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Death rituals were an important part of Maya religion. The Maya greatly respected death; they were taught to fear it and grieved deeply for the deceased. They also believed that certain deaths were more noble than others.
The Maya were ritualistic people, who paid great respect to the destructive nature of their gods. They had many traditions to commemorate the recently deceased and worship long-departed ancestors.
People who died by suicide, sacrifice, complications of childbirth, perish in the ball game, [1] and in battle were thought to be transported directly into heaven. The reason a violent death led to one souls being able to immediately enter the Mayan heaven is because the gods are thankful for your sacrifice to them. People who were to eventually become sacrifices were paraded in litters by citizens before their death. [2]
Before Spanish influence, there may not have been a common idea of the afterlife. The Yucatec Maya believed that there were different routes after death. A pot from a Pacal tomb depicts ancestors of Maya kings sprouting through the earth like fruit trees and together creating an orchard. The Maya had several forms of ancestor worship. They built idols containing ashes of the dead and brought them food on festival days. Alternatively, a temple could be built over an urn. In those that were sacrificed, the most common way was cutting the abdomen, and taking out the heart.
The Maya dead were laid to rest with maize placed in their mouth. Maize, highly important in Maya culture, is a symbol of rebirth and also was food for the dead for the journey to the otherworld. Similarly, a jade or stone bead placed in the mouth served as currency for this journey. Due to its green color resembling that of corn stalks, burying the deceased with jade was believed to allow them to follow the path of the Maize God, eventually leading to their rebirth. [3] The practice of wrapping royalty was meant to localize their remains to a finite space. Mortuary bundles would be overlapped with depictions of deity bundles and covered in cinnabar signified rebirth. Marine artifacts in a tomb were meant to create a sense that the body has been set within a cave or upon the underworld. Bloodletting artifacts can be found amongst the dead at the Caracol site. A corpse being buried with these artifacts was to praise God A’. Most royalty were buried along with headdress, bracelets, and necklaces. Once a tomb was closed burning took place on top of it to signify the soul leaving the royal body and transforming into an ancestral state. The human remains in a temple were believed to have had power to animate buildings. [4]
Often, whistles carved from rocks into the shapes of gods or animals were included in the grave offerings to help the deceased find their way to Xibalba. When a typical Mayan citizen died their family and close friends would begin fasting and procuring goods. To which then they would hold an all-night vigil around the corpse and burn incense calling on their ancestors to watch over the new soul in its journey in the underworld. The elders would then wash the corpse and cloth it, being buried naked was an insult in Mayan culture. Being buried naked meant you were usually a foreign captive. The elders then would carry the corpse to the church. Elders could only handle the corpse rather than the family because there was fear of impotent taken into death by the soul. On the way to the church the chuchjaw would beat the ground so the soul would not linger on Earth. Once at the church, elders would spin the corpse several times so the soul would lose track from its home. Once the corpse was buried the family would hold a feast and abandon the person's house who has passed. The houses of the dead become abandoned because it was believed that nine days after a successful journey through the underworld by the soul it would return to its home and sleep for nine days. It is during this nine-day period that the Mayans believed they could die by the soul who has returned home. [5] The Maya associated the color red with death and rebirth and often covered graves and skeletal remains with cinnabar. The bodies of the dead were wrapped in cotton mantles before being buried. Burial sites were oriented to provide access to the otherworld. Graves faced north or west, in the directions of the Maya heavens, and others were located in caves, entrances to the underworld.
Burial practices of the Maya changed over the course of time. In the late Preclassic period, people were buried in a flexed position, later the dead were laid to rest in an extended position. In the late Classic period, the elite constructed vaulted tombs, and some rulers ordered the construction of large burial complexes. In the Postclassic period, cremation became more common. Other burial practices included bodily humanation with structures, structures directly overhead of the burial site, preferred single interments over multiple interments, the removal of skulls with a bowl or shell over or under the skull, specific skeletal position, prevailing head orientations, jade mosaic masks, and shell figurines. In Mayan culture the dead would be steeled like the Hero Twins to have a better chance in their journey. [6] Most of the Mayan are mostly found in Dangriga so called "Downsouth" in the southern of Belize country well known called a unique county by the Belizean because Belize is in both Central America and part of the Caribbean.
The Maya believe that the soul is bound to the body at birth. Only death or sickness can part the body and soul, with death being the permanent parting. To them, there is an afterlife that the soul reaches after death. [7] In that, deceased ancestors can still contact their descendants, answering advice when they are asked. This contact can be used at certain times in the season, or when certain family matters pertain to the ancestors. Understanding the perception of what the deceased do in their afterlife can give ideas towards what rituals need to be performed and what types of items one must be buried with in order to successfully navigate the afterlife.
The aspect of reincarnation is one strongly mentioned in Mayan beliefs and religion. The Popol Vuh gives importance to the Maize deity, and how the Mayan people themselves descended from maize people created by this god. In the Popol Vuh that the Kʼicheʼ Maya wrote, one of the few surviving codices, it tells the story of the reincarnation of the Maize god. In the tale, the maize god retreats to the underworld and with two hero twins battling the monsters and lords of the place, makes way back to the earthen world. He is reborn again, dies, and on and on the cycle continues. In this aspect, it is believed by the Mayans that the Earth itself is a living being. As they came from corn, consuming corn or having sex then brings one closer to the earth.
The concept of the afterlife, or Xibalba, differs between the Mayan ethnic groups. Many have a generalized belief of all souls going to the afterlife, being reincarnated or having another role to participate in after death, but these ideas change dramatically with the rise of Christianity. With that came the idea of Xibalba being a location of punishment. The longer one spent in Xibalba, the worse a life they led while living. With this belief, heaven became a paradise for many to strive for. The Chontal of Tabasco are an example of this. [8]
To the Awakateko and the Chuj, the ancestors remain in contact and have the ability to affect the affairs of the living even in death. The Awakateko believed that the afterlife is a place where all ancestors remain, and that there is nowhere to pass on to. [9] But to the Chuj, any contracts made with the dead are binding. If one does not follow these contracts, the ancestor can plague the one bound to the contract with illness or misfortune. To Them, they can contact their ancestors at altars, caves, or places connected to Mayan societies. The association of caves to the underworld is one intertwined with the older Mayan civilization and is an aspect continued by the Chuj people. [10]
There are other ethnic groups that believe ritual items are needed in order to make the journey into the afterlife. The Lakandon bury their people facing the sun, and wrapped in a tunic and hammock. [11] Qʼeqchiʼ bury their dead in a straw sleeping mat, with a hat, sandals and a net provided to help in the journey to the afterlife. [12] In others it was believed a dog was needed to help make the journey through the afterlife. Often a dog was ritually sacrificed, or an effigy buried along with the deceased in order to complete this task. [13] Usually, the goods buried with the person were what the tribe believed was needed to complete one's cross into the next, whether it be the afterlife, heaven or reincarnation.
Other ethnic groups believed that the spirits of the dead still had tasks to complete in the afterlife. The Mam, before fully accepting Christian values thought that the dead lived within volcanoes and other places. [14] To the Tzʼutujil, souls of the dead might be reincarnated or go to assist in moving the sun across the sky. The Tzʼutujil in Santiago feared that souls of drowning victims inhabited the bottom of Lake Atitlan. [15] With this difference in the idea of what one's ancestor does in death, came a change in how and what they were buried with. Those who still had a journey or a task may need more or less items, and it depended on how those of the tribe believed on what occurred after death.
But many ethnic groups also observed a celebration of their deceased ancestors later on. The Poqomam gather after death and hold a feast that may last for nine days. Then they pray for that deceased person every day of the dead for the next seven years. [16] The Tzotzil of Chamula also have a similar holiday for celebrating the dead, though theirs occurs every year. Their belief is that souls return to visit and partake of food once a year, in a celebration called Kʼin Santo. The family members must perform a ritual to the deities to ask release of the souls of their dead relatives and to allow them entrance into the house. [17]
There have been many archaeological discoveries of lavish tombs within ceremonial complexes from the Classic period. However, only a Maya city's most important ruler was buried in this way. These aristocrats were placed in tombs at the bottoms of funerary pyramids that sometimes consisted of nine stepped platforms, perhaps symbolizing the nine layers of the underworld. Other temples were constructed with 13 vaults symbolizing the layers of the heavens in Maya cosmology. These temples reflected the continued worship of these nobles. In some instances, members of the royal family or young attendants would be sacrificed to accompany the lord in death.
The tombs were filled with precious goods including fine polychrome pottery, effigy figurines, jade and marble pieces, masks, mushroom figures. While these figures were found in Maya tombs, many of these items were also used in the service of food, drink and for additional ritual purposes. [18] Obsidian and exotic shells have also been found in Mayan tombs. In the Tomb of the Red Queen inside Temple XIII in Palenque, the remains of a noble woman and all the objects inside the sarcophagus were completely covered with bright red vermilion dust, made of ground cinnabar, perhaps intended to suggest blood, the symbol of life.
Other elite members of society were buried in vaults. The bodies of higher-ranking members of society were buried inside sarcophagi. They sometimes were buried in crypts or underneath the family home. These funerary constructions of the royal often destroyed the residence itself. Commoners were also buried near or under their houses. These graves did not have extensive burial offerings, but often contained objects that identified the individual: a tool or possession.
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor. Customs vary between cultures and religious groups. Funerals have both normative and legal components. Common secular motivations for funerals include mourning the deceased, celebrating their life, and offering support and sympathy to the bereaved; additionally, funerals may have religious aspects that are intended to help the soul of the deceased reach the afterlife, resurrection or reincarnation.
The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living. Some groups venerate their direct, familial ancestors. Certain religious groups, in particular the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church, venerate saints as intercessors with God; the latter also believes in prayer for departed souls in Purgatory. Other religious groups, however, consider veneration of the dead to be idolatry and a sin.
Xibalba, roughly translated as "place of fright", is the name of the underworld in Maya mythology, ruled by the Maya death gods and their helpers. In 16th-century Verapaz, the entrance to Xibalba was traditionally held to be a cave in the vicinity of Cobán, Guatemala. Cave systems in nearby Belize have also been referred to as the entrance to Xibalba. In some Maya areas, the Milky Way is viewed as the road to Xibalba.
The Duat is the underworld in ancient Egyptian mythology. It has been represented in hieroglyphs as a star-in-circle: 𓇽. The god Osiris was believed to be the lord of the underworld. He was the first mummy as depicted in the Osiris myth and he personified rebirth and life after death. The underworld was also the residence of various other gods along with Osiris.
The ancient Egyptians believed that a soul was made up of many parts. In addition to these components of the soul, there was the human body.
The Maya Hero Twins are the central figures of a narrative included within the colonial Kʼicheʼ document called Popol Vuh, and constituting the oldest Maya myth to have been preserved in its entirety. Called Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the Kʼicheʼ language, the Twins have also been identified in the art of the Classic Mayas. The twins are often portrayed as complementary forces.
The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of funerary practices that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. These rituals included mummifying the body, casting magic spells, and burials with specific grave goods thought to be needed in the afterlife.
The opening of the mouth ceremony was an ancient Egyptian ritual described in funerary texts such as the Pyramid Texts. From the Old Kingdom to the Roman Period, there is ample evidence of this ceremony, which was believed to give the deceased their fundamental senses to carry out tasks in the afterlife. Various practices were conducted on the corpse, including the use of specific instruments to touch body parts like the mouth and eyes. These customs were often linked with childbirth, which denoted rebirth and new beginnings. For instance, cutting bloody meat from animals as offerings for the deceased signified the birthing process, which typically involves blood, and represented the commencement of a new life. Additionally, tools like the peseshkef, which resembled the tail of a fish and were originally employed for cutting infants' umbilical cords, further emphasized the idea of "rebirth".
The traditional Maya or Mayan religion of the extant Maya peoples of Guatemala, Belize, western Honduras, and the Tabasco, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán states of Mexico is part of the wider frame of Mesoamerican religion. As is the case with many other contemporary Mesoamerican religions, it results from centuries of symbiosis with Roman Catholicism. When its pre-Hispanic antecedents are taken into account, however, traditional Maya religion has already existed for more than two and a half millennia as a recognizably distinct phenomenon. Before the advent of Christianity, it was spread over many indigenous kingdoms, all with their own local traditions. Today, it coexists and interacts with pan-Mayan syncretism, the 're-invention of tradition' by the Pan-Maya movement, and Christianity in its various denominations.
Hun Hunahpu, or 'Head-Apu I' is a figure in Mayan mythology. According to Popol Vuh he was the father of the Maya Hero Twins, Head-Apu and Xbalanque. As their shared calendrical day name suggests, Head-Apu I was the father of Head-Apu. He is believed to be the father of the twins' half-brothers and the patrons of artisans and writers, Hun-Chowen and Hun-Batz. Head-Apu I is paired with his brother, Vucub-Hunahpu, Head-Apu VII. The brothers were tricked in the Dark House by the lords of the Underworld (Xibalba) and sacrificed. Head-Apu I's head was suspended in a trophy tree and changed to a calabash. Its saliva impregnated Xquic, a daughter of one of the lords of Xibalba. She fled the Underworld and conceived the Twins. After defeating the Underworld lords, the twins recovered the remains of their father and their father's brother, but could not resuscitate them.
Hmong people have a culture built on animistic beliefs and a strong faith that after death the soul reincarnates as one of many forms such as humans, plants, rocks and ghosts. Death is often considered the most important time for practicing rituals in the Hmong community because without practicing the necessary rituals the soul will roam for eternity. Hmong culture has been around for thousands of years and some of the rituals have slightly changed due to immigration and urbanization. Throughout time rituals have always varied from tribe to tribe therefore there is no one-way of performing the pre-funeral rituals, the burial rituals and the post burial rituals. However, the differences are minor and are aimed at achieving the same goal of reincarnation.
Dogs in Mesoamerica of various sorts are known to have existed in prehispanic times as shown by archaeological and iconographical sources, and the testimonies of the 16th-century Spaniards. In the Central Mexican area, there were three races: the medium-sized furred dog (itzcuintli), the medium-sized hairless dog (xoloitzcuintli), and the short-legged, (tlalchichi) based in Colima and now extinct. Apart from other, more obvious functions, dogs were also used for food and ritual sacrifice.
Mayan cave sites are associated with the Mayan civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Beliefs and observances connected with these cave sites persist among some contemporary Mayan communities. Many of the Mayan caves served religious purposes. For this reason, the artifacts found there, alongside the epigraphic, iconographic, and ethnographic studies, help build the modern-day understanding of the Mayan religion and society.
Dogs have occupied a powerful place in Mesoamerican folklore and myth since at least the Classic Period right through to modern times. A common belief across the Mesoamerican region is that a dog carries the newly deceased across a body of water in the afterlife. Dogs appear in underworld scenes painted on Maya pottery dating to the Classic Period and even earlier than this, in the Preclassic, the people of Chupícuaro buried dogs with the dead. In the great Classic Period metropolis of Teotihuacan, 14 human bodies were deposited in a cave, most of them children, together with the bodies of three dogs to guide them on their path to the underworld.
The Maya death gods known by a variety of names, are two basic types of death gods who are respectively represented by the 16th-century Yucatec deities Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau mentioned by Spanish Bishop Landa. Hunhau is the lord of the Underworld. Iconographically, Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau correspond to the Gods A and A' . In recent narratives, particularly in the oral tradition of the Lacandon people, there is only one death god, who acts as the antipode of the Upper God in the creation of the world and of the human body and soul. This death god inhabits an Underworld that is also the world of the dead. As a ruler over the world of the dead, the principal death god corresponds to the Aztec deity Mictlāntēcutli. The Popol Vuh has two leading death gods, but these two are really one: Both are called "Death," but while one is known as "One Death," the other is called "Seven Death." They were vanquished by the Hero Twins.
During the Pre-Hispanic period the early Filipinos believed in a concept of life after death. This belief, which stemmed from indigenous ancestral veneration and was strengthened by strong family and community relations within tribes, prompted the Filipinos to create burial customs to honor the dead through prayers and rituals. Due to different cultures from various regions of the Philippines, many different burial practices have emerged. For example, the Manobos buried their dead in trees, the Ifugaos seated the corpse on a chari before it was brought to a cave and buried elsewhere. The most common forms of traditional burials are supine pits, earthenware jars, and log coffins, and have been a topic of interest among Philippine archaeologists since the early 20th century.
A funerary cult is a body of religious teaching and practice centered on the veneration of the dead, in which the living are thought to be able to confer benefits on the dead in the afterlife or to appease their otherwise wrathful ghosts. Rituals were carried on for the benefit of the dead, either by their relatives or by a class of priests appointed and paid to perform the rites. These rituals took place at the tombs of the dead themselves or at mortuary temples appointed to this purpose. Funerary cults are found in a wide variety of cultures.
Ancient Greek funerary practices are attested widely in literature, the archaeological record, and in ancient Greek art. Finds associated with burials are an important source for ancient Greek culture, though Greek funerals are not as well documented as those of the ancient Romans.
Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs were centered around a variety of complex rituals that were influenced by many aspects of Egyptian culture. Religion was a major contributor, since it was an important social practice that bound all Egyptians together. For instance, many of the Egyptian gods played roles in guiding the souls of the dead through the afterlife. With the evolution of writing, religious ideals were recorded and quickly spread throughout the Egyptian community. The solidification and commencement of these doctrines were formed in the creation of afterlife texts which illustrated and explained what the dead would need to know in order to complete the journey safely.
Cizin is a Maya god of death and earthquakes. He is the most important Maya death god in the Mayan culture. Scholars call him God A.
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