically organized, and charged with the duties of praying and sacrificing on behalf of lineages, local groups, or the entire community.
In many places, they operate within the Catholic brotherhoods (or 'cofradías') and the so-called civil-religious hierarchy (or 'cargo system'), organizations which have played a crucial role in the preservation of pre-Spanish religious traditions.
[15] Public ritual focusing on agriculture and rain is led by the 'godfathers of the wet season' (padrinos del invierno) among the Ch'orti's[16] – in a particularly rich and complex system – and by the village priests (jmenob) in Yucatán.
[20] Aside from calendrical learning, however, priests had multiple tasks, running from performing life crisis rituals to managing the monthly feast cycle, and held special offices, such as that of oracle (chilan), astrologer, and sacrificer of human beings (nacom).
[30] The 18 months had festivals, dedicated to specific deities, which were largely celebrated by occupational groups (in particular hunters and fishermen, bee-keepers, cacao planters, curers, and warriors).
An important sanctuary for Terminal Classic rain and maize rituals was the large cave of Balankanche near Chichén Itzá, with its numerous Tlaloc censers and miniature metates.
[43] They should also respect certain hunting taboos, such as those on adultery and unnecessarily wounding the game, on penalty of supernatural sanction; for this same reason, in another month of the 16th-century Yucatec feast cycle, a rite of contrition was held by the hunters.
The Postclassic Kʻicheʻ king together with his dignitaries regularly visited the temples to burn offerings and pray for the prosperity of his people, while fasting and guarding sexual abstinence.
The monthly feast cycle of the Postclassic kingdom of Maní included a commemorative festival for an ancestral hero viewed as the founder of Yucatec kingship, Kukulcan (a name corresponding to Quichean Gucumatz and Aztec Quetzalcoatl).
Nowadays, a 'daykeeper',[63][64] or divinatory priest, may stand in front of a fire, and pray in Maya 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 taken from published editions of the Popol Vuh.
In the Classic period, earth and sky are visualized as horizontally extended serpents and dragons (often bicephalic, more rarely feathered) which serve as vehicles for deities and ancestors, and make these appear from their maws.
[74] The lightning deity (Bolon Dzacab), the divine carriers of the sky (Bacabs), and the earth crocodile (Itzam Cab Ain) all have a role to play in this cosmic drama, to which a much earlier, hieroglyphic text from Palenque's Temple XIX seems to allude.
For the Classic Mayas, the base date of the Long Count (4 Ahau 8 Cumku), following upon the completion of thirteen previous baktun eras, is thought to have been the focus of specific acts of creation.
Among the Pokoman Maya of the Verapaz, Xbalanque was to accompany the dead king,[78] which suggests a descent into the underworld (called xibalba 'place of fright') like that described in the Popol Vuh Twin myth.
The Yucatec Maya had a double concept of the afterlife: Evildoers descended into an underworld (metnal) to be tormented there (a view still held by the 20th-century Lacandons), while others, such as those led by the goddess Ixtab, went to a sort of paradise.
The ancestors of Maya kings (Palenque tomb of Pakal, Berlin pot) are shown sprouting from the earth like fruit trees which, together, constitute a blissful orchard.
These first male ancestors – ritually defined as 'bloodletters and sacrificers' – had received their private deities in a legendary land of origins called 'The Seven Caves and Seven Canyons' (Nahua Chicomoztoc), and on their disappearance, left a sacred bundle.
According to Yucatec belief, the indigenous priests can create goblins (aluxob) who, if properly attended, will assist the farmer in his work by protecting his field, having the rain deities visit it, and thus making the maize grow.
They repeatedly show aquatic features and may, in such cases, be identical to the dwarfish assistants of the deities of rain, lightning, and thunder already mentioned in Aztec sources (the Tlaloqueh).
There is considerable diversity in recent religious narrative, which embraces stereotypical, moralizing stories about encounters with mountain spirits and supernatural 'Owners', as well as myths concerning heroes and deities.
[97] 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.
Like other Mesoamerican populations, Maya societies since the Spanish conquest have known a series of religious 'revitalization' movements, of a more or less violent character, and in response to intolerable exploitation by non-Maya outsiders.
In the Alta Verapaz, the role of saints and crosses was assumed by male mountain deities demanding the destruction of the coffee plantations and a return to the ancient ways.
