The Maya, Aztec, and Incan civilizations developed independently of each other. Further, the religious heritage of each was heavily influenced by preceding cultures. Nevertheless, despite their historical uniqueness, the Maya, Aztec, and Incan religions had important features in common.

A. Nature of the Universe

The Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas all believed that the universe was composed of the heavens, the earth's surface, and an underworld. The earth's surface was divided into four quadrants. As in many other archaic cultures, each of the three peoples claimed to inhabit the center of the universe, where the earthly and supernatural realms came together. Because the boundaries between the worlds of nature, human society, and the supernatural were not sharply defined, pre-Columbian religious leaders were essentially shamans, people who were believed to be capable of moving back and forth between the earthly and supernatural realms. This travel between realms was often associated with hallucinatory trances.

B. Gods and Goddesses

Many Maya, Aztec, and Incan deities were derived from astronomical observations. However, pre-Columbian civilizations identified their deities not only with particular planets and stars, but also with the cyclical movements of the heavens as a whole. Just as the heavenly bodies move and replace each other in specific sectors of the sky, a number of major pre-Columbian deities had shifting, overlapping identities. Consequently, individual gods and goddesses are probably best interpreted not as distinct personages, but as fluid and shifting components of complex supernatural powers.

It is possible that in each of the three major pre-Columbian civilizations the various divine powers were seen as multiple facets of a single supernatural force. Many of the deities incorporated pairs of opposing qualities, such as male/female, day/night, and life/death. If all deities were indeed different expressions of a single divine force, it is likely that the first differentiation in this all-encompassing godhead was that between male and female powers. For example, the Aztecs' highest and most remote deity was Ometeotl (Lord and Lady of Duality). This primeval creator of all things was viewed both as a single being and as a combination of the god Ometecutli and the goddess Omecihuatl.

C. Religious Leadership and Rituals

For the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas, there was no clear separation of civil and religious life. The king was the primary spiritual leader and served as the principal intermediary between humans and the gods. Rulers were believed to be divine or semidivine beings who traced their descent from one or more of the gods. The cosmic order depended on a reciprocal relationship between humans and the gods, maintained through elaborate ceremonies. Since humans needed favorable treatment from the gods in order to survive, rituals solicited, for example, the help of agricultural deities in order to secure good harvests. However, gods were less clearly differentiated from humans than they are in modern monotheistic religions, and few, if any, pre-Columbian deities were all-knowing or all-powerful. Many gods required human support and could weaken or die if people did not sustain them by means of sacrifices. The preferred offerings varied, but the most solemn rituals required human sacrifice.

D. The Destination of Souls

In each of the three major pre-Columbian civilizations, the primary determinant of a person's fate after death was his or her position in life. Rulers, who were divine or semidivine, enjoyed a more glorious afterlife than their subjects. Beyond this basic similarity, conceptions of the afterlife differed among the three cultures, and only the Incas saw the afterlife as a happy experience for most people.

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