Mayan beliefs. Mayan religion and cults

Among the civilizations of pre-Columbian America, the cultures of the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas, which reached their greatest prosperity, are usually distinguished. They were formed in areas that were relatively isolated from each other. Thus, the Mayans lived in the Yucatan Peninsula and present-day Guatemala, the Aztecs lived in Mexico, and the Incas lived in Peru.

Nevertheless, according to researchers, for all their differences, the cultures of the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas have a number of common features. These peoples began to create state systems, and social stratification of society took shape. Crafts, fine arts, astronomical knowledge, construction, and agriculture reached a high level. Today's review will provide information about Mayan religion and culture.

Periodization of history

The history of Mayan culture can be briefly represented in the following three periods:

• I period (from ancient times to 317) - the emergence of city-states. Primitive shifting agriculture. Production of cotton fabrics.
• II period (IV-X centuries), classical, or the period of the Old Kingdom - the growth of cities such as Tulum, Palenque, Chichen Itza. The mysterious departure of their inhabitants at the beginning of the 10th century.
• III period (X-XVI centuries) - post-classical, or New Kingdom - the arrival of the conquistadors from Europe. The adoption of new laws and styles in art and in life itself. Mixing of cultures. Fratricidal wars.

It seems that for a more detailed acquaintance with the unusual and interesting culture of the Maya peoples, one should turn to the research of specialists. Today there are many books devoted to the archeology, history, and art of this people. One of these is “The Culture of the Ancient Mayans” by Rostislav Vasilyevich Kinzhalov, a Soviet and Russian historian, ethnographer, and writer. It was published back in 1971, but does not lose its relevance to this day. According to the author himself, the task of his work is “to give (for the first time in Russian) a general description of the ancient culture of the Mayan peoples for all its more than two thousand years of development, starting from the earliest stages and ending with the tragic death from the sword of the Spanish conquistadors.” The ethnographer deals with such topics as economy and material culture, their social structure, scientific knowledge, architecture and fine arts of civilization, literature, dance, music and, of course, religious ideas.

Architecture

There were two types of buildings in architecture - residential and ceremonial.

Residential buildings were built of stone on platforms and were rectangular with a peaked thatch roof. In the center there was a hearth made of stones.

The second type included high pyramids that served as the foundation for the temple, raising it to the sky. They were a square with thick walls and were decorated inside with ornaments and inscriptions. Buildings were built after 5, 20, 50 years. Any important events were noted in the altar records.

Sculpture and painting

In the culture of the ancient Mayans, architecture was harmoniously combined with sculpture and painting. The main themes of the images were deities, rulers, and scenes from public life. Many sculptural genres were used: bas-relief, high relief, carving, modeled and round volume.

The Mayans used a variety of materials, such as flint, obsidian, jade, wood, bone, and shells. Religious objects were made from clay and covered with painting. Facial expressions and details of clothing were of great importance. The Mayan traditions of sculpture and painting were characterized by vibrancy, energy and realism.

Mayan cosmology

For a long period, the Mayans deified natural phenomena. The first objects of their worship were the Sun, the Moon, wind, rain, lightning, forests, mountains, waterfalls, and rivers. But over time, they formed a pantheon of gods that corresponded to their cosmological ideas, which were as follows.

The universe consists of 13 worlds located in the heavens and 9 under the earth. The lords of heaven are hostile to the lords of the underworld. Between the heavenly and underworlds there is a flat, rectangular earth. After death, the soul will go to one of the worlds. The souls of warriors who died on the battlefield and women who died during childbirth immediately go to heaven, to the sun god. Most of the dead are threatened by the dark kingdom.

World Tree

According to Mayan beliefs, at the center of the Universe is the World Tree, which permeates all the celestial layers. Next to it, on the cardinal points, there are four more trees:

• in the north - white;
• in the south - yellow;
• in the west - black;
• in the east - red.

The gods of the wind, rain and holders of the sky live in the trees. These deities also correspond to the cardinal directions and are different in color.

Creator of the world

The creator of the world among the Mayans is the god Unaba (Hunaba Ku). The holy book called the Popol Vuh says that he created all of humanity from corn. He was also called the Great Father (Kukumai). But in the transformation of corn into man, the Great Mother (Tepeu) also played a large role.

First, the first four men were created from corn dough, and then beautiful women were created for them. From these first people came small and large tribes. According to later beliefs, the world was created four times and destroyed three times due to the Great Flood.

Good and evil gods

In the religion of the ancients they were divided into good and evil. The first gave people rain, helped them grow a good corn harvest, and contributed to abundance. The latter were mainly engaged in destruction. They sent droughts, hurricanes, wars.

There were also deities who had a dual nature. These include four heroic brothers. According to the instructions of the Creator, after he created the world, they stood at the four corners of the Universe and held the sky on their shoulders. Thus they were doing a good deed. But at the beginning of the flood, the brothers got scared and ran away.

Pantheon of Gods

The main one in the Mayan pantheon of gods was Itzmana - the Lord of the World. He was depicted as an old man with a wrinkled face, a toothless mouth and a huge aquiline nose. At the same time, he acted as the Creator of the world, the god of Day and Night, the founder of the priesthood, and the inventor of writing.

The god of corn, who was given the appearance of a young man, was especially revered. He wore a headdress shaped like an ear of corn.

The Mayans also worshiped the gods of the Sun, rain, valleys, hunters, deer, jaguar gods, the god of death Ah Puch and many others.

Another of the most revered gods was Quetzalcoatl, or Kukulkan, who was the god of the wind and the planet Venus.

It also deserves special attention if it had a very ancient origin, originating in the Olmec culture. These gods were associated with the underworld, death, hunting, and the cult of warriors. “Red” and “black” jaguars were also associated with the gods of the cardinal points and rain. According to researchers, the jaguar acted as a ancestral deity of some ruling dynasties.

In addition to the circle of main deities, in the Mayan religion a large role was assigned to local deities, deified ancestors and heroes.

Women goddesses

The Mayan religion also had many female deities. Especially among them the so-called red goddess was revered - Ish-Chebel-Yash. She was often depicted with a snake, which replaced her headdress, and with paws, like those of a predatory animal.

Another goddess who enjoyed special respect was the goddess of the Rainbow - Ish-Chel. She was the wife of the main god, Itzman, and also the goddess of the Moon, patron of medicine, childbirth and weaving.

The Mayans had deities that were unusual among other peoples. For example, such was the goddess Ishtab - the patroness of suicides.

Connection with the Gods

In order to attract the attention of the gods, the Mayans observed long fasts, which sometimes reached a period of three years. They did not eat meat, pepper, salt, hot chili seasoning, and abstained from intimacy. It should be noted that such strictness concerned mainly the priests. But others sought to imitate them in order to appease the gods.

The Mayans addressed prayers to the gods, which, first of all, contained requests for relief from life's hardships, relief from diseases, provision of harvests, good luck in hunting and fishing, and success in military operations.

Communication with the gods was carried out through priests who immersed themselves in prayer and meditation. They also practiced “sending messengers to the gods,” that is, sacrifices, including human ones.

Ritual life

Rituals such as prophecies, fortune telling and oracles, as well as various ceremonies, played a large role in the Mayan religion. The preparation and implementation of each religious ceremony took place in six main stages:

1. Previous fasting and abstinence.
2. Appointment by the priest, who was in a state of divine illumination, of a suitable day for holding the holiday.
3. A ritual of expelling evil spirits from the place where the festival was supposed to be held.
4. Fumigation of idols.
5. Saying prayers.
6. The culmination is sacrifice.

As a rule, human sacrifices were made infrequently. They were mainly limited to animals, poultry, fish, fruits, and jewelry. But there were days when, according to Mayan ideas, it was necessary to sacrifice one’s fellow tribesmen or captives so that the gods would prevent trouble or send good luck. This happened in times of severe defeats or high-profile military victories, epidemics, during periods of drought and subsequent famine.

Until the soul flies away

There were several types of sacrifices. The most solemn and popular was the one during which the victim's heart was torn out. It happened as follows.

The sacrifice was covered with azure and placed on an altar made of jasper. This was done by four priests, venerable elders in black robes smeared with black paint. The top of the altar was rounded, which contributed to the raising of the chest. This made it possible to easily and conveniently cut the victim's chest with a sharp knife and tear out the beating heart. It was considered the carrier of the soul, which was sent to the gods as a messenger with very important requests or instructions.

The heart had to be pulled out as quickly as possible in order to bring it closer to the statue of the god while it was still trembling, that is, while the soul had not yet “flyed away.” At the same time, the priest-diviner irrigated the statue of the god with the blood of a pulsating heart.

Then the body of the victim was thrown by the priests from the steps of the pyramid. Other priests who were below were tearing off the skin from the warm corpse. One of them pulled it over himself and performed a ritual dance in front of thousands of spectators. After this, the body was buried, but if it was the body of a courageous warrior, it was eaten by the priests. They believed that thereby the best qualities of the victim were transferred to them.

Purity of soul is important

There was a ritual according to which an innocent young man was chosen as a sacrifice, since the purity of the “soul-blood” was very important for the priests. In addition, it was necessary to exclude outside influence. The victim was tied to a pole in the square, and was slowly shot like a target with bows or spears. Such fanaticism had its explanation. At the beginning of the ritual, it was strictly forbidden to inflict a mortal wound on the victim. She had to die long and painfully from loss of blood. With this blood the soul “flew away” to God.

Along with the described rituals, there was also blood donation, which did not require the death of a person. The victim only had cuts made on his forehead, ears, and elbows. They also pierced her nose, cheeks, and genitals.

Great importance was attached to the ritual dance of fiery purification. It was performed in those years that, according to the Mayan calendar, were considered the most dangerous and unlucky. This ceremony was held late at night, which gave it solemnity and produced a great effect. The glowing coals that remained from the large fire were scattered around and leveled out. The chief priest walked at the head of a procession of barefoot Indians walking across the coals. Some of them were burned, others were burned very badly, and some remained unharmed. This ritual, like many others, was accompanied by music and dancing.

Temples

The Mayan religion placed great importance on urban centers. The most ancient of them were formed at the turn of the new era. These were Washaktun, Copan, Tikal Volaktun, Balakbal and others. They were religious-secular in nature. For example, about 200 thousand people lived in Copan. In the 8th century, three temples were erected there, each reaching 30 meters in height. In addition, in the very center of the city there were terraces decorated with steles and statues of gods.

Such religious-secular centers were also located in other cities. They are inherent in all of Mesoamerica as a whole. Many of the monuments have survived to this day. These include:

• In Palenque: Pyramid of Inscriptions, Temple of the Sun, tomb pyramids.
• In Chichen Itza: Temple of the Jaguars, Temple of the Warriors,
• In Teotihuacan - the “city of the gods”: Pyramids of the Sun and Moon.

According to one of the beliefs, when a person stops being reflected in the mirror, he is approaching death. By the end of the 10th century, the Mayan civilization was no longer reflected in the mirror. Her sunset has come. Many cities were abandoned by their inhabitants, and they were destroyed. The Mayan civilization died out. Why? There is no exact answer, there are only hypotheses: wars, earthquakes, epidemics, sudden climate change, decreased soil fertility... However, no one knows the true reason.

Mayan beliefs, the religion of ancient American cultures, are characterized by complex, sophisticated rites and rituals, the fundamental purpose of which was to obtain indulgence from the gods in the form of all kinds of benefits. The Mayan religion boasted a huge variety of rituals, from the burning of fragrant resins, cult dances and chants to vigils, fasts and prayers.

Ancient Mayan religion was structured in such a way that sacrifices occupied a special place in it. As sacrifices, the Mayan religion, the tribe and its beliefs accepted both the inhabitants of flora and fauna: jaguars, turkeys, turtles, flowers, tree fruits, as well as more common sacrifices in the form of handicrafts and, of course, human lives. An indispensable attribute of the May religion and sacrificial rites was a special blue ceremonial paint, which was used to smear the offerings. Mayan religion, religion of the inhabitants of ancient America. It is obvious that with such a reverent attitude towards traditions and rituals, priests occupied a special place in Mayan society, and the Mayan people and religion created such conditions for them that the priests, like many other peoples of Mesoamerica, constituted a special social stratum, a caste dominated by unshakable hierarchy.

In the Mayan Empire, the religion of ancient civilizations, power went from the high priest to young servants. The religion of the Mayan peoples was distinguished by the fact that the priests performed the functions of scientists; they researched the surrounding world and accumulated scientific knowledge. According to the information provided by chroniclers, using images and codes related to the culture of the ancient Indians, it is possible to partially restore the rituals through which the religion of the Mayan tribe was manifested. It is known that the inhabitants of Mesoamerica were most concerned with problems such as obtaining food and extending life spans. The religion of the Mayan civilization dictated to the Indians that this could be achieved through various rituals, collective or individual.

Religious preferences and Mayan religions were also distinguished by the fact that ceremonies accompanied almost all significant moments in people’s lives. For example, the Mayans perceived religion as a kind of duty, and therefore agricultural work, handicraft work and other aspects of life were accompanied by corresponding rituals praising the gods. Like the later peoples who settled Central America, the beliefs held by mayan tribe, religion Mesoamericans were literally dependent on the blood cult. Ancient civilizations are a categorical people. In relation to religion, the Mayans adhered to customs absorbed over a long history. So, from the everyday objects that have survived to this day, discovered by researchers - vessels, small-made utensils, ritual instruments - one can judge the specific attitude of the Mayans to the rite of bloodletting, which distinguished the Mayan religion from its later analogues.

Priests have practiced bloodletting since ancient times. The religions of the Mayan tribe dictated their rules to them. The priests pierced tongues, earlobes, thighs, genitals, performed bloodletting, and all this with the help of fish bones and obsidian knives, unsuited for such operations. It cannot be said that the religion of the Mayan tribes, widespread in Central America of that era, imposed cruelty. This formed naturally over time and under the pressure of the harsh surrounding reality of those times. During the operation of piercing organs, parts of the body, mainly the penis, tongue and lips, for which the Mayans were famous, the religion inherent in them, a rope was pulled into the resulting hole.

According to the recently discovered ideas of the Mayans, life energy, the soul, was found in the blood. And therefore, the engravings with which the Mayan civilization, the religion of the Mesoamericans, is rich, depicting rulers with their hands down, from which liquid flows, today are perceived as nothing more than illustrations of bloodletting rituals. - centuries-old traditions of Mesoamerica. The ritual calendar for each day contained detailed predictions for newborn children. These predictions, which were directly related to the May religion, described the future qualities of the baby, his future destiny and a suitable type of activity.

As the Mayan religion said, the influence of the predictions of the ritual calendar should have a direct impact on a person’s future, on his personality. In addition, the signs of prediction read by the priests of the Mayan religion could be not only favorable, but also negative. In especially difficult cases, the parents of the child, under pressure from the Mayan religion and the predictions of the priests, decided to kill the baby or sacrifice it to the gods, so as not to torment him with the hardships of the predicted life ahead. Speaking about such a topic as the religion of the Mayan peoples, one cannot help but touch upon the issue of funeral rites. They, like many other things in the life of the Mayans, differed from the funeral ceremonies of their predecessors and descendants. The religion of the Mayan tribe said that the deceased, depending on his social category, must be buried in suitable conditions and according to the proper rules: important persons and rulers were cremated, their ashes were kept in urns, while the religion of the Mayan civilization forced ordinary peasants to be buried in graves under their own homes.

The Mayan people existed for more than one century, and therefore managed to develop many catchy traditions and rituals in their own way. A unique approach is what distinguished the Mayan Indians, the religion of this people. Thus, archaeologists have established that, depending on the rank of the deceased, simple pits dug in the ground, stone chambers covered with a lid, or halls with a vaulted ceiling served as his grave.

Religion of the Mayan civilization she did not indulge and made no exceptions. Social status was everything. People either rested under the floor of the hut or prepared lavish funeral processions for themselves. The ancient religion, the Mayan civilization and their beliefs were cruel, but fair in their own way. The empire dictated its own rules and followed them without hesitation. Religion of the ancient Mayans: blood cult. Returning to the topic of sacrifices, without which not a single significant event took place in the life of the Mayans. To say that in the religion of the ancient Mayans human sacrifice was common is to say nothing. The ancient Mayan religion sacrificed people through hanging, beating, poisoning, drowning, live burial, and many other cruel and sophisticated methods.

In the city of Chichen Itza, the ancient Mayan religions and the sacrifices associated with it were perceived in their own way. Volunteers, slaves and prisoners of war were thrown into special wells and cenotes: the lucky ones who survived received a pardon. This ritual was aimed at appeasing the gods of the water element. Religion of Mayan civilizations She said that the god of rain, Chaak, lives in cenotes. The most brutal of the known Mayan sacrifice rituals was in many ways similar to the Aztec ritual. A man, prepared for murder and painted, as dictated by the religion of the ancient Mayans, in a special blue paint, was led to the top of the pyramid temple. There, four assistants to the chief priest laid the victim on a special altar and literally gutted him. The victim's chest was opened with a stone knife.

The Indian religion, the Mayan tribe and their religion taught that the gods depend on human blood, they feed on it. Therefore, all the blood flowing from the victim was collected in special vessels. After opening the chest, the priest pulled out the victim's still beating heart, which was handed over to the chilan, the elder. The final stage, as dictated by the ancient religion and the Mayan tribes, was the action when blood spurting from the heart was sprinkled on the statue of the god in whose honor the sacrifice was made. As a sacrifice Mayan rituals They were used both by those captured during the battles of the war from hostile tribes, and by volunteers from their own people, including people from the upper strata of society, the nobility. Researchers have found that people were sacrificed on a huge scale. Evidence was discovered that during one of the celebrations, about five thousand slaves and prisoners of war were sacrificed in just a few days. One cannot blame the beliefs of the Mayans, just like the ancient people themselves. The life of that era dictated its own rules, which had to be put up with and obeyed.

Alberto Rus Lhuillier::: Mayan people

General information

If in our 20th century, despite amazing scientific achievements, religion still continues to play a significant role in the life of some peoples, it is easy to understand what its significance was in that era, which we can consider pre-scientific.

There is no doubt that the Mayans knew how to calculate the cycles of the luminaries, but for them the luminaries were deities, as well as various natural phenomena, such as rain and wind. In addition, the land itself, the plants that they cultivated, the animals that they hunted or domesticated, were also of divine origin.

The Mayan religion, as one might expect, had much in common with the religion of other Mesoamerican peoples, since they were all part of the same culture and were at more or less the same level of development. The common beliefs of these peoples concerned not only their religious ideas, but also individual deities and rituals. Thus, all or almost all of them had a pantheon consisting of numerous gods; some of them were favorable to man, others were hostile, while dualism could exist in the same deity. The distinction between the cardinal directions predetermined the possible division of one and the same deity into four of his likenesses, each of which was associated with a specific color characteristic of a particular cardinal direction. This color association was not always consistent across cultures. The forces of nature, apparently the same for all these peoples, are personified by similar deities with a similar cult and sometimes even with the same images. The presence of gods as patrons of the main activities is another common feature of Mesoamerican religions. However, there is no doubt that the Mayan religion had its own characteristics.

The religion that a nation develops reflects not only the natural environment, but also the social environment in which it is born and lives. In previous chapters we have emphasized the class character of Maya society. To simplify the picture, we can consider the Mayans to have two main social strata: the bulk of producers ("free" and slaves) and the nobility (aristocrats and priests). And the Mayan religion also has two sides: one for the common people, the other for the ruling class.

Deities of the common people

The peasant believed in numerous gods who personified the basic elements of his existence. The earth was represented as a deity with a face associated with death, as among the peoples of the Mexican Highlands. Her terrible appearance was explained by the fact that in her bosom there was an underground world in which not only the bodies of the dead rested, but also the luminaries - the Sun after sunset and the Moon and stars after dawn.

E. Thompson believes that in the codes Earth represented by a god, whom P. Schellhas designated by the letter F, and Thompson himself by the letter R. He also believes that this deity corresponds to the deity of the numeral 11, since both have a sign on their face in the form of a curl, also characteristic of the hieroglyph of the day Boar, the symbol of the Earth . On the sculptural monuments the god of the Earth is probably the one who is depicted in the lower part of Stela 40 from Piedras Negras receiving the grains of maize that the priest throws to him. It is his mask that serves in Palenque as a pedestal for the stuka figures in the columns of the façade of the Temple of the Inscriptions, as well as for the cruciform image on the panels of the Temple of the Cross and the Temple of the Foliated Cross.

Sun - Ah Kin, or Kinich Ahab("Mr. Face", or "Sun Eye"), or also Kinich Kakmoo ("Sun Face of Guacamaia - Fire") - probably represented in the codices by the god G according to P. Schellhas; it is also the deity of the numeral A in the hieroglyphs of the variant heads. Its symbol is a four-petalled flower. The deity may have a flower design on his forehead; usually a flower accompanies him in the hieroglyphic texts of the codices. On monuments, his image often adorns shields carried by important persons. The deity has the face of an old man with large oval or square eyes, the pupils of which are sometimes located in the inner, upper or lower corners of the eye; the upper incisors - the only teeth preserved by him due to his old age - are filed in the shape of the hieroglyph for the day of Ik; a spiral on the nose and what looks like a hook or spiral at the corner of the mouth complete the characteristic features of the solar god. In some cases it may also be represented by a young man, personifying the hieroglyph for the day of Ahab. Although he was revered as a being on whom the growth of plants depended, it seems that he was more feared than loved, since the droughts he could cause were disastrous for crops.

"Sacred Sector" - karst well in Chichen Itza

For the Mayan peasant, rain was vital, especially in the northern region, where the rainy season was short and insufficient in terms of precipitation. That is why the image of god Chaaka most often found in codices and monuments in Yucatan. According to P. Schellhas, this is the god B, who in the codices has such characteristic features as a long drooping nose, an eye surrounded by a spiral, a comma-shaped pupil and a curl above the nose, a mouth that is toothless or with one upper incisor and often with one hook protruding from the visible corner of the mouth forward, while the face is shown in profile. He may be depicted standing in streams of rain or floating in a small shuttle or emptying a vessel of water. He usually holds a stone ax or torch in his hand. On several monuments of the central region it is represented on the scepters (as a symbol of high position) of noble characters (Palenque, Yaxchilan, Tikal, Xultun, Quirigua, etc.). In buildings in the northern Maya region, his mask with a large question-mark nose (which travelers of the last century confused with the trunk of an elephant), menacing tusks, a pupil framed by a square eye, and rich ear pendants is a constant and often the only decorative motif buildings.

In some cases (Kabah) the façade is decorated with hundreds of masks of the solar god; in others (Rio Bec and Los Chenes styles) a huge mask occupies the central part of the facade, and its mouth serves as the entrance to the temple ( A. Rus is not entirely right in considering the rain god Chaac among the Yucatan Mayans of the 16th century. a complete analogy to the god “B” of the Mayan codes of the 12th-15th centuries. and the god of scepters of the 1st millennium AD. e. We can say that this is only a functional coincidence, and even then partial, of the mentioned deities. To begin with, in the codes the god "B" is called Kashish- and this is not the god of rain, but the god of the wind, sometimes carrying rain clouds with it (see: Knorozov Yu. V. Hieroglyphic manuscripts of the Maya. L., 1975, p. 231).

The god of scepters of the classical period is the patron of the sixth tier of heaven, the thunder god, personifying fertility, etc. (see: Gulyaev V.I. Attributes of royal power of the ancient Mayans. - Soviet Archeology, 1972, No. 3)).

Animals such as the frog and turtle were associated with the rain god; the first because her croaking heralds rain, and the second because her crying supposedly causes rain. The Mayans believed that one god Chaac lived in the sky in four forms, one for each side of the world. The Mayans of Yucatan believed that the rain god lived at the bottom of the cenote, so in order to gain his favor, they threw various offerings and people (preferably children, whose cries were associated with rain) into the well. Another magical remedy supposedly causing rain was the thick black smoke produced by burning rubber or a special powder and reminiscent of dark rain clouds. In the mountainous regions of Chiapas and Guatemala, it was believed that his servants, lightning and thunder, lived in mountain caves.

In the classical period, an image of the rain god appears on the monuments of some large centers (Tikal, Kapan, Uxmal) Tlaloc. But this Teotihuacan influence was limited only to priestly circles and did not reach the broad masses.

Natural phenomena associated with rain - wind, lightning and thunder - were also revered by the Mayans. Some historical sources mention deities Pawahtunah, sending winds from the four cardinal directions, each being associated with a color corresponding to its direction ( Chakpawahtun, red - with the east; Kanpawahtun, yellow - from the south; Ekpawahtun, black - with the west; Sakpawahtun, white - with the north). These supernatural beings lived underground; they more closely resembled the servants of the rain god, the Chaakoobs, than independent deities.

The Maya do not appear to have had any special lightning and thunder deities; Apparently, they were considered forces descended from the Chaakoobs, or simply their tools. The ax, which Chaak very often grips in the codices, could symbolize thunder (due to the impact produced when working with it) and lightning - due to the sparks generated when hitting another stone. The drum that Chaak sometimes plays in the codices also probably resembles thunder.

The goddess occupies an important place in the ambiguity of functions and in connection with the vital aspects of human activity in the Mayan pantheon Ixchel. It mainly represents the Moon, which was called "U" in the Mayan language of Yucatan. In calendar inscriptions this is apparently the young goddess of the number "1". It is known that there is a sanctuary of this goddess on the island of Cozumel.

Interest in the Moon was determined not only by the nature of the sparkling luminary, but also by its supposed influence on plant growth and human health. Therefore, she was considered a goddess - the patroness of medicine. An idol representing her was placed under the mat of the woman in labor to facilitate childbirth. In addition, she patronized weaving. Ixchel can generally be considered a goddess who protects women and her main activities.

The Ritual of the Bacabs, whose text dates from the colonial era and is most likely based on information collected shortly after the Conquest, contains pre-Hispanic Mayan ideas. It mentions the four goddesses of Ixchel, associated with the four colors of the cardinal points. E. Thompson believes that the goddess of suicide Headquarters- the “mistress of the rope”, depicted hanging on the eclipse tables of the Dresden Codex, could not be a separate deity, but a hypostasis of Ixchel.

It is obvious that the Mayan goddess Ixchel is closely related to the Mexican goddess Tlazolteotl (Tosi): both of them are associated with the Moon, medicine, weaving, pregnancy and childbirth, that is, a complex of ideas that are probably very ancient in religious Mesoamerican thinking.

Another goddess, which, according to E. Thompson, is called Ish Chebel Yash and is closely related to Ixchel, judging by her depiction in the codes and functions - this is the goddess O according to the classification of P. Shellhas. She has the same character as Ixchel, except that her face is wrinkled and she sometimes only has one tooth, indicating her old age. According to Shellhas, she is the wife of Itzamna and the mother of Ixcheli. She is also associated with the Chaacoobs, as she is often depicted pouring water from a vessel. Like Ixchel, she was apparently the patroness of weaving, painting and embroidery. On the last page of the Dresden Codex she is shown with an evil expression on her face, claws on her feet, a skirt decorated with crossbones, and a snake coiled on her head. The sign of the Boar in her hieroglyph, as well as in the hieroglyph of Ixcheli, indicates that both goddesses are connected in some way with the Earth.

The Mayans have long deified maize - the basis of their diet and, according to the Popol Vuh, the flesh of people created by the gods. In the codices, he corresponds to the god E (according to P. Schellhas), represented by a handsome young man, whose head ends in the form of a cob or is surrounded by maize leaves. He is often depicted doing some kind of agricultural work. Although several authors have given the name of the maize deity Yum Kaash(lord of the forest), E. Thompson doubts the correctness of this name and claims that, according to some sources, the god was called Ah Moon(maize). The chronicles also give other names to this plant, for example Cavil, which Thompson interprets as "an abundance of food." This deity is considered the patron of the numeral "8". Kan Day is also associated with this plant, since its name means "ripe maize" and the hieroglyph for this day is considered its symbol ( According to the translation by Yu. V. Knorozov, this deity in the codes bears the name Um-viil (god of abundance)).

Among the Mayans, as well as among the peoples of the Mexican Highlands, the ritual of human sacrifice by beheading is also apparently associated with the cult of maize. Chroniclers write about this. One of the scenes of the Dresden Codex depicts how cult is given to the head of the god E; severed heads instead of cobs are placed among maize leaves on a cruciform figure at Palenque, known as the "Leaf Cross" and located in the temple of the same name.

Elite deities

Another deified plant was cocoa. As is known, cocoa beans were used as coin, and, apparently, its cultivation was to some extent monopolized. God of cocoa Ek Chuah He was depicted painted with black paint, with a red mouth and a long nose, with luggage on his back and a staff in his hand, since he was the patron god of trade. His cult was revered, apparently, only by the owners of cocoa plantations and rich merchants.

Various references contained in colonial sources confirm the importance of the cult of the god Itzamna. He was revered as the creator of the universe and could be himself Hunab Ku or, as some authors believe, his son. For high-ranking priests during the postclassical period, Hunab Ku - "the only god" - was apparently more of a metaphysical concept than a specific deity, since, according to chroniclers, no temple was erected in his honor and no honors were given to him, which was misinterpreted as a tendency towards monotheism. E. Thompson even believes that Christianity could have influenced this interpretation, starting from the moment of the Conquest and later.

Itzamna was primarily a sky god. He personified the heavens in their boundlessness and eternity, the daytime and nighttime skies. His name translates as “house of the iguanas” (“itsam” is iguana). According to E. Thompson, who interprets the broad meaning of the word “iguana,” it generally means celestial monsters and reptiles such as lizards and snakes. Everything connected with the sky depended on Itzamna: sunlight, lunar influences, rain and, as a derivative of all these natural forces, crops.

As a heavenly god and creator, he was depicted as a toothless old man, and as a deity who gives life to vegetation, he was depicted with a hieroglyph in the form of leaves growing from his forehead. In the Dresden and Madrid codexes, Itzamna is depicted as a two-headed snake, as well as on the monuments of Palenque (panel from the “Temple of the Cross”, tombstone in the “Temple of the Inscriptions”). On the classical monuments of Copán, Yaxchilan and Naranjo there is a geometric stylization of the same two-headed snakes, known as the “ritual stripe”, which distinguishes important people. According to E. Thompson, images of Itzamna were also stripes with signs of celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, Venus and, possibly, other planets), framing human figures or scenes sculpted from pieces on several buildings in Palenque. Each such frame was supposed to, firstly, symbolize the idea of ​​​​the inseparability of earth and heaven, and secondly, limit the square room of the “house of iguanas”. The same author considers the two-headed lizard of the Copan altar as a naturalistic image of Itzamna, considering the lizard to be a type of iguana.

A drawing on a stone slab from the Temple of the Cross in Palenque depicting a priest smoking a pipe

Itzamna was attributed numerous properties, so he was often turned to for various reasons - both to prevent collective disasters, such as drought, and to ask for good health. In colonial sources this god is called by many names reflecting his universal functions.

High-ranking characters depicted on the plate of the Temple of the Cross at Palenque

The Mayan heavenly pantheon also included other gods, about whom it is not always possible to say with certainty whether they were revered by the ruling class or the people as a whole. One of them is god Chikchan(god I, according to P. Schellhas), the patron of the numeral “9”, the hieroglyph of which depicts a young man (in the codices he is also presented as a woman) with features characteristic of a cat (spots at the mouth, jaguar whiskers). This deity was associated with rain, that is, it was related to or subordinate to the Chaakoobs. Therefore, most likely, his cult was popular, just as the cult of the Chikchan gods - snakes that cause rain, according to the beliefs of the Chorts - still remains.

It can be more confidently considered a deity revered by the priestly class, Lahun Chana(god of the sky), who personified the planet Venus. It appears that there were actually five gods corresponding to Venus, and Lahun Chan was only one of them. In the Dresden Codex, this deity is associated with tables concerning Venus, when, according to E. Thompson, she again appears in the sky after her lower conjugation with the Sun. The deity is depicted as an aggressive creature, armed with a javelin and shield; his victims are the gods K and E, a jaguar and a turtle, who bring prosperity to a person who is threatened by the appearance of Venus emerging from the world of the dead; the accompanying hieroglyphic text includes, according to E. Thompson, unfavorable predictions.

Another deity is the god S (according to P. Schellhas), often depicted in codices and inscriptions on monuments, although its original meaning cannot be accurately explained. In fact, its functions are varied. S. G. Morley calls him Shaman Ek- the name of the Polar Star, perhaps due to its association with the north, but Schellhas believed that we were more likely talking about the Little Dipper, believing that its hieroglyph was the flat face of a monkey. The Mayans could imagine the constellation as a monkey figure, whose prehensile tail would grip the pole, thus allowing the constellation to rotate around a fixed point, which would be the North Star. In this case, God C should have been revered by traders. E. Thompson admits the connection of this god with the north, but recalls that he can be represented by signs of the four cardinal directions, which makes the interpretation that connects him exclusively with the north more doubtful. In calendar inscriptions he is the first satellite (hieroglyph G1 from the series "Nine Lords of the Night") and, in addition, is part of the X sign of the "lunar cycle". In other hieroglyphic contexts, the god C is apparently associated with water and the Sun.

Let us also recall the existence in the Mayan pantheon Oshlahun-ti-ku- “13 gods”, apparently occupying 13 layers into which the Mayan celestial sphere was divided. E. Thompson believes that these gods were the patrons of numbers from 1 to 13 in the ritual calendar, the function of which indicates their importance. It is also possible to connect them with 13 basic numerals in the form of variant heads. It is reasonable to assume that the veneration of these 13 heavenly gods was limited to the priestly class, since, judging by the function associated with mathematics and the religious calendar, by the mythical character of these gods and their participation in cosmogonic battles, they must have been far from the concerns of the people.

Their antagonists were Bolon-ti-ku- “9 gods” who lived on 9 levels, making up the underworld, in which the enemies of man lived, sending diseases and causing death; The dead also found refuge there. The harmful influence of these gods on the life and actions of man is manifested in the calendar through a series of "Nine Lords of the Night", depicted by various hieroglyphs G. In the books of Chilam-Balam, the rivalry between Bolon-ti-ku and Oshlahun-ti-ku ended in the victory of the former, who caused a catastrophe, as a result of which one of the races of people, successively created by the gods, died. As in the case of the 13 heavenly gods, the veneration of the nine underground gods was the concern of only the priestly elite, who manipulated cosmogonic beliefs.

The connection of deities and predictions with the calendar

Speaking about some deities, we mentioned their possible association with numerals and days. E. Thompson has clarified these connections best, based in part on the work of other researchers.

We have already said that in the ritual calendar, each day corresponded to a prediction for the person born on that day, which predetermined his future qualities, as well as the type of occupation ahead of him and his fate. Based on the contents of various chronicles, A. Barrera Vázquez and S. Rendon give a list of the names of animals, plants and other attributes associated with the 20 days of the religious calendar, in addition to predictions for each of these days. From their data, we will present here only predictions related to days.

According to Mayan beliefs, the influence of the days of the ritual calendar affected the fate of not only an individual, but also a group of people, that is, some signs were favorable, while others, on the contrary, were dangerous for certain activities. In addition, the priest who made these predictions took into account the influence - good, bad or indifferent - of the numeral that accompanied each day, which, depending on the circumstances, could change (for the better or worse) the fate depending on the name of the day.

The table is compiled according to E. Thompson:

(In Yu. V. Knorozov, respectively: 1 - Esanob, 2 - Kimi, 3 - Kib)

But the impact of time on people and events was not limited to the day. All calendar periods contributed to the weaving of a complex network in which the fate of each and everyone was entangled.

The day of the ritual calendar (it had 260 days), which coincided with the day of the beginning of the civil year, numbering 365 days, was extremely important in determining the nature of the coming year. This day, which over time could only be one of four (Akbal, Lamat, Ben or Etznab), endlessly succeeding each other, was called Maya ah kuch haab - “bearer of the year.” For reasons unknown to us, these "carriers" were replaced, and by the time of the Spanish conquest they were Kan, Muluk, Ish and Kavak.

The final days of the tuns, katuns and baktuns were also important for the priests to justify their prophecies. The most important day was the day on which the end of the katun fell and by which it was called; this day was necessarily Ahab, and its numeral changed in a descending line (13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, 8, 6, 2, 13, 11, etc.). The Chilam-Balam books give us a series of twenty years with corresponding predictions, which are not always understandable, since they are expressed in the language of metaphors, often used by the priests. In addition to several favorable katuns, most of them proclaimed misfortunes: droughts, epidemics, poverty, wars, carnal sin, dishonor, etc.

Deity of death

We tried to divide the deities into popular and elite. But there was one deity that evoked a general feeling of disgust and fear in all social groups without exception - the deity of death. It is most often depicted in codices and is also represented on many monuments. This is god N (according to the classification of P. Schellhas).

In various historical sources he is known by different names: Sisin, which E. Thompson interprets as "stench", but which, according to linguist Maria Cristina Alvarez, could rather etymologically mean "put well stretched"; Wak Mithun Ahab- "lord of the seventh circle" whom Landa mentions. M. C. Alvarez also suggests that we are talking about one of the circles of the underworld, but E. Thompson believed that the chronicler incorrectly wrote down his name, which should be written as Chuck Mithun Ahab, which would mean, according to Thompson, “great hellish rot”; Hun Ahab, the calendar name "1 Ahab", with which the planet Venus is often mentioned, considered dangerous to everyone when it emerged from the world of the dead after being absent from the sky for a certain time and was, according to Landa, "the lord of all demons"; Ah Pooch, whose real name might have been Ah Pukuh- “lord of the underworld” in the languages ​​Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Tocholobal, according to Thompson; finally, Yum Simil- "lord of death", the name by which this god is still called in Yucatan.

In codices he is usually depicted as a skeleton. Among the most permanent elements of his decoration are bells, similar to the metal bells found in the Chichen Itza cenote, which he could wear on his head, neck, ankles or hands. Its ear decoration is a long bone. When he is wearing any clothing (skirt, cloak), it is decorated with crossed bones. The deity is associated with the numeral 10 and with the day Simi, meaning “death”; in both cases, the hieroglyph reproduces the face of the deceased, devoid of flesh and often having a mark on the cheek that resembles a “%”. Sometimes this sign is replaced by the image of a skull. In one case (Dresden Codex) the deity is feminine.

In codices this deity is often associated with the god whom P. Schellhas designated as F; it was associated with war and violent death through sacrifice. For Thompson, this was the god of the Earth, he is designated by the letter R. The god of death is sometimes accompanied by a dog, which, according to Mesoamerican beliefs, helps the deceased in the journey in the underworld, and an owl, whose night cry is everywhere considered a bad omen. On the pages of the codices he is depicted at various activities: weaving on a hand loom or on a loom attached to a tree; offers a headless bird and grains of maize to the serpentine deity; reclines on the hieroglyph Boar (Earth) and smokes; cuts down a tree with an ax; holds the head of the deceased; wets the tip of a stick in a container, possibly containing paint; burns a bee or threatens a deer with a burning torch. His connection with the god of war and death during sacrifice, which we mentioned, is manifested in the presence of both gods in the same scenes, sometimes they sit opposite each other, and in one case they are present at the sacrifice, in the other - the god of death is associated with four images god F holding god K; in another scene, god F is dressed up as god A and destroys a temple. We also know the scene in which the god of death in the rain carries the god B (Chaak), sitting on the throne.

On Mayan monuments, images of death or the god who symbolized it are not often found, with the exception of calendar inscriptions, in which, as we have already said, one of the days of Tzolkin - Simi (death) and the numeral 10 are often used, especially the second, which in addition to its own numeral values ​​are included in the numbers from 13 to 19 in the images of head options. We must also mention the hieroglyphic emblem of Palenque - this is a skull, represented in almost all hieroglyphic inscriptions of this city.

We can think of only a few images of death: Altar 5 from Tikal, where between two kneeling priests there is an altar with several shin bones on which rests a human jaw supporting the skull of an animal; Monument 1 from Bilbao, where death is represented in connection with a ball game and human sacrifice by beheading, which is also depicted in Monument 3 of the same monument, although in a slightly different form, and perhaps in Monument 13; the figures of the Cross and the Foliated Cross at Palenque, in which the mask of the god of Earth and death supports the central element of the composition, a cross-shaped figure, thus forming the symbol of the Earth - maize or death - rebirth; a similar motif, although more elaborate, is the mask on which the person depicted on the tombstone of the crypt of the “Temple of the Inscriptions” in Palenque lies, as if falling on his back.

The God of Death, according to Mayan beliefs, lived at the lowest level of the underworld - Xibalba, or Metnal, from different groups. The second name must be late, since it comes from a corruption of Mictlan (in the Nahua language). It was imagined as a dark place where the souls of the dead arrived after a long and difficult journey full of dangers. We do not know how the Classic Mayans imagined the other world ( Thanks to the latest research by M. D. Ko (USA) and Yu. V. Knorozov, the picture of the “other world” in the ideas of the Mayans of the 1st millennium AD is now e. identified quite fully. - See about this: Soe M. D. Maya scribe and his world. New York, 1973; Knorozov Yu. V. Mayan hieroglyphic manuscripts. L., 1975, p. 249-250; Ershova G. G. Formula of revival. - Latin America, 1984, No. 5; 1985, no. 6), and the historical information we have is not entirely applicable to them.

The picture described by the chroniclers probably implies the result of a double influence: Nahua beliefs from the 10th century. and the Christian religion six centuries later. With the Toltec conquerors may have come the idea of ​​a paradise for the sacrificed, and with the Spaniards a heaven for the good and a hell for the wicked. As for the supposed paradise for warriors killed in battle and women who died in childbirth (these ideas are considered by some famous Mayanists to be imported by the Nahuas), we have not found in any historical source any information confirming their existence.

Patron deities of professions

The Mayans had numerous deities who patronized farmers (Earth, Water, Sun, Moon, Wind, Rain, Maize, etc.). Other activities were also patronized by special gods. So, the hunters revered Sipa(deer); fishermen - Like Neshoka(shark with a fiery tail); beekeepers - Hobnil; weavers - Michelle; traders and owners of cocoa plantations - Ek Chuaha; healers - Ixchel And Kinich Kakmo, and the warriors - Sim Chak Koha(father - red puma) and Kakupacata(fiery gaze).

Some animals associated with Mayan religious, mythological and astronomical beliefs were also revered. They acted as deities or their representatives. These animals also served to offer atoning sacrifices to the gods or were used as symbols in hieroglyphic writing. Among the main ones we will name: jaguar, snake, owl, quetzal, vampire bat, turkey, heron, dog, monkey, deer, peccary, puma, armadillo, lizard, frog, iguana, turtle, fish, bivalve, snail, scorpion, bee and butterfly.

Cosmology

According to the Maya of the 16th century, there were 13 heavens, or celestial spheres - “layers of the sky”, and 9 underground worlds. The world was considered flat and square in shape. In its four corners: in the east, west, north and south, “world trees” grew, which were respectively called Red, White, Black and Yellow. At the center of the universe was the Green Tree - "Yash-che", often associated with ceiba. There were also four giant jugs of water: when the gods poured water from them, it rained on the earth. In heaven, in the shadow of the branches of the Green Tree, there was a paradise with a goddess Ish Tab, and in the underworlds there is hell. The Mayans believed that the world went through several eras, each of which ended with a flood.

The ideas of good and evil were associated with the sky and the underworld, respectively; on the other hand, the heavens were considered a masculine being, and the earth was a feminine one.

Cosmogony

If we compare the data of Indian and Spanish chronicles of the 16th century. Regarding the Mayan ideas about the creation of the Earth, celestial bodies and the appearance of man with data from historical sources of other Mesoamerican peoples, for example the Aztecs, one can notice a clear cultural kinship that existed between them. Many of these ideas have come to us through myths.

Although with some variations, the versions of the creation of the Earth and man given by the K'iche' Popol Vuh, the Annals of the Kaqchikels of Solola, and the Chilam-Balam books of the Yucatecs are quite similar. The gods' successive attempts to create creatures capable of feeding and honoring them were unsuccessful until the appearance of maize. Only from maize dough were the creators able to create humanity that met their goals. People can live and multiply as they fulfill their duties, that is, supply the gods with food, honor them, give them their own blood or the blood of those sacrificed, and obey the representatives of the gods on earth, that is, the priests. The discovery of maize also gave rise to similar myths: the maize, hidden under a stone, was known only to ants, who used cracks to get to the grain, until one fox learned about their secret; it was later discovered by other animals and finally by man.

The birth of the Sun, Moon, and Venus and their adventures form a large part of Mesoamerican mythology. The luminary of the sun appears as a hero participating in the struggle against the forces of evil and death. He dies, is reborn and finally turns into the Sun.

Ritual

From the accounts of chroniclers and from the depictions in codices and monuments, as well as from archaeological finds, we can to some extent reconstruct the ritual through which Mayan religious beliefs were manifested. It is known that the Mayans were most concerned with obtaining food and prolonging life. They believed that various rituals, individual or collective, could help them with this. These included:

• fasting and abstinence;
• prayers;
• offerings placed in front of images of deities and consisting of flowers, fruits, food of plant or animal origin, living or newly sacrificed animals;
• burning fragrant copal resin;
• sacrificial bloodletting, when a person extracted drops of blood from his body, mainly from the ears or from the tongue;
• human sacrifices.

Sacrificing was carried out using different methods, also known in the rest of Mesoamerica, particularly in Central Mexico, such as:

• archery shooting,
• decapitation,
• excoriation,
• throwing into an abyss, cenote or lake,
• ripping your heart out of your chest.

Ceremonies of a religious nature accompanied all the most important moments of collective and individual life. For example, some rituals accompanied agricultural work (burning forests, sowing, harvesting), others were associated with the human life cycle (birth, coming of age, marriage and, finally, death).

Funeral rites note differences in treatment of the body of the deceased depending on the social category of the person: cremation of rulers and important persons, whose ashes were kept in clay urns or wooden statues; a simple pit under or next to a hut is for ordinary people.

Archaeologists, for their part, determined that, depending on the social status of the deceased, the burial could be a simple hole dug in the ground, a hole lined with stones from the inside and closed on top with a slab, a chamber with stone walls and a vaulted ceiling. The burial could be under the floor of a hut, inside the platform of a civil or religious building, in a mound raised for funeral purposes; some tombs were decorated with wall paintings. It could be individual or collective; in the latter case, the remains corresponding to the main person and the remains of the people accompanying him, sacrificed to serve him in the next world, are easily identified. The quantity and quality of items offered as offerings also varied.

The largest burial structure known throughout the American continent is, without a doubt, the crypt built inside the "Temple of the Inscriptions" at Palenque. The crypt contains a huge stone sarcophagus, covered with bas-reliefs telling about the life of the ruler buried in it. The richness of the tomb's architectural ensemble and offerings illustrates the political, social and religious importance this man had during his lifetime.

During the religious holiday of the beginning of the New Year, the image of the patron god of the past year was replaced by the image of the patron of the beginning year. Every month, holidays were held in honor of the gods - the patrons of certain professions (healers, priests, hunters, fishermen, beekeepers, warriors, etc.). The end of some large periods (for example, the Katuns) was celebrated especially magnificently.

So, it is quite obvious that religion played a huge role among the ancient Mayans. It regulated not only all aspects of social life, but also the personal life of any individual member of this society. The priesthood, which carried out this comprehensive regulation, made every possible use of its unlimited power over the common people and kept them in complete obedience.

The centers of Mayan civilization were the cities: Chichen Itza, Palenque, Mayapan. Numerous temples were built there. Mayan sanctuaries were shaped like stepped pyramids. Sacrifices were made to the gods, often human ones, but among the inhabitants of Yucatan they did not play such a role as in the bloody rituals of the Aztecs. The Mayan priests made regular astronomical observations of the Sun, Moon and planets and developed a calendar system that was more accurate than the Julian calendar in Christian Europe. Mayan beliefs, the religion of ancient American cultures, are characterized by complex, sophisticated rites and rituals, the fundamental purpose of which was to obtain indulgence from the gods in the form of all kinds of benefits. The Mayan religion boasted a huge variety of rituals, from the burning of fragrant resins, cult dances and chants to vigils, fasts and prayers.

The religion of the ancient Mayans was structured in such a way that sacrifices occupied a special place in it. As sacrifices, the Mayan religion, the tribe and its beliefs accepted both the inhabitants of flora and fauna: jaguars, turkeys, turtles, flowers, tree fruits, as well as more common sacrifices in the form of handicrafts and, of course, human lives. An indispensable attribute of the May religion and sacrificial rites was a special blue ceremonial paint, which was used to smear the offerings. Mayan religion, religion of the inhabitants of ancient America. It is obvious that with such a reverent attitude towards traditions and rituals, priests occupied a special place in Mayan society, and the Mayan people and religion created such conditions for them that the priests, like many other peoples of Mesoamerica, constituted a special social stratum, a caste dominated by unshakable hierarchy.

In the Mayan Empire, the religion of ancient civilizations, power went from the high priest to young servants. The religion of the Mayan peoples was distinguished by the fact that the priests performed the functions of scientists; they researched the surrounding world and accumulated scientific knowledge. According to the information provided by chroniclers, using images and codes related to the culture of the ancient Indians, it is possible to partially restore the rituals through which the religion of the Mayan tribe was manifested. It is known that the inhabitants of Mesoamerica were most concerned with problems such as obtaining food and extending life spans. The religion of the Mayan civilization dictated to the Indians that this could be achieved through various rituals, collective or individual.

Religious preferences and Mayan religions were also distinguished by the fact that ceremonies accompanied almost all significant moments in people’s lives. For example, the Mayans perceived religion as a kind of duty, and therefore agricultural work, handicraft work and other aspects of life were accompanied by corresponding rituals praising the gods. Like the later peoples who settled Central America, the beliefs held by the Mayan tribe, the religion of the Mesoamericans, literally depended on the cult of blood. Ancient civilizations are a categorical people. In relation to religion, the Mayans adhered to customs absorbed over a long history. So, from the everyday objects that have survived to this day, discovered by researchers - vessels, small-made utensils, ritual instruments - one can judge the specific attitude of the Mayans to the rite of bloodletting, which distinguished the Mayan religion from its later analogues.

Priests have practiced bloodletting since ancient times. The religions of the Mayan tribe dictated their own rules to them. It cannot be said that the religion of the Mayan tribes, widespread in Central America of that era, imposed cruelty. This formed naturally over time and under the pressure of the harsh surrounding reality of those times. According to the recently discovered ideas of the Mayans, life energy, the soul, was in the blood. And therefore, the engravings with which the Mayan civilization, the religion of the Mesoamericans, is rich, depicting rulers with their hands down, from which liquid flows, today are perceived as nothing more than illustrations of bloodletting rituals. Mayan religion - centuries-old traditions of Mesoamerica. The ritual calendar for each day contained detailed predictions for newborn children. These predictions, which were directly related to the May religion, described the future qualities of the baby, his future destiny and a suitable type of activity.

The Mayan people existed for more than one century, and therefore managed to develop many catchy traditions and rituals in their own way. A unique approach is what distinguished the Mayan Indians, the religion of this people. Thus, archaeologists have established that, depending on the rank of the deceased, simple pits dug in the ground, stone chambers covered with a lid, or halls with a vaulted ceiling served as his grave.

The religion of the Mayan civilization did not allow concessions and did not make exceptions. Social status was everything. People either rested under the floor of the hut or prepared lavish funeral processions for themselves. The ancient religion, the Mayan civilization and their beliefs were cruel, but fair in their own way. The empire dictated its own rules and followed them without hesitation. Religion of the ancient Mayans: blood cult. Returning to the topic of sacrifices, without which not a single significant event took place in the life of the Mayans. To say that in the religion of the ancient Mayans human sacrifice was common is to say nothing. The ancient Mayan religion sacrificed people through hanging, beating, poisoning, drowning, live burial, and many other cruel and sophisticated methods.

The Indian religion, the Mayan tribe and their religion taught that the gods depend on human blood, they feed on it. Therefore, all the blood flowing from the victim was collected in special vessels. After opening the chest, the priest pulled out the victim's still beating heart, which was handed over to the chilan, the elder. The final stage, as dictated by the ancient religion and the Mayan tribes, was the action when blood spurting from the heart was sprinkled on the statue of the god in whose honor the sacrifice was made. Mayan rituals were used as sacrifices both by those captured during war battles from hostile tribes, and by volunteers from their own people, including people from the upper strata of society, the nobility. Researchers have found that people were sacrificed on a huge scale. Evidence was discovered that during one of the celebrations, about five thousand slaves and prisoners of war were sacrificed in just a few days. One cannot blame the beliefs of the Mayans, just like the ancient people themselves. The life of that era dictated its own rules, which had to be put up with and obeyed.

Conclusion: Religion, together with temple servants, played an important role in the life of the Mayans. In the period from 250 AD. years before 900 AD At the head of the city-states were rulers who included, if not the highest, then at least a very important religious role. Representatives of the upper classes of society took part in religious rituals. The Mayan religion was polytheistic. At the same time, the gods were mortal creatures similar to people. In this regard, human sacrifice was considered by the Maya as an act that would help, to a certain extent, prolong the life of the gods. Human sacrifice was common among the Mayans. A person was sacrificed by hanging, drowning, poisoning, beating, or by being buried alive. The most cruel method, like the Aztecs, was to rip open the stomach and tear out the still beating heart from the chest. Both captured captives from other nations and representatives of their own people, including members of the upper classes, were sacrificed.

Currently, there are about 2 thousand steles with inscriptions. Steles were installed in honor of every twentieth anniversary, in honor of the change of ruler. Many inscriptions on the steles are associated with specific historical events. Some of them are related to various cults and astronomical calculations. For a long time, the texts on Mayan monuments remained a mystery to scientists. In the 1960s Leningrad scientist Yu. V. Knorozov deciphered ancient texts. Deciphering digital characters was not difficult. The reason for this was the amazing simplicity and perfected logic of the counting system. Europe was still “counting on its fingers” when the ancient Mayan mathematicians introduced the concept of zero and operated with infinitely large quantities. A large number is recorded on stele 10-a in the city of Tikal - 1841641600 days, that is, 5 million years.

When calculating, the Mayans were limited to only addition and subtraction. The Mayan man himself was the ideal mathematical model that was taken as a unit of calculation. Arithmetic was based on the base-20 number system (multiplying by 20), which arose from the sum of the fingers and toes of a person. The addition was a vertical column from bottom to top. The Mayan era, as already noted, was measured in 20 years. The month also consisted of 20 days. The priests attributed their own signs to each day of the month, each day had its own name, for example: 1st day - Imish (corn) - someone born on this day will be a bad, dissolute and dishonest person; 4th day – Kan (ripe corn) – those born on this day will be wise; 6th day – Kimi (death) – those born on this day will be a killer with a bad fate and the like. The Mayans wrote down their digital signs in the form of dots and dashes, and the dot always meant units of a given order, and the dash always meant five. The image of a shell represented zero. Knowledge of writing was the privilege of the priesthood and the nobility. At the temples there were special schools where boys from the nobility studied writing, history, rituals, mathematics, medicine, and predictions.

In Mayan hieroglyphic writing there is a division of signs into root, grammatical and phonetic. Of the surviving manuscripts, three are known: “The Prophecies of the Jaguar” (“Chilam-Balam”) and “The Book of Nations” (“Popol Vuh”). These books are an important source on the history and culture of the ancient Mayans. They contain medical recipes, prophecies, various rituals, and chronicles of historical events. Even at the beginning of the last century, the Indians had rewritten books of the “Prophecies of the Jaguar” in every Yucatan village. In 1958, Heinrich Berlin published evidence that in the Mayan writing system there was a type of special characters, the so-called “emblem hieroglyphs,” associated with some of the settlements known to archaeologists. Such characters are easy to identify because they are usually combined with certain hieroglyphic elements that appear with each of them. Experts have already been able to accurately identify the “hieroglyphs of the emblem” of eight “cities” of the classical era: Tikal, Piedras Negras, Copan, Quirigua, Ceibal, Naranjo, Palenque and Yashchitlan. Berlin suggested that these signs either denoted the names of the “cities” themselves, or the dynasties that ruled in them, and suggested that historical events were recorded on the steles and other monuments of these cities.

Thus, the figures carved on the reliefs of the classical era do not depict gods and priests, but representatives of the ruling dynasties, their spouses, children and subjects. When the stone "chronicles" of one reign come to an end, the next sequence of images begins with the same motif - the rise to power of a new ruler. Perhaps the most complete "chronicle" of the reigns of the secular lords of the ancient Maya "cities" is carved into the many stone lintels of Yaxchitlán. When the problem of Mayan writing is considered, the question inevitably arises: why did this people need to calculate the cycle of the “lunar sequence” for eras so far apart in time and why did they need to operate in their calculations with dates associated with such large periods of time? The answer is probably due to the fact that the rulers of the ancient Mayans believed in astrology, and perhaps they consulted with the priests about how the lunar cycles and the location of the celestial bodies related to this or that event in their country, just as they did Egyptians, Etruscans, Babylonians and many other peoples of the Old World. Astrology has its own logic, which forced not only the peoples of antiquity to take it seriously, but also people like Newton and Kepler.

Another area that the Mayans paid a lot of attention to was genealogy and issues related to human origins. That is why on some monuments we find dates and images that can only be associated with ideas about who their distant ancestors were. Since in all three Mayan codes at our disposal there are many tables and illustrations and, in addition, passages related to the dates of the 260-day calendar are very often found in the texts, no one among the experts doubts that their content is related exclusively with religion and astronomy. The Mayans did not have science in our usual sense. Instead, all the civilizations of Mesoamerica had a peculiar mixture of data from precise astronomical observations and what could be called numerology. Judging by the texts of the manuscripts, the Mayan priests developed a complex mystical teaching about the gods, mainly in connection with the calendar, chronology and astrology.

The universe - yokkab (literally: above the earth) - was imagined by the ancient Mayans in the form of worlds located one above the other. Just above the earth were thirteen heavens, or thirteen “heavenly layers,” and beneath the earth were nine “underworlds” that made up the underworld.

In the center of the earth stood the “Primordial Tree.” At the four corners, strictly corresponding to the cardinal points, four “world trees” grew. In the East - red, symbolizing the color of the morning dawn. In the North it is white. An ebony tree - the color of the night - stood in the West, and a yellow tree grew in the South - it symbolized the color of the sun. In the cool shade of the "Primal Tree" - it was green - was paradise. The souls of the righteous came here to take a break from the backbreaking labor on earth, from the suffocating tropical heat and enjoy plentiful food, peace and fun. The ancient Mayans had no doubt that the earth was square, or at most rectangular. The sky, like a roof, rested on five supports - “heavenly pillars”, that is, on the central “Primordial Tree” and on four “colored trees” growing at the edges of the earth. The Mayans, as it were, transferred the layout of ancient communal houses to the universe around them. If the Maya's ideas about the structure of the universe as a whole are clear to us today and do not raise any particular doubts, and the calendar, which is striking in its almost absolute accuracy, has been thoroughly studied by scientists, the situation is completely different with their “underground worlds.” We cannot even say why there were nine of them (and not eight or ten). Only the name of the “lord of the underworld” is known - Hun Ahab, but even this still has only a tentative interpretation.

The ancient epic Mayan Quiche story, the Popol Vuh, tells how the forefather gods Tepeu and Gucumatz raised the earth from the watery abyss and populated it with animals and plants. Having created this, the divine ancestors thirsted for veneration and admiration and fashioned creatures from the earth that looked like people, but they turned out to be short-lived and after some time they turned into dirt again. The gods created the next race from wood, but the creation turned out to be so stupid that it was destroyed by the gods themselves, who replaced it with people made of meat. However, these creatures turned to evil and were destroyed when the gods brought down a terrible rain on the earth: a monstrous flood swept them away from the face of the earth. And finally, from corn dough the gods created real people, the ancestors of the Maya-Kiche.

The religions of Mesoamerica, as well as the religions of the East, are characterized by ideas about repeating cycles of creation and destruction. As described above, the Aztecs believed that the universe had already gone through four such cycles and our era is the fifth cycle of creation, which is destined to perish due to earthquakes. Mayan ideas were similar. They also assumed the existence of time cycles of long duration. The first Sun lasted 4008 years, and was destroyed by earthquakes and eaten by jaguars. The Second Sun lasted 4010 years, and was destroyed by the wind and its violent cyclones. The Third Sun lasted 4081 years, and was destroyed by fiery rain that poured out of the craters of huge volcanoes. The Fourth Sun lasted 5026 years and fell from the water that flooded everything around in a gigantic flood. Then the Fifth Sun was born, which shines for us today. It is known as the “Sun of Movement” because, according to the Indians, during this era there will be a movement of the Earth, from which everyone will die.

Very little information has reached us about the pantheon of gods that the Mayans worshiped. The Mayan Olympus was inhabited by so many gods that it is completely impossible to understand them. A general idea of ​​the number of Mayan gods can be gleaned from an 18th-century manuscript entitled “Rituals of the Bacabs,” in which 166 gods are mentioned by name, or from codices dating to the eve of the Spanish conquest. In the texts of these codes one can find references to more than thirty gods. The reason for such theogonic plurality was that each of the gods had a huge number of different hypostases. Firstly, each of them represented not one, but four whole individuals, correlated with one of the four cardinal directions. Secondly, a number of gods had counterparts of the opposite sex who were their spouses, which was a reflection of the dualism inherent in the philosophy of the peoples of Mesoamerica. And finally, each of the gods, personifying any of the celestial bodies, had another incarnation - for that period of time when he died and was doomed to wander through the underworld. Before reappearing in the sky, he turned into one of the gods of the underworld.

Although some sources claim that the Mayans believed in the existence of a single god (Hunab Ku), who was the embodiment of an omnipotent disembodied spirit, nevertheless, the main god that the Mayans worshiped was undoubtedly the god Itzamna, whose name means “House of the Lizard.” . In Mayan manuscripts, this god was depicted as an elderly man with a hawk-like – “Roman” – nose. This god was revered as the inventor of writing and the patron of scientists and learning. His wife was Ish Chel - “Lady of the Rainbow”, an old goddess whose patronage was weaving, medicine and childbirth. She, in all likelihood, was the goddess of the old moon. The snakes adorning her hair and the claws at the ends of her fingers and toes prove that in the Mayan religion this goddess played the same role as the Aztec goddess Coatlicue - the mother of gods and people. All the other gods, including the Bakabs, were obviously descendants of this couple. The sun god, Ah Kinchil, was depicted in the codices as very similar to Itzamn, and it is possible that he was one of his incarnations. During his nightly journey underground, from sunset to sunrise, he turned into the jaguar god - his frightening double, images of which are very often found on the monuments of the classical era.

The young half-naked woman, a very evocative image found in the Dresden Codex, is believed to represent the moon goddess Ish Chap (Woman), who may have been the consort of Ah Kinchil. Other gods associated with the heavenly bodies were the god of the North Star and various incarnations of Venus. Less significant deities were the patrons of various sectors of society and activities. At the head of this list was Kukulkan, the patron god of the ruling caste. Although the cult of Kukulkan reached its peak during the reign of the Toltecs, there are images of the Feathered Serpent dating back to earlier periods. Finds indicating that the cult of this god existed in the Mayan region much earlier than the arrival of the Toltec conquerors were made in some of the Mayan settlements, for example in Tikal. Warriors worshiped several war gods, some of them apparently heroes, deified for their military successes. Merchants and those involved in the cultivation of cocoa were patronized by the god Ek Chuah, who was depicted with a black face and a long nose. In addition to these gods, there were many others who patronized hunters, fishermen, those who made tattoos, comedians, singers, poets, dancers, lovers and even suicides.

Unlike the Aztecs, the Mayan priests were not required to observe a vow of celibacy. Their sons also became priests. Some of the priests were the second sons of rulers. The priests bore the title Ah Kin (“the one who belongs to the sun”), which once again proves their close connection with the calendar and astronomy. The list of duties of the priests, outlined by Diego de Landa, makes it clear that they were engaged not only in conducting rituals, but also in teaching. The priests were in charge of “... the counting of years, months and days, holidays and ceremonies, the management of their shrines, unfortunate days and times, their methods of prediction and their prophecies, events, medicines against diseases, ancient monuments, the ability to read and write with letters and signs, with which they wrote, and the figures that explained the writing...” The priests were also involved in compiling and storing genealogies. During the heyday of Mayapan, a hereditary high priest resided in this city. Apparently, the main function of the high priest was to oversee a special educational institution in which those who intended to join the priestly class were trained. In none of the documents can one find the slightest hint that the high priest had any influence, or that the priests were in any way a substitute for the civil authorities.

During the rituals associated with human sacrifices, the priest was assisted by four elderly men, who, in honor of the rain gods, were called Chaks. They held the victim's arms and legs while her chest was opened by another man who bore the title Nakom (a military chief's title). Another cult minister was Chilam, a kind of shaman-spiritual seer who, while in a state of trance, received “messages” from the gods. His prophecies were usually interpreted by assemblies of priests.

The conduct of all rituals was strictly determined by the calendar, and primarily by the calendar of the 260-day cycle. The Mayan calendar is called the Great Wheel Mandala of Pacal Votan. In The Mayan Factor, Dr. J. Arguelles describes and explains the Great Wheel of Pakal Votan's Mandala (see Appendix M). The properties of this “wheel” were known very well to the ancient Mayans. The first circle contains 8 vertices, characterizing the evolution of the dual relationship. The second circle contains 13 vertices. This number already reflects the properties of the evolution of the Great Limit (About the Creators of Worlds). The third circle characterizes the most complex level, generating and controlling the Great 13-vertex cycles. Each of these 20 peaks is characterized by its own “star family of World Creators. These 13 peaks define the Great Cycles of the Mayan Calendar, with the current (our) cycle covering the period from 3113 BC. e. to 2012 e. H. Argüelles narrates that human history is determined by the galactic ray through which the Earth and the Sun pass.

The development cycles of earthly civilizations are subject to the principles of “galactic seasons,” which were described by the Mayans in mathematical and symbolic form. Ritual ceremonies were full of symbolic meaning; for example, the numbers 4, 9 and 13 and indications of colors associated with the cardinal directions very often appeared in them. Before and during the ritual, it was forbidden to eat, and strict sexual abstinence was necessary. Ritual self-torture, like the Aztecs, was not uncommon, during which the Mayans injected themselves with needles or sea urchin spines in the ears, cheeks, lips, tongue or penis. The blood obtained in this way was sprinkled on paper or used to anoint idols. On the eve of the Spanish conquest, priests smoked such idols with resins and rubber and performed ritual feedings on them. Captives and slaves were used for human sacrifices, but most often children (illegitimate children or orphans who were purchased specifically for this purpose) were sacrificed. Before the establishment of Toltec dominance, they most often sacrificed not people, but animals. It is known that wild turkeys, dogs, squirrels and iguanas were considered quite suitable offerings for the Mayan gods.

Knowledge about exactly what the sequence of rituals performed by the Yucatecs was is very fragmentary. One of the reasons is that Diego de Landa failed in some cases to grasp the difference between what he called "fickle holidays", that is, rituals determined by the 260-day calendar count, and rituals depending on the cycle consisting of 19 months of a 365-day fuzzy year. Throughout the year, rituals and ceremonies related to farming, hunting, beekeeping, fishing and artistic crafts were performed. Perhaps the ceremonies were carried out according to the cycle of the 260-day calendar. Mention of this can be found in the Madrid Code. The purpose of such ceremonies was to increase the amount of game caught, the abundance of honey and wax, and the like. Very often they were based on actions that James Frazer once called "sympathetic magic." For example, during the ritual of making rain, people dressed in costumes of the god Chaka poured water from pots into the fire. The gods in manuscripts and works of art were depicted in human form (except for the god of War, who has the body of a snake and a human head). The gods of the cardinal directions - Chakov - were called jaguars. In addition, the title "Jaguar" was worn by rulers, military leaders and priests. The ruler's throne was called the "Jaguar Mat". Frequent images of the jaguar in various works of art indicate that this animal was a totem - an amulet of good luck in the tribe.

The Book of Nations (Popol Vuh) describes an interesting ritual of testing leaders. The prince-heir named Kokaib had to travel on foot no less than one and a half thousand kilometers in order to fulfill the order - to deliver “insignia” - claws of jaguars and eagles, skins of wild animals, etc. Such tests were subjected to the future ruler or priest.