2600 BC - 900 AD

THE PEOPLE OF SACRIFICE

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The history of Mesoamerica is usually divided into specific periods which, taken together, reveal the development of culture in the region and the emergence and cultivation of the Maya Civilization. 

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The Archaic Period: 7000-2000 BC – During this time a hunter-gatherer culture began to cultivate crops such as maize, beans and other vegetables and the domestication of animals (most notably dogs and turkeys) and plants became widely practiced. The first villages of the region were established during this period which included sacred spots and temples dedicated to various gods. The villages excavated thus far are dated from 2000-1500 BC.

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The Olmec Period: 1500-200 BC – This era is also known as the Pre-Classic or Formative Period when the Olmecs, the oldest culture in Mesoamerica, thrived. The Olmecs settled along the Gulf of Mexico and began building great cities of stone and brick. The famous Olmec heads strongly suggest highly sophisticated skill in sculpture and the first indications of Shamanic religious practices date from this period. The enormous size and scope of Olmec ruins gave birth to the idea that the land was once populated by giants. Though no one knows where the Olmecs came from, nor what happened to them, they lay the foundation for all the future civilizations in Mesoamerica.

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The Zapotec Period: 600 BC-800 CE – In the region surrounding modern-day Oaxaca, the cultural center now known as Monte Alban was founded which became the capital of the Zapotec kingdom. The Zapotecs were clearly influenced by (or, perhaps, related to) the Olmecs and, through them, some of the most important cultural elements of the region were disseminated such as writing, mathematics, astronomy and the development of the calendar; all of which the Maya would refine.

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The Teotihuacan Period: 200-900 CE – During this era the great city of Teotihuacan grew from a small village to a metropolis of enormous size and influence. Early on, Teotihuacan was a rival of another city called Cuicuilco but, when that community was destroyed by a volcano c. 100 CE, Teotihuacan became dominant in the region. Archaeological evidence suggests that Teotihuacan was an important religious center which was devoted to the worship of a Great Mother Goddess and her consort the Plumed Serpent. The Plumed Serpent god  Kukulkan (also known as Gucamatz) was the most popular deity among the Maya. Like many of the cities which now lie in ruin throughout the southern Americas, Teotihuacan was abandoned sometime around 900 CE.

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The El Tajin Period: 250-900 CE – This period is also known as the Classic Period in Mesoamerican and Mayan history. The name `El Tajin’ refers to the great city complex on the Gulf of Mexico which has been recognized as one of the most important sites in Mesoamerica. During this time the great urban centers rose across the land and the Maya numbered in the millions. The very important ball game which came to be known as Poc-a-Toc was developed and more ball courts have been found in and around the city of El Tajin than anywhere else in the region. Who, precisely, the people were who inhabited El Tajin remains unknown as there were over fifty different ethnic groups represented in the city and dominance has been ascribed to both the Maya and the Totonac.

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The Classic Maya Period: 250-950 CE – This is the era which saw the consolidation of power in the great cities of the Yucatec Maya such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal. Direct cultural influences may be seen, in some sites, from the Olmecs and the Zapotecs and the cultural values of Teotihuacan and El Tajin but, in others, a wholly new culture seems to have emerged (such as at Chichen Itza where, though there is ample evidence of cultural borrowing, there is a significantly different style to the art and architecture). This period was the height of the Maya civilization in which they perfected mathematics, astronomy, architecture and the visual arts and also refined and perfected the calendar. The oldest date recorded in this era is on Stele 29 in the city of Tikal (292 CE) and the latest is from an inscription on the Stele at the site of Tonina (909 CE). The city-states of the Mayan civilization stretched from Piste in the north all the way down to modern-day Honduras.

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The Post-Classic Period: 950-1524 CE – At this time the great cities of the Maya were abandoned. Thus far, no explanation for the mass exodus from the cities to outlying rural areas has been determined but climate change and over population have been strongly suggested among other possibilities. The Toltecs, a new tribe in the region, took over the vacant urban centers and re-populated them. At this time, Tula and Chichen-Itza became dominant cities in the region. The widely popular conception that the Maya were driven from their cities by the Spanish Conquest is erroneous as the cities were already vacant by the time of the Spanish invasion (in fact, the Spanish conquerors had no idea the natives they found in the region were responsible for the enormous complexes of the cities). The Quiche Maya were defeated at the Battle of Utatlan in 1524 CE and this date traditionally marks the end of the Maya Civilization.

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Unlike the Aztecs in Mexico or the Inca in Peru, the Maya were never a unified empire ruled by a single ruler from a single place. Rather, they were a series of smaller city-states who ruled the immediate vicinity but had little to do with other cities if they were far enough away. These city-states traded with and warred upon one another frequently, so cultural exchange, including architecture, was common. Some of the more important Maya city-states were Tikal, Dos Pilas, Calakmul, Caracol, Copán, Quiriguá, Palenque, Chichén Itzá and Uxmal (there were many others). Although every Maya city is different, they tended to share certain characteristics, such as general layout.

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Mayans tended to lay their cities out in plaza groups: clusters of buildings around a central plaza. This was true of the impressive buildings in the city center (temples, palaces, etc.) as well as smaller residential areas. These plazas are rarely neat and orderly and to some, it may seem as if the Maya built anywhere they pleased. This is because the Maya built on irregularly-shaped higher ground to avoid floods and dampness associated with their tropical forest home.

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In the center of the cities were the important public buildings such as temples, palaces, and the ball court. Residential areas radiated out from the city center, growing sparser the further they got from the center. Raised stone walkways linked the residential areas with each other and the center. Later Maya cities were built on higher hills for defense and had high walls surrounding most of the city or at least the centers.

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The Maya kings lived in stone palaces in the city center near the temples, but the common Maya lived in small houses outside the city center. Like the city center, the homes tended to be bunched together in clusters: some researchers believe that extended families lived together in one area. Their modest homes are thought to be much like the homes of their descendants in the region today: simple structures constructed mostly of wooden poles and thatch. The Maya tended to build up a mound or base and then build upon it: as the wood and thatch wore away or rotted they would tear it down and build again on the same foundation. Because the common Maya were often forced to build on lower ground than the palaces and temples in the city center, many of these mounds have been lost to flooding or encroaching wilderness.

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Like many Mayan buildings, Mayan temples were built of stone, with platforms on the top where wooden and thatch structures could be built. Temples tended to be pyramids, with steep stone steps leading to the top, where important ceremonies and sacrifices took place. Many temples are graced by elaborate stone carvings and glyphs. The most magnificent example is the famous Hieroglyphic Stairway at Copán. Temples were often built with astronomy in mind: certain temples are aligned to the movements of Venus, the sun or the moon.

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In the Lost World Complex at Tikal, for example, there is a pyramid which faces three other temples. If you're standing on the pyramid, the other temples are aligned with the rising sun on equinoxes and solstices. Important rituals took place at these times.

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The Palaces were large, multi-storied buildings which were home to the king and royal family. They tended to be made of stone with wooden structures on top. Roofs were made of thatch. Some Maya palaces are spacious, including courtyards, different structures that were possibly homes, patios, towers, etc. The palace at Palenque is a good example. Some of the palaces are quite large, leading researchers to suspect that they also acted as a sort of administrative center, where Maya bureaucrats regulated tribute, trade, agriculture, etc. This was also the place where the king and noblemen would interact not only with the common people but also with diplomatic visitors. Feasts, dances, and other community social events could also have taken place there.

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The ceremonial ball game was an important part of Maya life. Common and noble people alike played for fun and recreation, but some games had important religious and spiritual significance. Sometimes, after important battles in which important prisoners were taken (such as enemy noblemen or even their ahau, or King) these prisoners would be forced to play a game against the victors. The game represented a re-enactment of the battle, and afterwards, the losers (which were naturally the enemy nobles and soldiers) were ceremonially executed. Ball courts, which were rectangular with sloped walls on either side, were prominently placed in Maya cities. Some of the more important cities had several courts. Ball courts were sometimes used for other ceremonies and events.

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A tzompantli or skull rack is a type of wooden rack or palisade documented in several Mesoamerican civilizations, which was used for the public display of human skulls, typically those of war captives or other sacrificial victims. It is a scaffold-like construction of poles on which heads and skulls were placed after holes had been made in them. Many have been documented throughout Mesoamerica, and range from the Epiclassic (ca. 600–900 CE) through early Post-Classic (ca. 900–1250 CE). In 2017 archaeologists announced the discovery of the Huey Tzompantli, with more than 650 skulls, in the archaeological zone of the Templo Mayor in Mexico city.

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The name comes from the Classical Nahuatl language of the Aztecs, however it is also commonly applied to similar structures depicted in other civilizations. Its precise etymology is uncertain, although its general interpretation is "skull rack", "wall of skulls", or "skull banner". It may be seen to be a compound of the Nahuatl words tzontecomatl ("skull"; from tzontli or tzom- "hair", "scalp" and tecomatl ("gourd" or "container"), and pantli ("banner"). This derivation has been ascribed to explain the depictions in several codices which associate these with banners; however, Nahuatl linguist Frances Karttunen has proposed that pantli merely means "row" or "wall".

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Examples are indicated from Maya civilization sites such as Uxmal and other Puuc region sites of the Yucatán, dating from around the late 9th-century decline of the Maya Classical Era. A particularly fine and intact inscription example survives at the extensive Chichen Itza site. Human sacrifice on a large scale was introduced to the Maya by the Toltecs from the appearances of the tzompantli by the Chichen Itza ball courts. Six ball court reliefs at Chichen Itza depict the decapitation of a ball player; it seems that the losers would be beheaded and would have their skulls placed on the Tzompantli.

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Although they were not on a par with the legendary Inca stonemasons of the Andes, Maya architects built structures which have withstood centuries of abuse. Mighty temples and palaces at places like Palenque, Tikal, and Chichen Itza survived centuries of abandonment, followed by excavation and now thousands of tourists walking and climbing all over them.

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Before they were protected, many ruin sites were scavenged by locals looking for stones for their homes, churches or businesses. That the Maya structures have survived so well is a testament to the skill of their builders.

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The Maya temples and palaces that have withstood the test of time often contain stone carvings depicting battles, wars, kings, dynastic successions and more. The Maya were literate and had a written language and books, of which only a few survive. The carved glyphs on temples and palaces are therefore important because there is so little remaining of the original Maya culture.

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RELIGION

Maya religious beliefs are formed on the notion that virtually everything in the world contains k’uh, or sacredness. K’uh and k’uhul, similar terms which are used to explain the spirituality of all inanimate and animate things, describe the most divine life force of existence. Maya belief establishes the creation and sanctity of human beings, the earth, and all things sacred. This divine sanctity can be translated into Maya creation myths as well.

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Before explaining the Maya creation myths, it is important to understand the difference between the two sources that the Maya creation stories have been found in. These sources include the Popol Vuh (the story of creation according to the Quiche Maya of the region known today as Guatemala) and the Books of Chilam Balam. The Popol Vuh is associated with the highland Maya of what is today Guatemala. It contains text about human creation, prophecies, and traditional myths and histories. The Books of Chilam Balam are normally associated with the lowland Maya of the Yucatán area of Mexico. There are several books of Chilam Balam which are named for the area in which they were written. The most famous and influential books include the books of Chumayel, Tizimin, Mani, Kaua, Ixil, Tusik, and Codex Pérez. The books are written by a Jaguar priest, a literal translation for Chilam Balam. These books date to colonial Spanish times, circa 1500s CE, and there is a clear influence of Spanish colonialism on the creation stories of the Chilam Balam. 

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For the Maya the creation of the earth is said to have been a deed of Huracán, the wind and sky god. The sky and earth connected, which left no space for any beings or vegetation to grow. In order to make space, a Ceiba tree was planted. The tree grew roots in all the levels of the underworld and its branches grew into the upper world. The tree trunk grew to leave space on earth for animals, plants, and humans. According to Maya belief, animals and plants were in existence before humans. The gods were not satisfied with only the animals because they could not speak to honor them. From there, humans were made in order to honor the gods.

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According to Maya texts, thus far, there have been three creations. Two of these creations have ended or, in other words, the creatures have been destroyed. There are many variations of the three creations. Some have been influenced by Christianity, however, the basic events of the creations are detailed in the following explanation from the Popol Vuh of the highland Maya.

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Built from Mud

The first creation saw the people who were made of mud. The mud people were not the most productive as many were not able to think in the capacity that modern-day humans do and, according to Maya sacred texts, these men “spoke but had no mind.” They could not move because they were made of mud and they also were not technically mortal. The gods were not happy with their first creation, so they destroyed the mud people with water.

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Built from Wood

For the second creation, the deities made men from wood and women from reeds. These people could function as humans do, but had no souls and did not honor the gods. They were also immortal. When they died, they only remained dead for three days and would rise from the dead. The destruction of the tree men and reed women was caused by an inundation of boiling hot water. The few who may have survived this apocalypse are thought to have become the monkeys that exist today.

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Built from Maize

The third creation saw the birth of modern-day humans. These humans are made of white and yellow maize dough and the blood of the gods. The first humans were four men and four women. These men and women were deemed too wise by the gods. The Maya deities believed these intelligent humans were a threat to their authority and almost destroyed them as well. However, Heart of Heaven (also known as Huracán, but in the creation story he is the Heart of Heaven, Heart of Earth, or Heart of Sky) clouded their minds and eyes so that they would become less wise.

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The different Maya groups believe in a variety of creation myths. The most important concept to understand about Maya religious belief is that time and the creation of humans are thought to be cyclical. This means that some Maya believe that contemporary humans will be destroyed and another creation is imminent. However, this does not necessarily equate to the popularized notions that the Maya believed in an “end of the world” event. Belief in the end of humanity isn’t the end of the world, it is the end of an era and, perhaps, the beginning of a new epoch of the gods.

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The gods destroyed the different versions of “humans” because they either could not or would not worship their creators. This is a crucial consideration for the gods. They could not afford to have creations which were unworthy and incapable of providing sustenance to the gods.

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Typically, Maya gods are fluid and have diverse personalities. This sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish one god from another. However, it may be simpler to keep in mind that although the Maya deities are numerous, the most consequential gods sometimes morph with the less notable gods and share characteristics of both deities. The incorporation of connectivity in Maya culture, not surprisingly, applies to Maya deities as well. Some deities even have conflicting personality traits.

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The multiplicity of the deities’ personalities are furthered by their appearance. Many gods are an amalgamation of a human and particular animal. They are also associated with different cardinal directions and an individual god’s importance can vary depending on historical context. This fluidity is precisely why scholars refer to some Maya deities with the letters of the Latin alphabet.

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Major gods and goddesses were:

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Itzam Ná - Itzam Ná is the god attributed to creation. Not much is known about him and the same can be said of his counterpart, Ix Chebel Yax. Itzam Ná is often depicted as a squinty-eyed, long-nosed old man or sometimes even an iguana

Huracán - often referred to as the Heart of Heaven, Heart of Sky, or Heart of Earth. While there is not much direct evidence about Huracán being the supreme creator god, the Popol Vuh does imply in one of its prayers that Huracán is a “giver of life”

K’inich Ajaw - the “Sun-faced Lord” is typically portrayed as rising or being born in the East and aging as the sun sets. This fierce sun deity would then turn into a jaguar and become a war advisor in the underworld

Hun H’unahpu - the maize god and perhaps the most important of the celestial beings. Hun H’unahpu is considered to be the creator of modern humans by the lowland Yucatec Maya because his maize and blood are what made humanity possible. He is a symbol of life and fertility and is portrayed as a young, long-haired man

Chak - the rain god or God B. Chak is both part human and part reptile and he is usually shown with a lightning bolt, a serpent, or an axe. This fearsome god sometimes is shown painted in blue and with snake-like whiskers protruding from his face. The Maya believe that Chak lived in caves where he would make lightning, thunder, and clouds

K’awil - the keeper of the scepter. He is predominantly the protector of the royal line and is known for being linked to lightning. He is usually pictured with a piercing of a smoking torch or a grisly axe blade. He also has a snake as one foot and an upturned snout for the other

Kisim - the “flatulent one.” This deity is a terrifying god of death and decay. Kisim has been portrayed as a veritable decomposing skeleton or zombie. Sometimes, Kisim was accompanied by an owl. In Maya belief, owls are messengers of the underworld

Ix Chel - the goddess of rainbows. While rainbows may symbolize goodwill in western culture, Ix Chel should not be confused as a god of goodwill. The Maya actually believe that rainbows are the “flatulence of demons,” and bring bad luck and disease

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Contrary to contemporary western ideas of heaven and hell, the Maya believed in different levels of these realms. There are three main areas to distinguish from one another, however. The Maya understand supernatural levels not as heaven and hell, but as the upper world, middle world, and underworld.

The upper world consists of thirteen levels, the middle world is one level, and the underworld is nine levels. The Ceiba tree is believed to grow through all of the realms, from the highest level of the upper world to the lowest level of the underworld. The Ceiba tree is vital to understanding the importance of the cardinal directions in the Maya world.

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Maya deities, in particular, are linked to the cardinal directions. While we are familiar with the four cardinal directions, the Maya understood that there were five elements to the cardinal directions, the four directions and the center. Arguably, the most meaningful cardinal direction to the Maya is the east. The east is where the sun rises and it is associated with birth because of the Maya belief that the sun is born daily from the east.

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These principles were also part of Maya daily life. Homes were designed to reflect the cardinal directions and the Ceiba tree. The Maya even built hearths at the center of their homes in order to represent the Ceiba-tree center of the cardinal directions.

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The Mayan religion involved several aspects of nature, astronomy, and rituals. Most gods represented a form in nature. The Mayans were known for their calendars and astronomical buildings. These were used during their religious rituals. Similar to the Egyptians, the Mayans built pyramid-like temples for religious reasons. The main difference in shape being that the Mayan pyramids have a flat top to build temples on top. The best known pyramid is El Castillo or Temple of Kukulkan in the archaeological site Chichen Itza, in the Mexican state of Yucatan.

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The Mayans built two types of pyramids, and one type was meant to be climbed. These pyramids were used during human sacrifices, which would please the gods. The other type was not to be climbed, or even touched. These pyramids were sacred and often were built with too steep of steps to climb, or a false door. When these pyramids were being used, a priest would use the dangerous steps and get closer to the gods. Each pyramid usually had two or four staircases, often including a platform between steps near the middle. This platform was likely used during the priest-kings rituals as well.

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The Maya participated in various religious rituals. Not all of these were related to human sacrifice, although sacrifice was a common practice in religious ceremonies. Contrary to popular belief, ritual sacrifice was not restricted to the gruesome death of a poor captive. While this did happen in the Maya world on a few occasions, it was a relatively rare occurrence. By far the most common sacrifice ritual was bloodletting.

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Bloodletting is precisely as it sounds, the spilling of blood as a practice of sacrifice. In the case of the Maya, bloodletting was constrained to the royal line. The gods demanded blood because of the initial creation where the gods spilled their blood in order to give life to humanity. Also, but not as often, bloodletting was performed in order to communicate with ancestors.

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The practice of bloodletting marked significant dates in the Maya world. Royals participating in the practice would spend, sometimes, days performing purification rituals in order to prepare for bloodletting. Both men and women of royal lineages were expected to perform these rituals. Maya kings and queens would participate in varying forms of bloodletting, even making sacred tools to perform the ritual. Blood was usually taken from different parts of the body with specialized tools designed to produce more blood and perhaps more pain as well. The tools were typically made of stingray spines and adorned with different glyphs to show their religious significance. One frightful instance of sacrifice described how women, typically royal women, would use a thorned rope to pierce their tongue and draw blood to scatter over Maya icons. Men, on the other hand, would do the same, except on the penis rather than the tongue.

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The practice of bloodletting would often serve to commemorate and sanctify important events such as births, ascents to the throne, and anniversaries. On the other hand, human sacrifice was reserved for the greatest Maya events.

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The Mayan religion believed that most peoples souls’ were vanquished to spend their afterlives in the underworld. Even the rulers souls’ ended up there. Only those who died at childbirth or were sacrificed would have escaped the underworld. Sacrifice was conducted using bloodletting performed by the community, but run by the priest. The underworld was filled with with evil gods, represented as jaguars, the symbol of the night. The jaguar was also shown on the King's helmets.

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While wars were usually fought for reasons other than religion, when wars did occur, religion would become involved. Oftentimes, shamans or priests would help plan war strategies. A war priest was called a nacom. The Maya would often combine aspects of warfare and religion. Typically, this was in the form of taking prisoners for sacrifice.

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Sacrifices were important in keeping the gods satisfied and were also vital in ensuring a military victory. When a king or queen would ascend to the throne and a political prisoner had been captured, they would commemorate the life-altering event with a human sacrifice. Typically, these prisoners would be royals or elites of an enemy state. The most high-up royals were saved for the sole purpose of recreating events from the Popol Vuh.

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These sacrifices were performed in many ways, but there were three methods that were most common. The first method was through decapitation. The next method was the popularized method of removing the heart from the living person. The final, most popular, method was to throw a living person into a cenote, or natural well, as an offering to the gods. 

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While the most prevalent ritual associated to the ancient Maya is the practice of sacrifice, they also performed other kinds of rituals. Not all Maya offerings were so bloody and gruesome. While they may not seem quite logical to westerners, the alternative offerings do provide interesting ways to communicate with and satisfy the deities.

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One rather startling and overlooked means of communication with the gods involved  lowering children into cenotes. Children were placed in the wells in order for them to speak to the god or gods. After a few hours of being in the well, the children would be retrieved so that the message from the deities could be heard. Of course, the Maya also participated in offering to the gods precious items such as jade, gold, masks, shells, carved human bone, and ceremonial or sacred tools.

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Dance is another overlooked ritual. Dance rituals were performed to communicate with the gods. The dances would feature lavish costumes which depicted the visages of divinities. Often the Maya would wear or include ornaments such as staffs, spears, rattles, scepters, and even live snakes as dance aids. The Maya believed that by dressing and acting as a god, they would be overtaken by the god’s spirit and therefore would be able to communicate with him or her.

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The Mayans believed that every person had an animal companion who shared their soul. They were called, “Way’ ob”. The Mayan religion told that one could transform into their animal companion. Every King had a jaguar as their animal companion spirit, and were often depicted with jaguar in Mayan art. Most Mayans had one animal companion, but some every powerful Mayan priests could have more than one.

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The ancient Maya maintained a complex religion. The multifaceted gods and rituals have even persisted in today’s Maya culture, however syncretized they have become. Their ideologies of creation, sacrifice, sacredness, and multiplicity are key to understanding the Maya religion.

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CULTURE

The height of the Maya Civilization in the Classic Period produced the incredible cultural advances for which they are well known. The Maya believed deeply in the cyclical nature of life – nothing was ever `born’ and nothing ever `died’ – and this belief inspired their view of the gods and the cosmos. Their cosmological views, in turn, encouraged their imaginative efforts in architecture, mathematics, and astronomy. Beneath the earth was the dark realm of Xibalba (pronounced `shee-Bal-ba’ and translated as `place of fear’) from whence grew the great Tree of Life which came up through the earth and towered into the heavens, through thirteen levels, to reach the paradise of Tamoanchan (`place of the misty sky’) where beautiful flowers bloomed. In Mayan belief, however, one did not die and go to a `heaven’ or a `hell’ but, rather, embarked on a journey toward Tamoanchan. This journey began in the dark and treacherous underworld of Xibalba where the Xibalbans who lived there were more apt to trick and destroy a soul than help one.

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If one could navigate through Xibalba, however, one could then find the way to ascend through the nine levels of the underworld, and the thirteen levels of the higher world, to paradise. The only ways in which a soul could by-pass Xibalba and travel instantly to Tamoanchan were through death in childbirth, as a sacrificial victim, in warfare, on the ball court, or by suicide (the Maya had a special goddess of suicide named Ixtab who was depicted as the rotting corpse of a woman hanging by a noose in the heavens). Once one reached Tamoanchan there was eternal happiness but, it must be noted, this paradise was not thought to actually exist in the sky but on the earth. After ascending through the thirteen levels, one did not live in the air but, rather, on a mystical mountain back on the planet. It was because of this cyclical view that the Maya did not believe there was anything wrong with human sacrifice. Those people who were offered to the gods did not `die' but simply moved on. This cosmological belief influenced every aspect of the Mayan civilization and rituals were performed regularly in caves, evoking the darkness of Xibalba, and on hills or high temples which symbolized the heights of Tamoanchan.

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The great pyramids which characterize so many Mayan sites are replicas of the great mountain of the gods known as the Witzob. The cyclical nature of human existence is mirrored in the famous Maya calendar. The depictions of the many gods and goddesses all go toward their function in helping one through the cycles of life or hindering. The great religious book of the Quiche Maya, the Popol Vuh, tells precisely this story of the cyclical nature of life through the tale of the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque and their victory over the forces of chaos and darkness symbolized by the Lords of Xibalba. The game the twins are famous for playing, Poc-a-Toc, serves the same purpose.

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Poc-a-Toc was the most popular game among the Maya and was far more than "just a game" as it symbolized the human struggle and reflected the way the Maya viewed existence. Two opposing teams of seven men each would face each other on a ball court and try to score a small rubber ball through a vertical hoop affixed to a wall (sometimes as high as twenty feet in the air, sometimes higher) while defending their own goal. What makes the game even more impressive is that a player could not use the hands or the feet, only the hips, shoulders, head and knees. 

 

It has long been believed that the losing team (or the captain of the losing team) would be killed at the end of the match but recent advances in deciphering the Mayan glyphs, together with archaeological evidence, suggests it may have been the winning team or the winning captain who was given the honor of a quick death and instant passage to paradise. The game is thought to have been symbolic, not only of the victory of the hero twins over darkness, but of the cyclical nature of life. Whichever team was chosen to die, and under what circumstances (since teams could not have been continually sacrificed as there is evidence of "star" teams) the ball game was deeply meaningful to the Maya as more than just a spectator sport. 

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Maya Calendar 

There are two calendars at work simultaneously in the Maya system: the Haab, or civil calendar of 365 days in an 18 month period of 20 days each, and the Tzolkin, or sacred calendar, of 260 days divided into three groups of months of 20 days. The Haab and the Tzolkin work together, like gears interlocking in a machine, to create what is known as the Calendar Round but cannot account for dates farther in the future than 52 days. For longer calculations, the Maya devised what is known as the Long Count Calendar and is this which has attracted so much international attention in recent years regarding the end of the world on 21 December 2012 CE. As the long count calendar begins 11 August 3114 BC, it goes into its next cycle (known as a Baktun) on December 21,  2012.

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There is nothing in the extant writings of the Maya to suggest any kind of cataclysm accompanies this transition. On May 10, 2012 it was reported that Boston University archaeologist William Saturno and Boston University student Maxwell Chamberlain, excavating at the Maya site of Xultun in Guatemala, discovered a 6x6 foot room dating to 800 CE which seems conclusively to have been a calendar workshop for Mayan scribes. The paintings and inscriptions on the walls of the room show the Maya calendar extending well beyond the year 2012 CE and that future Baktuns were understood to already be underway in the great cyclic dance of time. According to David Stuart, an expert on Maya hieroglyphs at the University of Texas at Austin, "Baktun 14 was going to be coming, and Baktun 15 and Baktun 16. ... The Maya calendar is going to keep going, and keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future."

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The months of the years of the Mayan calendars were governed over each by a specific god and, as these gods were eternal, they assured the continuance of the energy of their particular month. As all of life was considered one eternal cycle, the western concept of an "end of the world" would have been a completely foreign concept to a Maya scribe.

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MUSIC

The Maya of Mexico and Central America have performed music for over 2,000 years. During the Classic period, music assumed importance in military settings as well as in forging communication with gods, ancestors, and other spiritual entities.  Due to its ephemeral nature, vocal music does not leave enough of a trace to be studied intensely in a culture with little written record of its musical practices.

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Classic Maya (250-900 CE) culture can be described as one of high prosperity and power in ancient Mesoamerica. It was a time of intense urbanization, construction, and agricultural advancement. During this age, a hieroglyphic writing system was created, as were the iconic step-pyramids. The Classic Maya declined in the end of the 9th century, possibly due to drought or overhunting. While texts survive from other Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Aztec or Mixtec, Maya writings were destroyed by European explorers in the Colonial period in the early 16th century. This destruction went hand-in-hand with the repression of the hieroglyphic written language of the Maya. The four surviving codices were most likely painted just before, if not during the Conquest. Therefore, the remaining written sources are the monuments and ceramic vessels from the Maya’s Classic era.

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Instruments

According to Duran in The History of the Indies of New Spain, musicians were the first ones killed, followed by dancers, during the massacre of Mexica (Aztec) nobility in the early stages of the Spanish Conquest. The conquistadores destroyed all musical instruments they could find because “they were from the devil”. Though we have no documentary evidence to prove it, we have every reason to imagine they did exactly the same thing in the case of the Maya. While we’ve come a long way in deciphering Maya hieroglyphic carvings, Maya sounds have yet to be deciphered. However, artifacts have survived that reveal much about Classic Maya music. Polychrome vases still exist very much intact, catalogued in a rollout photography database by Justin Kerr. These vases depict scenes of the life of the Maya people. The Bonampak murals of Chiapas, Mexico tell the story in three acts of a celebration and ritual sacrifice. These vessels and murals, which prominently depict musicians, along with pieces or whole musical instruments from the Classic period, can be used to explore the music of the Maya.

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Perhaps the most noticeable instrument in Maya vase paintings is the trumpet. Trumpets, called hom-tahs, could be made of wood, clay, or gourd, and were shaped like the modern didgeridoo with large bells on the end. Wooden and gourd hom-tahs had flat, circular mouthpieces, occasionally tempered with beeswax to create a seal against the lips of the player. Clay trumpets featured conical mouthpieces similar to those of the modern French horn, with cup shaped inner and outer rims. The bodies of clay trumpets were occasionally curved and were often shorter than those of wood and clay trumpets.

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In his scientific analysis of Maya trumpets, Roberto Velázquez Cabrera from the Virtual Research Institute Tlapitzcalzin discovered a common fundamental sound frequency for these trumpets (between 144 and 139 Hz). Because these instruments were of different lengths, one may conclude that they were designed with pitch interaction in mind (a mix of similar sounds) rather than absolute tuning. As a result, beat frequencies and infrasonic phantom sounds (tones below the normal range of human hearing) were produced if more than one trumpet was played at a time, creating sounds that were sensed, but not always heard.

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In Justin Kerr’s database of Maya ceramic vases, as well as on the Bonampak murals, trumpeters are usually depicted playing in a group rather than alone. As a result, wood and gourd hom-tahs must have been responsible for creating a background soundscape rather than a melodic line.

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Trumpets were also constructed from conch shells. Conch trumpets are blown through a hole cut at the apex of the spire. Maya conch trumpets have three small holes which produce three consecutive notes. The shells were often incised with decorative bands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whistles and flutes, however, were decorated more intricately, with carved figures as well as pigments. Maya flutes had fipples, or duct mouthpieces like those of recorders. Occasionally, Maya flutes had multiple chambers, such as a two-chambered flute found recently by Donald Slater in the Yaxcabá region. Figurines often acted as chambered whistles, as in those of Jaina Island.

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Pitch was controlled either by covering finger-holes or by changing the amount of air blown into the instrument. In Veracruz, a tubular whistle of the Late Classic period was found with no finger-holes. Instead, a ball of clay travels the tube when tilted up or down to alter the pitch, as in a modern slide whistle. Flutes with finger-holes had notes on the pentatonic scale. Flutes and whistles with similar timbre and tuning to those discovered in Classic Maya sites continue to be used in modern Maya cultures. According to J. Kathryn Josserand and Nicholas A. Hopkins, the traditional sacred music of modern Maya villages in Chiapas “employs a sort of flute... and a cylinder drum with a leather head, as well as a turtleshell drum, which is tapped with rocks” (Josserand and Hopkins 2005: 410).

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In the Classic period, turtleshell drums were beaten with deer hooves or antlers; some versions consisted of an animal skin stretched taut over an empty turtle carapace. The other two common types of Maya drum were the tunkul - a long horizontal wooden slit-gong similar to the Aztec teponaztli, and the pax, a wooden vertical war drum resembling the Aztec huehuetl. The large pax was meant to be played stationary rather than marching, as opposed to smaller, sometimes pot-bellied, hand drums that could be held in the crook of an arm, allowing the player to shake rattles in the other or to dance while wearing belts with shell tinklers to add to the general percussion soundscape.

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The rasp drum was depicted only once in surviving Maya art. Vessel K5233 shows “A ruler dancing while looking into a mirror. He is accompanied by two musicians who play a stringed instrument and a rasca” (Kerr 1996). Both rasp drums and rascas (scrapers) are friction instruments, though the rasca is an idiophone (an instrument that produces sound by vibrating without the use of a string or membrane, such as a musical saw) while the rasp drum is both a chordophone (string instrument) and membranophone (drum). Instruments similar to the rasca are common throughout the early world and are played by running a bow-like stick across a non-sounding object – in the case of the rasca, an empty gourd. The rasp drum, however, is more peculiar in that no chordophone was known to have existed in Pre-Columbian America prior to its discovery.

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The rasp drum falls into two groups of friction instruments because it consists of both a drum head and a bowed string. The string was stretched between the drum head and a stick to keep it tense while a notched stick was pulled across the stretched string. The rasp drum accompanied dance (as shown by the dance posture of the musician in K5233) and was played while singing. James Blades postulates that due to “the rather unearthly character of its sound”, the rasp drum was used in religious contexts. The same may be assumed for the strange sounding trumpets, which, due to their range, produce eerily low sounds.

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The unusual sounding trumpets may have also been used to provoke fear in others, as they are shown to be played in scenes of war. Bonampak Room 2 demonstrates a raid on a small village and capture of prisoners for sacrifice. The enemy is unarmed, which suggests they were taken by surprise. One may conclude that the musicians depicted on the mural, such as the trumpeter, were probably silent until the fighting began, as the Maya often attacked amid yells, hisses, rattles, drum beats, and the sounds of conch and wood trumpets. Percussion instruments signaled the start of battle and were joined by wind instruments as the fighting progressed. These instruments served to intimidate the opposition as well as to excite the warriors, both in battle and in a celebratory fashion afterwards.

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The captives in Room 2 are shown in the north wall to be arraigned for a sacrificial bloodletting ritual. Sacrificial and other ritual performances - often preceded by processions following victories in battle - were usually accompanied by musicians, as shown clearly in several Kerr vessels. Such scenes commonly depict prisoners, blood, decapitated and trophy heads - performed to flutes, drums, conch trumpets, and rattles. K206 depicts one such gruesome scene, involving the torture and sacrifice of a prisoner of war on top of a wooden scaffold, accompanied by flutes and vertical pax vertical war drum.

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Music played a similar role in sacrifice as in war, as a means of rousing the participants as well as the viewers. For this reason the music and dance styles of Maya ballgames, which occasionally ended in sacrifice, were very similar to those of war. Autosacrifice, which includes bloodletting, scarification, piercing, and mutilation, constituted a way of communicating with spiritual beings: gods, ancestors, and ways.

In Maya artwork, ways, or the animal spirit counterparts of humans, are often drawn as musicians, particularly in sacrificial scenes. On vessels, armadillo, rabbit, dog, jaguar, insect, deer, and unidentified rodent ways are shown processing while playing drums, rattles, and turtle shells. Some vases depict the ways themselves as musicians while others show humans dressed as animals. When performers wore masks signifying a mystic being, they were thought to have undergone a spiritual possession of sorts in which the gods or deities assumed bodily form. Mirror-gazing, another form of godly possession, can be seen accompanied by musicians on some vase scenes, including the one with the rasp-drum.

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Musical instruments were frequently buried in tombs, suggesting music accompanied funerals to ease the passage to the spirit world. Their presence in tombs may also suggest the people they were buried with were very powerful, as music was associated with spirituality. According to Maya religion, spirits and gods enjoyed music in the same settings as humans. They were considered to be made of music as well as fed by it.

God H, the wind god, is the deity most commonly shown playing music, suggesting the Maya were interested in the link between sound and the air. Flowers, as well as the wind and life-breath glyph ik act as symbols for musical instruments and are emblazoned on rattles, drums, and celts (tools). As a result, all three – flowers, ik, and music – are related. Dotted scrolls terminating in floral rosettes are sometimes drawn issuing from the bells of instruments, as in K1210, acting as a visual representation of music. This depiction of flowers demonstrates song’s link to ik, as the flowers serve to represent song itself.

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Many vessel paintings, such as K530, show musical events taking place at the mouths of caves, believed to be access points to the inside of the earth. This subterranean world, the “Flower World”, also called “Flower Mountain” in the Classic Maya, refers to the idea of a floral paradise common across native Mesoamerican cultures. It is the place of ancestral “origin and return” and is related to the sun, bright colors, and music. Many musical instruments have been found in caves.

Because flowers sprout from inside the life-giving ground, flowers, and therefore ik, are linked to Flower Mountain, plants, and the earth. In the modern Maya village Chan Kom, farmers run along the sides of a field to raze the dry brush while performing the “Whistle for the Winds” as an offering to the wind god before the planting season.

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Music was seen as an essential means of communicating with the gods and other spiritual beings. Impersonation, cave entrances and mirrors provided entry points to these beings, and music only enhanced these connections. Music was both food for and a gift from the gods. Music had a role to play in scaring enemies in battle, in sacrifice, religious ceremonies and festivities. Music was enjoyed as much by gods as it was by humans, so song acted as a sort of offering in addition to helping to bridge the gap between the two worlds. Because music was considered a living part of divine beings, to perform it was to summon the gods. To play music was to heighten one’s ability to connect and communicate with gods, and to offer them boundless praise and appreciation.

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