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Itzamna
Itzamna () is, in Maya mythology, an upper god and creator deity thought to reside in the sky. Itzamna is one of the most important gods in the Classic and Postclassic Maya pantheon. Although little is known about him, scattered references are present in early-colonial Spanish reports (''relaciones'') and dictionaries. Twentieth-century Lacandon lore includes tales about a creator god (Nohochakyum or Hachakyum) who may be a late successor to him. In the pre-Spanish period, Itzamna was often depicted in books and in ceramic scenes derived from them. Before the names of the Maya deities were deciphered, Itzamna was known as "god D", and is still sometimes referred to as "god D" by archeologists. Name J. Eric S. Thompson originally interpreted the name Itzamna as "lizard house", ''itzam'' being a Yucatecan word for iguana and ''na'' meaning "house". However, Thompson's translation has gradually been abandoned. While there is no consensus on the exact meaning of the name Itzamna, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nohochakyum
Maya or Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. The myths of the era have to be reconstructed from iconography. Other parts of Mayan oral tradition (such as animal tales, folk tales, and many moralising stories) are not considered here. Important Early-Colonial and Recent narrative themes In Maya narrative, the origin of many natural and cultural phenomena is set out, often with the moral aim of defining the ritual relationship between humankind and its environment. In such a way, one finds explanations about the origin of the heavenly bodies (Sun and Moon, but also Venus, the Pleiades, the Milky Way); the mountain landscape; clouds, rain, thunder and lightning; wild and tame animals; the colors of the maize; diseases and their curative herbs; agricultural instruments; the steam bath, etc. The following more encompassing them ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Mythology
Maya or Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. The myths of the era have to be reconstructed from iconography. Other parts of Mayan oral tradition (such as animal tales, folk tales, and many moralising stories) are not considered here. Important Early-Colonial and Recent narrative themes In Maya narrative, the origin of many natural and cultural phenomena is set out, often with the moral aim of defining the ritual relationship between humankind and its environment. In such a way, one finds explanations about the origin of the heavenly bodies (Sun and Moon, but also Venus, the Pleiades, the Milky Way); the mountain landscape; clouds, rain, thunder and lightning; wild and tame animals; the colors of the maize; diseases and their curative herbs; agricultural instruments; the steam bath, etc. The following more encompassing themes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hachakyum
Maya or Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. The myths of the era have to be reconstructed from iconography. Other parts of Mayan oral tradition (such as animal tales, folk tales, and many moralising stories) are not considered here. Important Early-Colonial and Recent narrative themes In Maya narrative, the origin of many natural and cultural phenomena is set out, often with the moral aim of defining the ritual relationship between humankind and its environment. In such a way, one finds explanations about the origin of the heavenly bodies (Sun and Moon, but also Venus, the Pleiades, the Milky Way); the mountain landscape; clouds, rain, thunder and lightning; wild and tame animals; the colors of the maize; diseases and their curative herbs; agricultural instruments; the steam bath, etc. The following more encompassing themes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vucub Caquix
Vucub-Caquix ( quc, Wuqub’ Kaqix, , possibly meaning 'seven-Macaw') is the name of a bird demon defeated by the Hero Twins of a Kʼicheʼ people, Kʼicheʼ-Mayan myth preserved in an 18th-century document, entitled ʼPopol Vuhʼ. The episode of the demon's defeat was already known in the Late Preclassic Period, before the year 200 AD. He was also the father of Zipacna, an underworld demon deity, and Cabrakan, the Earthquake God. The Kʼicheʼ Tale Vucub-Caquix is described as a powerful bird pretending to be the sun and moon of the twilight world in between the former creation and the present one. According to modern Kʼicheʼ, his name refers to the seven stars of the Big Dipper Asterism (astronomy), asterism. The false sun-moon bird was shot out of his tree with a blowgun by Hun-Ahpu, one of the Maya Hero Twins, but still managed to sever the hero's arm. Finally, however, the demon was deprived of his teeth, his eyes, his riches, and his power. Together, the Twins were to become ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Priesthood
Until the discovery that Maya stelae depicted kings instead of high priests, the Maya priesthood and their preoccupations had been a main scholarly concern. In the course of the 1960s and over the following decades, however, dynastic research came to dominate interest in the subject. A concept of royal ʼ shamanismʼ, chiefly propounded by Linda Schele and Freidel, came to occupy the forefront instead. Yet, Classic Maya civilization, being highly ritualistic, would have been unthinkable without a developed priesthood. Like other Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican priesthoods, the early Maya priesthood consisted of a hierarchy of professional priests serving as intermediaries between the population and the deities. Their basic skill was the art of reading and writing. The priesthood as a whole was the keeper of knowledge concerning the deities and their cult, including calendrics, astrology, divination, and prophecy. In addition, they were experts in historiography and genealogy. Pries ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kinich Ahau
Kinich Ahau (Kʼinich Ajaw) is the 16th-century Yucatec name of the Maya sun god, designated as God G when referring to the codices. In the Classic period, God G is depicted as a middle-aged man with an aquiline nose, large square eyes, cross-eyed, and a filed incisor in the upper row of teeth. Usually, there is a ''k'in'' ('sun')-infix, sometimes in the very eyes. Among the southern Lacandons, Kinich Ahau continued to play a role in narrative well into the second half of the twentieth century. Names Kinich Ahau is the Yucatec and Lacandon name of the sun god. The element ''kʼinich'', usually assumed to mean 'sun-eyed', appears to have been in general use as a royal title during the Classic Period. Kinich Ahau should not be confused with Ah Kʼin or Ah Kʼin Chob. ''Ah Kʼin'' is Yucatec for 'someone who deals with the day(s)', the word for 'day' and 'sun' being the same. The term refers to Yucatec calendar priests and to priests in general. As to ''Ah Kʼin'' Chob, J.E.S. Thom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bacab
Bacab () is the generic Yucatec Maya name for the four prehispanic aged deities of the interior of the earth and its water deposits. The Bacabs have more recent counterparts in the lecherous, drunken old thunder deities of the Gulf Coast regions. The Bacabs are also referred to as ''Pauahtuns''. Yucatec traditions Myth The Bacabs "were four brothers whom God placed, when he created the world, at the four points of it, holding up the sky so that it should not fall. ..They escaped when the world was destroyed by the deluge." Their names were Hobnil, Cantzicnal, Saccimi, and Hosanek. The Bacabs played an important role in the cosmological upheaval associated with Katun 11 Ahau, when Oxlahuntiku 'Thirteen-god' was humbled by Bolontiku 'Nine-god'. According to the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, "then the sky would fall, it would fall down, it would fall down upon the earth, when the four gods, the four Bacabs, were set up, who brought about the destruction of the world." Accordin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toniná 2
Tonina (or Toniná in Spanish orthography) is a pre-Columbian archaeological site and ruined city of the Maya civilization located in what is now the Mexican state of Chiapas, some 13 km (8.1 mi) east of the town of Ocosingo. The site is medium to large, with groups of temple-pyramids set on terraces rising some above a plaza, a large court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame, and over 100 carved monuments, most dating from the 6th century through the 9th centuries AD, during the Classic period. Toniná is distinguished by its well preserved stucco sculptures and particularly by its in-the-round carved monuments, produced to an extent not seen in Mesoamerica since the end of the much earlier Olmec civilization. Toniná possesses one of the largest pyramids in Mexico; at in height, it is taller than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. Toniná was an aggressive state in the Late Classic, using warfare to develop a powerful kingdom. For much of its history, Tonin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hunab Ku
Hunab Ku () is a colonial period Yucatec Maya ''reducido'' term meaning "The One God". It is used in colonial, and more particularly in doctrinal texts, to refer to the Christian God. Since the word is found frequently in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, a syncretistic document heavily influenced by Christianity, it refers specifically to the Christian god as a translation into Maya of the Christian concept of one God, used to enculturate the previously polytheist Maya to the new religion. References to Hunab Ku have figured prominently in New Age Mayanism such as that of José Argüelles. Hunab Ku as the Christian God The earliest known publicly available written reference to the term "Hunab Ku" (which translates as "Sole God" or "Only God") appears in the 16th century ''Diccionario de Motul'', where "Hunab-ku" is identified as "the only living and true god, also the greatest of the gods of the people of Yucatan. He had no form because they said that he could not be represent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ixchel
Ixchel or Ix Chel () is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar Goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture. In a similar parallel, she corresponds, to Toci Yoalticitl "Our Grandmother the Nocturnal Physician", an Aztec earth Goddess inhabiting the sweatbath, and is related to another Aztec Goddess invoked at birth, viz. Cihuacoatl (or Ilamatecuhtli). In Taube's revised Schellhas-Zimmermann classification of codical deities, Ixchel corresponds to the Goddess O. Identification Referring to the early 16th century, Landa calls Ixchel “the Goddess of making children”. He also mentions her as the Goddess of medicine, as shown by the following. In the month of Zip, the feast Ihcil Ixchel was celebrated by the physicians and shamans (''hechiceros''), and divination stones as well as medicine bundles containing little idols of "the Goddess of medicine whom they called Ixchel" were brought forward. In the Ritual of the Bacabs, Ixchel is once called "grandmother". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lacandon People
The Lacandon are one of the Maya peoples who live in the jungles of the Mexican state of Chiapas, near the southern border with Guatemala. Their homeland, the Lacandon Jungle, lies along the Mexican side of the Usumacinta River and its tributaries. The Lacandon are one of the most isolated and culturally conservative of Mexico's native peoples. Almost extinct in 1943, today their population has grown significantly, yet remains small, at approximately 650 speakers of the Lacandon language. Culture The Lacandon escaped Spanish control throughout the colonial era by living in small, remote farming communities in the jungles of what is now Chiapas and the Guatemalan department of El Petén, avoiding contact with whites and Ladinos. Lacandon customs remain close to those of their pre-Columbian Mesoamerican ancestors. As recently as the late 19th century some bound the heads of infants, resulting in the distinctively shaped foreheads seen in Classic Maya art. And well into the 20t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caiman
A caiman (also cayman as a variant spelling) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans inhabit Mexico, Central and South America from marshes and swamps to mangrove rivers and lakes. They have scaly skin and live a fairly nocturnal existence. They are relatively small-sized crocodilians with an average maximum weight of depending on species, with the exception of the black caiman (''Melanosuchus niger''), which can grow more than in length and weigh in excess of 1,000 kg (2,200 Ib). The black caiman is the largest caiman species in the world and is found in the slow-moving rivers and lakes that surround the Amazon basin. The smallest species is the Cuvier's dwarf caiman (''Paleosuchus palpebrosus''), which grows to long. There are six different species of caiman found throughout the watery jungle habitats of Central and Southern America. The average length for most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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