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Maya Medicine
Maya medicine concerns health and medicine among the ancient Maya civilization. It was a complex blend of mind, body, religion, ritual and science. Important to all, medicine was practiced only by a select few, who generally inherited their positions and received extensive education. These shamans acted as a medium between the physical world and spirit world. They practiced sorcery for the purpose of healing, foresight, and control over natural events. Since medicine was so closely related to religion, it was essential that Maya medicine men had vast medical knowledge and skill. In understanding Maya medicine, it is important to recognize that the Maya equated sickness with the captivity of one's soul by supernatural beings, angered by some perceived misbehavior. For this reason, curing a sickness involved elements of ritual, cleansing and herbal remedy. Research of Maya ethno-medicine shows that though supernatural causes are related to illness, a large percentage of Maya medi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organization''– ''Basic Documents'', Forty-fifth edition, Supplement, October 2006. A variety of definitions have been used for different purposes over time. Health can be promoted by encouraging healthful activities, such as regular physical exercise and adequate sleep, and by reducing or avoiding unhealthful activities or situations, such as smoking or excessive stress. Some factors affecting health are due to individual choices, such as whether to engage in a high-risk behavior, while others are due to structural causes, such as whether the society is arranged in a way that makes it easier or harder for people to get necessary healthcare services. Still, other factors are beyond both individual and group choices, such as genetic disorders. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phytotherapy
Herbal medicine (also herbalism) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies, such as the anti-malarial group of drugs called artemisinin isolated from ''Artemisia annua'', a herb that was known in Chinese medicine to treat fever. There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of plants used in 21st century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage. The scope of herbal medicine commonly includes fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. Herbal medicine is also called phytomedicine or phytotherapy. Paraherbalism describes alternative and pseudoscientific practices of using unrefined plant or animal extracts as unproven medicines or health-promoting agents. Paraherbalism relies on the belief that preserving various substances ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physical record (often paper) of such a system. A calendar can also mean a list of planned events, such as a court calendar or a partly or fully chronological list of documents, such as a calendar of wills. Periods in a calendar (such as years and months) are usually, though not necessarily, synchronized with the cycle of the sun or the moon. The most common type of pre-modern calendar was the lunisolar calendar, a lunar calendar that occasionally adds one intercalary month to remain synchronized with the solar year over the long term. Etymology The term ''calendar'' is taken from , the term for the first day of the month in the Roman calendar, related to the verb 'to call out', referring to the "calling" of the new moon when it was first se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Columbian Era
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the Migration to the New World, original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization of the Americas, European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, the era covers the history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous cultures until significant influence by Europeans. This may have occurred decades or even centuries after Columbus for certain cultures. Many pre-Columbian civilizations were marked by permanent settlements, cities, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, major earthworks (archaeology), earthworks, and Complex society, complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European colonies (c. late 16th–early 17th centuries), and are known only through archaeology of the Americas, archaeological investigations and oral history. Other civi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by Honduras; to the southeast by El Salvador and to the south by the Pacific Ocean. With an estimated population of around million, Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America and the 11th most populous country in the Americas. It is a representative democracy with its capital and largest city being Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, also known as Guatemala City, the most populous city in Central America. The territory of modern Guatemala hosted the core of the Maya civilization, which extended across Mesoamerica. In the 16th century, most of this area was conquered by the Spanish and claimed as part of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Guatemala attained independence in 1821 from Spain and Mexico. In 1823, it became part of the Fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ixil People
The Ixil (pronounced ) are a Maya people indigenous to Guatemala. The Ixil live in three municipalities in the Cuchumatanes mountains in the northern part of the department El Quiché. These municipalities, also known as the Ixil Triangle, are Santa Maria Nebaj, San Gaspar Chajul, and San Juan Cotzal. In the early 1980s, the Ixil Community was one of the principal targets of a genocide operation, involving systematic rape, forced displacements and hunger during the Guatemalan civil war. In May 2013 Efraín Ríos Montt was found guilty by a Guatemala court of having ordered the deaths of 1,771 Ixil people. The presiding judge, Jazmin Barrios, declared that " e Ixils were considered public enemies of the state and were also victims of racism, considered an inferior race'. According to a 1999 United Nations truth commission, between 70% and 90% of Ixil villages were razed and 60% of the population in the ''altiplano'' region were forced to flee to the mountains between 1982 and 1983 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceremony
A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin '' caerimonia''. Church and civil (secular) ceremonies According to Dally Messenger and Alain de Botton, in most Western countries the values and ideals articulated in both church and civil ceremonies are generally similar. The difference is in what Messenger calls the "supernatural infrastructure" or de Botton the "implausible supernatural element".Messenger, Dally; ''Murphy's Law and the Pursuit of Happiness: a History of the Civil Celebrant Movement'', Spectrum Publications, Melbourne (Australia), 2012 Most churches and religions claim some extra advantage conferred by the deity e.g. Roman Catholics believe that through the words of consecration in the mass ceremony, God himself becomes actually present on the altar. Both church and civil ceremonies share the powerful psych ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Death Rituals
Death rituals were an important part of Maya religion. The Maya greatly respected death; they were taught to fear it and grieved deeply for the deceased. They also believed that certain deaths were more noble than others. Background The Maya were ritualistic people, who paid great respect to the destructive nature of their gods. They had many traditions to commemorate the recently deceased and worship long-departed ancestors. People who died by suicide, sacrifice, complications of childbirth, perish in the ball game, and in battle were thought to be transported directly into heaven. The reason a violent death led to one souls being able to immediately enter the Mayan heaven is because the gods are thankful for your sacrifice to them. People who were to eventually become sacrifices were paraded in litters by citizens before their death. Before Spanish influence, there may not have been a common idea of the afterlife. The Yucatec Maya believed that there were different route ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Morning Glory 2
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when observing light with a dominant wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometres. Most blues contain a slight mixture of other colours; azure contains some green, while ultramarine contains some violet. The clear daytime sky and the deep sea appear blue because of an optical effect known as Rayleigh scattering. An optical effect called Tyndall effect explains blue eyes. Distant objects appear more blue because of another optical effect called aerial perspective. Blue has been an important colour in art and decoration since ancient times. The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament and later, in the Renaissance, to make the pigment ultramarine, the most expensive of all pigments. In the eight ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zapotec Civilization
The Zapotec civilization ( "The People"; 700 BC–1521 AD) was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows that their culture originated at least 2,500 years ago. The Zapotec archaeological site at the ancient city of Monte Albán has monumental buildings, ball courts, magnificent tombs and grave goods, including finely worked gold jewelry. Monte Albán was one of the first major cities in Mesoamerica. It was the center of a Zapotec state that dominated much of the territory which today is known as the Mexican state of Oaxaca. History Zapotec civilization originated in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca in the late 6th century BC. The three valleys were divided among three different-sized societies, separated by “no-man’s-land” in the middle. The city of Oaxaca much later developed in that area. Archaeological evidence, such as burned temples and sacrificed war captives, suggests that the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trepanning
Trepanning, also known as trepanation, trephination, trephining or making a burr hole (the verb ''trepan'' derives from Old French from Medieval Latin from Greek , literally "borer, auger"), is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull. The intentional perforation of the cranium exposes the ''dura mater'' to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases or release pressured blood buildup from an injury. It may also refer to any "burr" hole created through other body surfaces, including nail beds. A trephine is an instrument used for cutting out a round piece of skull bone to relieve pressure beneath a surface. In ancient times, holes were drilled into a person who was behaving in what was considered an abnormal way to let out what people believed were evil spirits. Evidence of trepanation has been found in prehistoric human remains from Neolithic times onward. The bone that was trepanned was kept by the prehistoric people and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trepanation In Mesoamerica
Trephination in Mesoamerica has been practised by a number of pre-Columbian cultures in the Mesoamerican region, dating from at least the mid-Preclassic era (ca. 1500 BCE), and continuing up to the late Postclassic, or ca. 1200 CE. Trephination involves an intentional and planned operation to open or bore into the skull on a live subject, using tools specifically designed for the purpose. This can be accomplished by several techniques, such as drilling, incising and abrasion, or some combination of these. The purpose of such operations ranges from the medicinal (intended to relieve pressure, or address a number of other ailments) to the ritualised and experimental. In pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, evidence for the practice of trephination and an assortment of other cranial deformation techniques comes from a variety of sources, including physical cranial remains of pre-Columbian burials, allusions in iconographic artworks and reports from the post-conquest period. Overview Trephin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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