Sources of information on pre-Columbian religions include both archaeological evidence and written documents (see Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture). The literary sources fall into three broad categories: Spanish chronicles, which are descriptive accounts of native Mesoamerican and Andean history and culture; Spanish colonial administrative records (civil and religious); and the works of native Mesoamerican and Andean authors. In the case of the Mayas, a few preconquest (before the 16th century) codices (bark-paper books) have survived, as has a relatively rich body of native literature starting from the beginning of the Spanish colonial era.

None of the surviving Maya books actually date to the Classic period (about 300 to about 900). All of the known examples were either written during the Post-Classic period (about 900-1540) or based on Post-Classic traditions but transcribed after the Spanish conquest. (The latter include a remarkable epic, the Popol Vuh, which was written secretly in the mid-16th century and rediscovered 300 years later.) There are, however, abundant examples of Classic-period Maya hieroglyphic writing on carved stone monuments and painted pottery (see Hieroglyphs). Recent advances in deciphering Maya glyphs (symbolic figures or characters) have revealed a strong continuity in religious beliefs from the Classic period through the Post-Classic.

A. The Nature of the Universe

The Mayas believed that the universe had been, and would continue to be, created and destroyed multiple times, and that each such cycle lasted somewhat longer than 5000 years. By their estimate, the current universe had begun in the equivalent of the year 3114 BC and would be destroyed in the equivalent of the year AD 2012. Evidently the Mayas believed that the cycle of creation and destruction would repeat itself forever, with each successive universe being an exact duplicate of the previous one. The Mayas had a complicated calendar that integrated repetitive cycles within each creation with a 365-day solar year. These cycles included a 260-day ritual year, a 584-day year based on the movement of the planet Venus, and others. Individual days were destined to be either lucky or unlucky, and one of the calendar's functions was to serve as a perpetual fortune-telling device.

The Mayas conceived of the earth as the back of a giant caiman (an alligator-like reptile) floating in a pool. The exposed portion of the caiman's back was flat and four-cornered. The corners lay at the cardinal points of the compass, each of which was associated with a color: white for north, red for east, yellow for south, and black for west, with green at the center. Above the earth was a heaven with 13 levels (7 going up to a peak and 6 coming down, like the rising and setting of the sun). Below the earth was an underworld with 9 levels (5 descending and 4 ascending). The entire universe was linked by a green ceiba tree that stood at the center of the world, its branches extending into the heavens and its roots into the underworld. The rulers of Maya city-states, as well as the temples built to honor deceased rulers, could be seen as embodiments of this tree, and thus as physical links between the earth and the supernatural world.

B. Gods and Goddesses

The Maya pantheon (family of gods) included what seems to be a host of gods and goddesses, one reason being that every god and goddess had four color-direction aspects.

The rain god Chac, for example, was actually a composite of four different Chacs of different colors who lived at the corners of the world. Furthermore, every deity of the heavens had a counterpart in the underworld and vice versa; many deities also had counterparts of the opposite sex. For example, the supreme celestial god was Itzamna, the aged patron of culture and learning. Kinich Ahau, the sun god, may have been a youthful aspect of Itzamna, in addition to being his son. Ix Chel and Ix Ch'up were old and young aspects of the moon goddess, the mates and female equivalents of Itzamna and Kinich Ahau, respectively. When Kinich Ahau descended below the horizon at nightfall, he became the Jaguar Lord of the underworld, and Itzamna took the guise of a deity called God D by archaeologists. Instances like these suggest that the many gods and goddesses were actually different manifestations of relatively few divine powers.

The Maya of pre-Columbian America depended on maize for their subsistence. This ceramic figure was made by a Maya artisan (about AD 600-800). It is a representation of a maize god, with jewelry made of kernels and an elaborate headdress. The piece was originally brightly colored. The figure's simplified form is characteristic of Maya ceramic work. Nefsky/Art Resource, NY

C. Religious Leadership and Rituals

For the Mayas, religious leadership was the responsibility of the kings and nobles. One of the rulers' principal duties was to determine proper courses of action by communicating with their ancestors and the gods in visionary trances. Self-mutilation for the purpose of shedding blood was a central element of vision-seeking rituals. The loss of blood helped to bring on hallucinations, and the shed blood was offered as a sacrifice to the gods. The prophecies provided by the calendrical cycles governed the scheduling of rituals. The most solemn ceremonies were reenactments of the death and rebirth of the gods. In these rituals a ruler or noble who had been captured in battle was dressed as a god and then killed as a sacrificial offering. The capture of high-ranking individuals who could be sacrificed as god-impersonators was the primary goal of warfare among the Maya city-states throughout most of the Classic period.

D. The Destination of Souls

For the average Maya the prospect of the afterlife was wretched (see Eschatology). After death souls descended into the underworld, called the Place of Fright. It was a cold, damp, foul-smelling region ruled by cruel and fearsome deities. For most souls there was no escape. Deceased Maya rulers, however, could flee the underworld and be reborn as the sun, the moon, or Venus—that is, as an astronomical body that descends below the horizon and then rises again. In being reborn this way, rulers reenacted the deeds of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who defeated the rulers of the underworld in an athletic contest, then rose victorious to the sky, where they were deified as the sun and the moon.

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