DEGREES OF COMPARISON OF ADJECTIVES In English, as in Russian, ...
Head of a deity from Copan, 9th century
Mayan mythology. Among the Mayan people, knowledge and religion were inseparable from one another and constituted a single worldview, which was reflected in their art. Ideas about the diversity of the surrounding world were personified in the images of numerous deities, which can be combined into several main groups corresponding to different areas of human experience: gods of hunting, gods of fertility, gods of various elements, gods of heavenly bodies, gods of war, gods of death, and so on. In different periods of Maya history, these or other gods could have different significance for their worshipers. The Maya believed that the universe consisted of 13 heavens and 9 underworlds. In the center of the earth was a tree that passed through all the heavenly spheres.
On each of the four sides of the earth there was another tree, symbolizing the countries of the world - the east corresponded to a mahogany, to the south - yellow, to the west - black and to the north - white. Each side of the world had several gods (wind, rain and heaven holders), who had the corresponding color. One of the important gods of the Maya of the classical period was the god of corn, represented in the guise of a young man with a high headdress.
By the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, Itzamna, represented as an old man with a hooked nose and beard, was considered another important deity. As a rule, images of Mayan deities included a variety of symbolism, which speaks of the complexity of the thinking of customers and performers of sculptures, reliefs or drawings. So, the sun god had large crooked fangs, his mouth was outlined by a strip of circles. The eyes and mouth of another deity are depicted as coiled snakes, etc. Among the female deities, the “red goddess”, the wife of the rain god, was especially significant, judging by the codes; she was depicted with a snake on her head and with the paws of some predator instead of legs. Itzamna's wife was the moon goddess Ish-Chel; it was believed that it helps in childbirth, in weaving and in medicine.
Some Mayan gods were represented in the form of animals or birds: a jaguar, an eagle. In the Toltec period of Maya history, the veneration of deities of Central Mexican origin spread among them. One of the most respected gods of this kind was Kukulkan, in whose image elements of the god Quetzalcoatl of the Nahua people are obvious.
At present, the following Mayan mythological deities are accepted and recognized by most scientists: the god of rain and lightning - Chak (Chaak or Chac); the god of death and the lord of the world of the dead - Ah Puch (Ah Puch); the god of death - Kimi (Cimi); the lord of the sky - Itzamna (Itzamna); the god of trade - Ek Chuah; the goddess of sacrifices and ritual suicides - Ish-Tab (IxTab); the goddess of the rainbow and moonlight - Ish-Chel (IxChel); the riding god, the feathered serpent Quetzal - Kukulkan (Gukumatz); the god of corn and forests - Jum Kaash; the god of fire and thunder - Huracan; demon of the underworld - Zipacna and others. An example of Mayan mythology of the pre-Hispanic period is provided by the epic of one of the peoples of Guatemala, the Quiché, Popol Vuh, preserved from colonial times. It contains plots of the creation of the world and people, the origin of the twin heroes, their struggle with the underground lords, etc.
Mayan hieroglyphs, bas-relief, 10th century
Maya worship of deities was expressed in complex rituals, part of which were sacrifices (including human ones) and a ball game. Chichen Itza had a ball court, the largest in all of Mexico. From two sides it was closed by walls, and from two more - by temples. The ball game was not just a sport. Many archaeological discoveries indicate that it was clearly associated with human sacrifice. Headless people are depicted in relief on the walls surrounding the site. There are three platforms around the site: the platform of "Venus" (Quetzalcoatl) with the tomb of Chak-Mool, the platform of the Eagle and the Jaguar with the temple of the Jaguar, and the platform of the Skulls. Huge statues of Chak-Mool depict him reclining, with a dish for sacrifices on his stomach. Stakes were placed on the platform of the Skulls, on which the severed heads of the victims were strung.
Maya writing. For a long time it was believed that the Maya were the inventors of writing and the calendar system. However, after similar but more ancient signs were found in places remote from the Maya region, it became apparent that the Maya inherited some elements of earlier cultures. Mayan writing was of the hieroglyphic type. Mayan hieroglyphs are preserved in four manuscripts (the so-called Mayan codices, three in Dresden, Madrid, Paris, the fourth codex is partially preserved).
Hieroglyphs give either images of figures, or are combined into groups of four or six hieroglyphs above figured images. Calendar signs and numbers accompany the entire text. Schellgas (in "Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie", 1886) and Zehler (in "Verhandlungen der Berliner Anthropologischen Gesellschaft" and in "Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie", 1887) did a lot for the analysis of hieroglyphs. The latter proved that groups of hieroglyphs are composed of one hieroglyph referring to the action depicted in the picture below them, another hieroglyphic signifying the corresponding god, and two more reporting the attributes of the god. The hieroglyphs themselves are not combinations of elements representing a known sound or sound combination, but almost exclusively ideograms. Paul Schellgas systematized images of Mayan deities in three codes: Dresden, Madrid and Paris. The list of deities of Shellgas consists of fifteen Mayan gods. He identified most of the hieroglyphs directly related to these deities and denoting their names and epithets.
As a rule, the texts went in parallel with the graphic representation of the plot. With the help of writing, the Maya could record long texts of various contents. Thanks to the efforts of several generations of researchers, it became possible to read ancient texts. A significant contribution was made by our compatriot, Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov, whose first publications on this topic appeared in the early 1950s. He published the monograph "Writing of the Mayan Indians". It reproduced in facsimile the texts of the surviving Maya manuscripts (codexes), compiled, possibly even before the Spanish conquest, in the XII-XV centuries and named after the cities in which they are now stored - Dresden, Madrid and Paris. The book also contained principles of decipherment, a catalog of hieroglyphs, a dictionary of the early colonial Yucatan Maya language, and a grammar of the Maya language. In 1975, in the book Maya Hieroglyphic Manuscripts, Knorozov suggested reading the manuscripts and translating them into Russian. The texts of the codes turned out to be a kind of manual for priests with a list of rituals, sacrifices and predictions related to different types of Mayan economy and to all social strata of the population, except for slaves. Brief descriptions of the activities of the gods served as indications of what to do for the respective groups of inhabitants. In turn, the priests, guided by the descriptions of the actions of the deities, could set the time for ceremonies, sacrifices, and the implementation of certain works; they could also predict the future.
Drawing on the skin of the Aztec calendar
Mayan calendar. To calculate the time, the Maya used a complex calendar system that included several cycles. One of them represented a combination of numbers from 1 to 13 ("week") and 20 "months", which had their own names. There was also a solar calendar in use with a year of 365 days. It consisted of 18 months of twenty days and five "extra" or "unlucky" days.
In addition, the Maya used the so-called long account, which, in addition to the 20-day month and 18-month year, took into account a 20-year period (katun); a period of 20 katuns (baktun) and so on. There were other ways of dating. All these ways have changed over time, which makes it much more difficult to correlate the dates recorded by the Maya with European chronology.
Aztec mythology. Among the Aztecs, who came to the Valley of Mexico from the north of the country in the 13th century and adopted the ideas of their predecessors, the Toltecs, as well as the Zapotecs, Mayans, Mixtecs and Tarascos, the main motives of mythology are the eternal struggle of two principles (light and darkness, sun and moisture, life and death). etc.), the development of the universe in certain stages or cycles, the dependence of man on the will of the deities, personifying the forces of nature, the need to constantly feed the gods with human blood, without which they would die, the death of the gods would mean a worldwide catastrophe.
According to the myths, the universe was created by Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl and went through four stages (or eras) of development. The first era ("Four Jaguars"), in which Tezcatlipoca was the supreme deity in the form of the Sun, ended with the extermination of the tribe of giants who then inhabited the earth by the jaguars. In the second era ("Four Winds"), Quetzalcoatl became the Sun, and it ended with hurricanes and the transformation of people into monkeys. Tlaloc became the Third Sun, and his era ("Four Rains") ended with a worldwide fire. In the fourth era ("Four waters") the Sun was the water goddess Chalchiutlicue; this period ended with a flood, during which people turned into fish. The modern, fifth era ("Four Earthquakes") with the sun god Tonatiu must end with terrible cataclysms.
Actually, the Aztecs revered many gods of different levels and significance - personal, domestic, communal, as well as general Aztec. Among the latter, a special place was occupied by the god of war Huitzilopchtli, the god of night and fate Tezcatlipoca, the god of rain, water, thunder and mountains Tlaloc, the god of the wind and the patron of the priests Quetzalcoatl (“Feathered Serpent”). The goddess of earth and fire, the mother of the gods and stars of the southern sky - Coatlicue (the mother of the sun god Huitzilopochtli, she simultaneously contains the beginning and end of life, she was depicted in clothes made of snakes). Shipe was the god of agriculture. They also revered the god and goddess of maize. There were gods who patronized the art of weaving, healing, gathering. The Aztecs believed that, depending on the type of death, the souls of the dead went either to the underworld, or to the country of the god Tlaloc, which was considered an earthly paradise, or to the heavenly dwelling of the sun god. This highest honor was awarded to brave warriors, people who were sacrificed, and women who died in childbirth. The Aztecs had a complex system of rituals, consisting of a cycle of festivities tied mainly to the agricultural calendar. Various dances and ball games were part of these rituals.
An important ritual was the offering of human blood to the gods. The Aztecs believed that only a constant flow of blood kept the gods young and strong. Bloodletting was widely practiced, for which the tongue, earlobes, limbs and even the genitals were pierced. Priests resorted to such operations several times a day. Most of all, the gods required human sacrifice. They took place at the top of the pyramids at the temple of one or another deity. Were known different ways killing the victim. Sometimes up to six priests participated in the ritual. Five held the victim with his back on the ritual stone - four held by the limbs, one by the head. The sixth opened the chest with a knife, pulled out the heart, showed it to the sun and placed it in a vessel that stood in front of the image of the deity. The headless body was thrown down. It was picked up by the person who gave the victim or captured her. He took the body home, where he separated the limbs and prepared ritual food from them, which he shared with relatives and friends. It was believed that eating the victim, who, according to the Aztecs, personified God, attached to God himself. In a year, the number of people sacrificed could reach up to three thousand people.
Aztec writing. For the record historical events, calendar, astronomical phenomena and rituals, as well as to account for land and taxes, the Aztecs used a written language that combined hieroglyphic and pictographic principles. Letters were applied with a pen brush on deer skin, fabric or maguey paper. Several Aztec documents have survived to this day, apparently compiled after the arrival of the Spaniards, these are the codes of Cospi (Cospi), Magliabechiano (Magliabechiano), Borgia (Borgia), Bourbons (Borbonicus), Ixtlilxochitl (Ixtlilxochitl). History has preserved the names of several dozen poets from peoples who spoke the Nahua languages. The most famous was Nezahualcoyotl (1402-1472), the ruler of Texcoco.
To calculate time, the Aztecs used two calendars, a ritual of 260 days and a solar one, which had eighteen twenty-day months and five more unlucky days. The names of the months in the calendar corresponded to the names of agricultural plants. The combination of the two types of timing gave the Aztecs, like the Maya, a repeating 52-year cycle. How one old opossum wanted to eat papaya
One day, an old opossum was going to try papaya. But the papaya fruits grew very high, and the possum, despite all her efforts, could not get them. Until late at night, she did not stop trying to get to them, but every time she fell down from the trunk. Already at dawn, completely exhausted, she realized that she was not destined to eat papaya, and consoled herself:
Why is she to me! I won't eat it...
(Translated by I.V. Buteneva)
Codex Dresdensis. Lowland Maya region, South eastern Mexico and Guatemala, ca.1200 AD P 4-7
Indian sadness
Seeing that the Indian was sad, the forest dwellers came to him and offered any help - if only he would stop being sad.
The answer of the Indian seriously puzzled them: he was looking for ... happiness.
Then Owl suggested that he look for something simpler. And the Eagle promised that he would become as beautiful as the eagle itself. And the Jaguar gave the man his power. And Deer made his legs as hardy as his own. And the Nightingale promised to warn of the coming rains with his song. And the Fox taught resourcefulness, dexterity and cunning. And Squirrel, giving him her claws, taught him to deftly climb trees so that he could get to where the most delicious fruits grow. And Ocelot lent him his eyes so that a person can easily see in the dark. And the Snake taught him to recognize healing herbs and distinguish them from harmful ones in order to treat his illnesses.
When the man left, the wise Owl said:
Yes, a person now knows and knows more than all of us, but he will never become cheerful, because he has not acquired the main thing - happiness!
Only the chachalaka bird wailed:
- Poor animals, poor animals! Man has now become more powerful than all!
(Translated by A.G. Ovando Urkisu)
Codex Dresdensis. Lowland Maya region, South eastern Mexico and Guatemala, ca.1200 AD P 58-60
He still doesn't have happiness...
And this is not a philosophical, but a very vital fairy tale - all cat owners will understand. The tale, by the way, is rather late, since there were no cats in ancient America, they were brought by the Spaniards and were very expensive.
Black cat
One married couple had a black cat. Everything was fine, except for those cases when the husband went to distant work and sometimes was absent from the house for a week. When he returned, he always found the cat very thin and heaped reproaches on his wife that she did not feed him at all. She, with tears in her eyes, justified herself that this was not true, when the owner leaves, the cat does not touch his food. And so it was repeated over and over again. It got to the point that the couple were already going to divorce because of the cat.
But one day the husband decided to go hunting. It so happened that he did not manage to return home on the same day. He had to spend the night in a forest lodge, Fearing wild animals, he climbed into the attic. As soon as he began to fall asleep, he heard about midnight that various animals began to gather. Among them was the voice of his cat. At this gathering, all the animals reported to the Master of the Beasts.
Codex Dresdensis. Lowland Maya region, South eastern Mexico and Guatemala, ca.1200 AD P 46-49
When the turn came to the cat, he admitted that he was working hard to ensure that his owners dispersed. When his master goes far away, he does not touch the food. And when he returns, he sees the cat is very skinny and beats his wife for it.
When the Master of the Beasts finished speaking, the animals said goodbye and dispersed. And the frightened hunter continued to lie in his place, afraid to move. He perfectly recognized his own cat and remembered everything that happened in this strange house. It became clear to him that all the animals that gathered here were nagual werewolves who harmed people. His cat was not really a cat, but a nagual looking to destroy his family. When dawn broke, the hunter, still frightened, got down from his couch and hurried to his home. When he returned, he told his wife what he had seen.
I can't believe what you're telling me," his wife said.
Codex Dresdensis. Lowland Maya region, South eastern Mexico and Guatemala, ca.1200 AD P 73-74
This is how the problem was resolved. They lived happily, gave birth to children and told them about the existence of naguals.
(Translated by I.V. Butenova)
P.S. Nothing changed!
Source - "Legends, myths and tales of the Maya", ed. and comp. G.G. Ershova, Moscow, Russian State University for the Humanities, 2002.
The fact that modern humanity has a fairly detailed understanding of Mayan mythology cannot be called a full-fledged miracle, but there is still something miraculous about it. In the course of Spanish colonization, especially active in the 16th-17th centuries, monuments of pagan cult art, including mythological texts, were destroyed first of all. Currently, only four written sources have been preserved, from which one can draw information about the mythological ideas of the Maya about the world, about the gods and about themselves. The most complete and important of these sources is the Popol-Vuh (“Book of the People”), created in the middle of the 16th century on the basis of ancient texts and legends.
Creation of the world
In the mythology of all peoples, two plots are most important and informative: the plot about the creation of the world and the plot about the appearance of man. The world, according to the Maya, lives through periods of existence and death, that is, there is a concept of a kind of reincarnation of the whole world. Initially, the world was created at the whim of the eternal gods from nothing. Now existing world is a continuation of the former world, which ended its life cycle in the waters of the global flood. The current world appeared as a result of the magical "operation" of the gods, who, with the help of especially powerful rituals, "raised" the earth resting on the bottom of the sea.
This ritual was associated with sacred light or fire (interpretations differ), which caused the water to recede. There was nothing on the earth that had risen from the abyss, so the gods took up its further improvement, first creating all kinds of plants that covered the earth. But the gods were bored on earth, on which nothing happened, and they created animals, which also had to act as guardians and servants of plants. Moreover, at first they created small animals, then herbivores, after them predators, and then the spirits of the mountains (the Mayan spirits of the mountains were included in the classification of living beings). The gods also endowed the animals with a voice, but since the animals did not have a mind and could not use it for its intended purpose, they were destined to be in the service and use of more intelligent and perfect beings.
The appearance of people
Such "advanced" beings were, of course, people who also had to satisfy the need of the gods to worship and honor them. True, according to Mayan mythology, the process of creating people came out with the gods for a long time and was built on the principle of trial and error. Wishing to have an intelligent creature that would revere them, the gods first created a humanoid creature from clay. He had virtues, he was able to speak and had a very pleasant voice, not like the sounds of animals, but this “trial person” was ugly, could not move independently, had no eyes and collapsed under the influence of his own gravity and water.
The next time, the gods were smarter and created man from wood. This model turned out to be much more successful, as it combined intelligence with vitality, was able to earn a living, wooden people even created families among themselves and built dwellings. However, this version of man did not have a memory, the wooden people did not understand that they owed their lives to the gods, did not honor them and thought only about their needs. Therefore, the gods destroyed these people, first sending them a rain of ash and burning tar, and then a giant flood (a number of experts believe that this part of the myth reflects the collective memories of the Indians about some ancient natural disaster, a strong volcanic eruption or a meteorite fall).
The third attempt of the gods to create people also failed - this time a man was created from dough and was much more successful than his predecessors, but he failed to properly use the gifts of nature and useful objects, as a result of which he degenerated and turned into a monkey. But now the gods, having accumulated the necessary experience, have created people of the modern type from maize. Rather, at first they even overdid it - these people turned out to be too reasonable, they knew many secrets of the universe, which could threaten the power of the gods (omniscient people could simply refuse to worship the gods and imagine themselves to be gods). Therefore, the gods took away some of the knowledge from people by imposing a magic spell on them, which limited people's knowledge to only one side of the world (according to Mayan beliefs, the world has four sides (a possible modern analogue is dimensions)). After that, the gods created women for people, and from that moment in Mayan mythology, the history of mankind began.
Mayan mysteries: the discovery of America again to rewrite?
Mayan civilization studies big number scientists who are engaged in both the analysis of written sources (which are often not so easy to decipher), and the search and interpretation of archaeological sites. Over the past few decades, the study of the Maya has moved far ahead, primarily due to the decoding of the alphabet of this civilization, but the Maya still have plenty of mysteries. True, some of these mysteries are artificial and, from the point of view of specialists, are not so mysterious.
"Where did the Mayan land come from" ...
One of the most exploited "mysterious topics" today is the question of the origin of the Maya. Science, of course, does not have all the data and details about the process of the birth of a given civilization, but from its point of view, there is no particular mystery here. Scientists have both written and archaeological sources, on the basis of which the history of the Maya can be traced back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. It was then that the first settlements began to appear in Central America, which later developed into Mayan city-states (the Maya never existed within a single empire). History quite clearly traces the development of the Maya up to the beginning of the classical era of this civilization, when it reached highest point cultural flourishing, as well as political, military and economic power.
Aztec mythology. Among the Aztecs, who came to the Valley of Mexico from the north of the country in the 13th century and adopted the ideas of their predecessors, the Toltecs, as well as the Zapotecs, Mayans, Mixtecs and Tarascos, the main motives of mythology are the eternal struggle of two principles (light and darkness, sun and moisture, life and death). etc.), the development of the universe in certain stages or cycles, the dependence of man on the will of the deities, personifying the forces of nature, the need to constantly feed the gods with human blood, without which they would die, the death of the gods would mean a worldwide catastrophe.
According to the myths, the universe was created by Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl and went through four stages (or eras) of development. The first era ("Four Jaguars"), in which Tezcatlipoca was the supreme deity in the form of the Sun, ended with the extermination of the tribe of giants who then inhabited the earth by the jaguars. In the second era ("Four Winds"), Quetzalcoatl became the Sun, and it ended with hurricanes and the transformation of people into monkeys. Tlaloc became the Third Sun, and his era ("Four Rains") ended with a worldwide fire. In the fourth era ("Four waters") the Sun was the water goddess Chalchiutlicue; this period ended with a flood, during which people turned into fish. The modern, fifth era ("Four Earthquakes") with the sun god Tonatiu must end with terrible cataclysms.
Actually, the Aztecs revered many gods of different levels and significance - personal, domestic, communal, as well as general Aztec. Among the latter, a special place was occupied by the god of war Huitzilopchtli, the god of night and fate Tezcatlipoca, the god of rain, water, thunder and mountains Tlaloc, the god of the wind and the patron of the priests Quetzalcoatl (“Feathered Serpent”). The goddess of earth and fire, the mother of the gods and stars of the southern sky - Coatlicue (the mother of the sun god Huitzilopochtli, she simultaneously contains the beginning and end of life, she was depicted in clothes made of snakes).
The gods of the Aztecs, according to their beliefs, constantly required human sacrifices. Various methods of killing the victim were known. Sometimes up to six priests participated in the ritual. Five held the victim with his back on the ritual stone - four held by the limbs, one by the head. The sixth opened the chest with a knife, pulled out the heart, showed it to the sun and placed it in a vessel that stood in front of the image of the deity. The headless body was thrown down. It was picked up by the person who gave the victim or captured her. He took the body home, where he separated the limbs and prepared ritual food from them, which he shared with relatives and friends. It was believed that eating the victim, who, according to the Aztecs, personified God, attached to God himself. In a year, the number of people sacrificed reached tens of thousands of people.
Mayan pyramids
X - beginning of the XI century
Temple of the Inscriptions
Palenque
Temple of the Sun
Palenque
Pyramid of the Sun
5th-6th century, Teotiukan
Pyramid of the Sorcerer
three quarter view
Pyramid of the Moon
Teotiukan
Temple of the Giant Jaguar
Tikal, Guatemala
Mayan temples in the city
Tikal, Guatemala
Mayan pyramids
X-XI centuries, Tikal
Mayan mythology. Among the Maya, knowledge and religion were inseparable from one another and constituted a single worldview, which was reflected in their art. Ideas about the diversity of the surrounding world were personified in the images of numerous deities, which can be combined into several main groups corresponding to different areas of human experience: gods of hunting, gods of fertility, gods of various elements, gods of heavenly bodies, gods of war, gods of death, and so on. In different periods of Maya history, these or other gods could have different significance for their worshipers.
The Maya believed that the universe consisted of 13 heavens and 9 underworlds. In the center of the earth was a tree that passed through all the heavenly spheres. On each of the four sides of the earth there was another tree, symbolizing the countries of the world - the east corresponded to a mahogany, to the south - yellow, to the west - black and to the north - white. Each side of the world had several gods (wind, rain and heaven holders), who had the corresponding color. One of the important gods of the Maya of the classical period was the god of corn, represented in the guise of a young man with a high headdress. By the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, Itzamna, represented as an old man with a hooked nose and beard, was considered another important deity.
As a rule, images of Mayan deities included a variety of symbolism, which speaks of the complexity of the thinking of customers and performers of sculptures, reliefs or drawings. So, the sun god had large crooked fangs, his mouth was outlined by a strip of circles. The eyes and mouth of another deity are depicted as coiled snakes, etc. Among the female deities, the “red goddess”, the wife of the rain god, was especially significant, judging by the codes; she was depicted with a snake on her head and with the paws of some predator instead of legs. Itzamna's wife was the moon goddess Ish-Chel; it was believed that it helps in childbirth, in weaving and in medicine. Some Mayan gods were represented in the form of animals or birds: a jaguar, an eagle. In the Toltec period of Maya history, the veneration of deities of Central Mexican origin spread among them. One of the most respected gods of this kind was Kukulkan, in whose image elements of the god Quetzalcoatl of the Nahua peoples are obvious.
Like representatives of other pre-Columbian civilizations in America, the Maya were a deeply spiritual people. For thousands of years, their thoughts and actions have been inspired by cosmological ideas about time and space, the formation of man, and belief in the religious significance of agricultural cycles. Their worldview was a highly complex polytheistic religious system. This religious system developed back in archaic times, long before the Mayan civilization flourished in the classical period (II-IX centuries). Over the millennia, this complex system has been expanded, varying somewhat across regions and time periods, but maintaining the core inherited beliefs, traditions, and rituals. The Maya shared many traditions and rituals with other cultures in Mesoamerica, which is a diverse mosaic of somewhat similar but unique traditions. The Maya religious system is still alive today, millions live according to its rites [ ] representatives of the modern Maya, who, although they have the characteristics inherent in each people, inherited most of the traditions from the once great classical culture.
Despite the collapse of the classical Mayan civilization at the beginning of the 10th century, during which the construction of monumental structures, bas-reliefs, stelae with records of events stopped almost on the entire territory that was controlled by this people, and the population decreased sharply and most of the urban centers were abandoned, itself the Mayan people survived and continued to maintain their faith and traditions. The persistence of these traditions can be seen in the architectural remains of cities in the north of the Yucatán Peninsula, which still flourished during the postclassic period under the influence of the cultures of the Gulf Coast and the Valley of Mexico. The population of the southern lowlands and mountainous regions of the Maya of modern Guatemala practically stopped monumental construction during this period, but the adherence to traditional beliefs among the local Maya is confirmed by descriptions of Spanish explorers and reports of the 16th and 17th centuries.
During and after the Spanish conquest of the Yucatán, Mayan history and traditions continued to be passed down from generation to generation, albeit with some traits of European traditions and religions, notably Catholicism. Many Maya have been persecuted for their faith for centuries since the arrival of the Europeans. Although there is no doubt that their society and traditions have gone through significant changes, many Maya today maintain their identity, remember their complex history, traditions and heritage. This is typical even for the inhabitants of those areas where the adoption of Christianity was widespread.
In our time, only four more or less survived complete books Maya, written in the pre-Columbian years and dedicated to religious topics. Most of the Mayan codices (manuscripts) were destroyed by the Spanish Inquisition and the secular authorities during the conquest of Mesoamerica and Christianization, so our knowledge of the culture of the classical period is often incomplete and fragmented. In addition, there are many inscriptions carved on architectural monuments, the remains of religious buildings and frescoes, for example, in the well-known temple on the territory of Bonampak, containing information about Mayan beliefs. After the Spanish conquest, some of the texts were rewritten or written down according to legend in Latin. The best known of these sources are the collections of religious texts Popol Vuh (written in the Quiche language) and Chilam Balam.
Unlike the Aztecs, the Maya priests were not celibate. Sons succeeded their fathers as priests, although sometimes the second sons of rulers became priests. The title of the priest, Ah Kin - "he is from the sun", speaks of a connection with the calendar and astronomy, and their duties included not only conducting rituals, but also education. They also kept calculations of the calendar, astronomical events, were in charge of sacred places, ceremonies and holidays, provided prophecies, treated the sick, taught students to write and compiled genealogies of eminent people.
As already mentioned, the Maya believed in the cyclical nature of time (see the Mayan calendar). Rituals and ceremonies were closely connected with various stellar and terrestrial cycles, which they observed and recorded in the form of peculiar calendars. The Maya priests performed the interpretation of these cycles and gave predictions of the future or the past based on the relationship of different calendars. If the interpretations of the priests predicted a bad time, sacrifices were made to appease the gods. Victims could be small animals, "bleedings" of high officials, and, although infrequently, human victims.
When making a human sacrifice, the priest was assisted by four old men, the so-called chaka, named after the god of rain (a response to the sacred role of the god Chaka of the classical period), who held the arms and legs of the victim while the chest was opened by another person called Nakum (Nakom, like the god of war). Another participant in the ceremony was the Chilam, a kind of shaman who received a message from the gods when he fell into a trance, and his prophecies were interpreted by the priests.
Each Maya ritual was dictated by a calendar, the most important cycle of which was 260 days. Dates and symbols were saturated with symbolic meanings. For example, numbers 4, 9, 13 and color directions were common. Before and during the rituals, there was a severe fast, with the prohibition of many foods and sexual activities, and also, those participating in the rituals performed self-mutilation of their bodies, piercing the ears, cheeks, lips, tongue and penis with a needle, and the bleeding blood was used to lubricate the idols . On the eve of the Spanish conquest, such idols were burned with incense and rubber, and ritually fed. Slaves and illegitimate children or orphans bought for the occasion were sacrificed. However, prior to the Toltec era, human sacrifice was rare, instead animals were used: turkeys, dogs, squirrels, quails and iguanas.
The largest ceremony of the postclassical Maya was the solemn celebration of the New Year. This ceremony took place in every Mayan society in the next five nameless and unlucky days at the end of last year, and involved the construction of a special road (probably similar to the "sidewalks" of the classical period) to the idol, placed in one of four directions, just outside the city limits; a new direction was chosen annually, with a cycle of four years and in a counter-clockwise direction. During the year, various incidents occurred and various prophecies came true, good and bad, but the bad ones could be neutralized with the help of special rites, for example, the fire-walking ceremony is known, where the priests ran barefoot over a layer of hot, still red, coal.
In addition, agricultural rituals and ceremonies were held throughout the year for important economic groups such as hunters, beekeepers, fishermen and artisans. Probably, these actions depended on the dates of the 260-day cycle, as we can judge from the data of the Madrid Code, which is mainly devoted to such issues. The purpose of these actions was to increase hunting, honey and wax production, etc. Often they took the form of "similar magic", such as pouring water on a fire to make it rain.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom that the classical Maya societies were organized as a theocracy, i.e. states run by priests, there is no evidence of the very existence of priests during the classical period! It seems that priests appeared during the early postclassic period under the influence of the Toltecs. However, a significant role in the society of the classical period was played by artists, writers and sculptors, occupying the next rank after the rulers of states. The chief scribe, who corresponded to the vizier at the courts of the Old World, was the so-called Ah Kutun (Ah Kutun, "he is from the sacred books"), that is, the state librarian.
The elite of the classical period were obsessed with blood, both their own and the blood of their enemies. The blood spilled by the rulers and representatives of their families had an important ritual significance. Blood was shed on the most important dates of the calendar, more often from the tongue of women and the penis of men. The needle used for this was a sharp bone, highly valued and had ritual significance. The images on the steles, which were previously considered to be the image of water flowing down from the lowered hands of the rulers, as it is now known, depict flowing blood. This blood, as in Europe, symbolized royal origin.
