HUX 576 - Key Periods and Movements,
The exact rituals of ancient Mayan religion are not well recorded, but a number of elements are known to scholars. Ritual sacrifice to the gods was very important. Bloodletting was considered an offering to a god. Specially carved perforators for piercing body parts have been excavated. A relief carving on a lintel from Yaxchilan in Chiapas depicts a woman pulling a cord with projecting cactus thorns through her tongue. The blood drips onto bark paper which is placed in a dish as an offering. At late pre-classic and early classic Cuello severed heads have been found. Apparently decapitation was the favored form of human sacrifice among the Maya before the Toltecs introduced "open-heart surgery" in the post-classic period. The victims were usually captured in wars.
Both ancestors and the passage of time were venerated by the Maya, who recorded numerous names and dates. Each number from 1 to 13 was associated with a god and a day. There were 6 layers in the heavens above and 4 layers in the underworld below. The sun god passed through the underworld where the death gods lived at night.
The principal Mayan god was Itzamna, who was the creator of the universe. His name literally means "iguana house" and he was in charge of fire, water, crops, and the earth. Kinich Ahau was the sun god and his wife, Ix Chel, was the moon goddess. There were four Chacs, or rain gods, each one associated with a particular direction (north, south, east, and west) and color. Maize, or corn, was also worshipped as a god, denoting the importance of this staple crop to the Maya. According to the Popul Vuh the human race was formed from corn and grease. Many other gods existed in the Mayan pantheon and performed various functions. The Maya believed that the world had been created and destroyed three times and that we are now living in the fourth world. The latter began on August 13, 3114 B.C. Everything on earth was alive with spiritual power for the ancient Maya.
Recent advances have occurred in translating Mayan glyphic writing. These glyphs appear in vertical rows on stelae, lintels, and codices. Scholars have determined that glyphs are often placed in pairs to express a single idea, that there is a grammatical structure, and that glyphs are read from left to right. The writing is partly ideographic, syllabic, and phonetic. According to Norman Hammond, Mayan script reveals
...a preoccupation with, and consummate ability to record and commemorate the activities, both marital and military, of a ruling class; a developed understanding of some aspects of astronomy and its application to astrological prediction; and a way of life governed by complex rituals that extend into the grave.Apparently Maya cities were independent entities, much like those of ancient Greece. Glyphic inscriptions reveal much warfare and intermarriage of ruling families among them. Rulers had to be of proper lineage traced either to gods or to ancient personages. The population of the Mayan area during the classic period is estimated to be about 2,000,000 people and some cities are thought to have been quite large.
The ancient Maya evolved a complex civilization around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. The classic period lasted approximately 600 years and its demise came circa 900, parallel with the Middle ages in Europe. When Hernando Cortéz and Francisco de Montejo invaded Mexico they believed that the native Americans were savages because they worshipped many gods and practiced human sacrifice. One of the few Spaniards who tried to aid the natives was Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, who wrote Tears of the Indians. He was an eyewitness to the conquest of Latin America. According to Las Casas:
The Spaniards destroyed many priceless Indian artifacts in the name of Christianity, declaring that sculptures were idols and melting down objects of precious metals to assuage their greed. A few representative works of art were sent to the king so he could understand what he owned in the New World. These are now the nucleus of several European museum collections. Many native buildings were demolished and their stones reused in the construction of Christian churches. Even today the Mayan Indians of Guatemala are fighting to preserve their culture in a country where people disappear without a trace in the middle of the night.The same tyrant came to the City of Cota where he took an infinite sight of people, and cast fifteen or sixteen of the Nobles and Lords of the Kingdom to his dogs, cutting off the hands of many of the Indians, both men and women, which he hung upon a perch for the Indians to behold; in this manner were seen hung together above seventy pair of hands. This is also to be added that they cut off the noses of both infants and their mothers.
No man can rehearse the cruelties committed by this man, the enemy of God; they are innumerable, neither heard of nor seen before, especially those committed in Guatemala which were their chief masterpieces in this art of destruction which they have so long been practicing.