Ceiba is a genus of trees in the family Malvaceae, native to tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas and tropical West Africa. Some species can grow to 70 m (230 ft) tall or more, with a straight, largely branchless trunk that culminates in a huge, spreading canopy, and buttress roots that can be taller than a grown person. The best-known, and most widely cultivated, species is Kapok, Ceiba pentandra, one of several trees called kapok.
Votan is a legendary or mythological figure mentioned in early European accounts of the Maya civilization.
The Maya peoples are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical region. Today they inhabit southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. "Maya" is a modern collective term for the peoples of the region, however, the term was not historically used by the indigenous populations themselves. There was no common sense of identity or political unity among the distinct populations, societies and ethnic groups because they each had their own particular traditions, cultures and historical identity.
Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, often shortened to Santa Muerte, is a cult image, female deity, and folk saint in folk Catholicism and Mexican Neopaganism. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. Despite condemnation by leaders of the Catholic Church, and more recently evangelical movements, her following has become increasingly prominent since the turn of the 21st century.
Chichicastenango, also known as Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, is a town, with a population of 71,394, and the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name in the El Quiché department of Guatemala. It is located in a mountainous region about 140 km (87 mi) northwest of Guatemala City, at an altitude of 1,965 m (6,447 ft). The Spanish conquistadors gave the town its name from the Nahuatl name used by their soldiers from Tlaxcala: Tzitzicaztenanco, or City of Nettles. Its original name was Chaviar.
Maximón, also called San Simón, is a Mayan deity and folk saint represented in various forms by the Maya peoples of several towns in the Guatemalan Highlands. Oral tradition of his creation and purpose in these communities is complex, diverse, and born of the ancient Maya traditions centuries ago.
Paschal Baylón was a Spanish Roman Catholic lay professed religious of the Order of Friars Minor. He served as a shepherd alongside his father in his childhood and adolescence, but desired to enter the religious life. He was refused once but later was admitted as a Franciscan lay brother and became noted for his strict austerities, as well as his love for and compassion towards the sick. He was sent to counter the arguments of the Calvinists in France but was chased out and nearly killed by a mob. He was best known for his strong and deep devotion to the Eucharist.
In a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish colonisers gradually incorporated the territory that became the modern country of Guatemala into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. Before the conquest, this territory contained a number of competing Mesoamerican kingdoms, the majority of which were Maya. Many conquistadors viewed the Maya as "infidels" who needed to be forcefully converted and pacified, disregarding the achievements of their civilization. The first contact between the Maya and European explorers came in the early 16th century when a Spanish ship sailing from Panama to Santo Domingo was wrecked on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in 1511. Several Spanish expeditions followed in 1517 and 1519, making landfall on various parts of the Yucatán coast. The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries.
San Pascual may refer to:
San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán is a town in the El Progreso department of Guatemala. San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán is located on the northern bank of the Motagua River at an altitude of 250 m. It had a population of 6,129 people at the 2002 census, and covers a territory of 124 square kilometres (48 sq mi). San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán borders on San Agustín Acasaguastlán to the northwest, Usumatlán to the east, and El Jicaro to the south. It is located on the inter-ocean highway (CA-9), 101 km from Guatemala City.
The Obando Fertility Rites are a dance ritual, initially an Anitist ritual, and later also became a Catholic festival celebrated every May in Obando, Bulacan, Philippines. Locals and pilgrims, sometimes dressed in traditional costume, dance and sing in the town's streets to honour and beseech Obando's three patron saints: San Pascual, Santa Clara and Nuestra Señora de Salambáo.
San La Muerte folk saint and the personification of death, it is represented as a skeletal idol wearing a hooded cloak in South America. Paraguay, northeast Argentina and southern Brazil are the main centres of the cult of San La Muerta. As the result of internal migration in Argentina since the 1960s the veneration of San La Muerte has been extended to Greater Buenos Aires and the national prison system as well.
The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the Americas, in which the Spanish conquistadores and their allies gradually incorporated the territory of the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Maya occupied the Maya Region, a territory that is now incorporated into the modern countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador; the conquest began in the early 16th century and is generally considered to have ended in 1697.
The Book of Life is a 2014 American 3D computer-animated musical fantasy comedy film produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and Reel FX Animation Studios, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Co-written and directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez, it was produced by Aaron Berger, Brad Booker, Guillermo del Toro, and Carina Schulze. It features the voices of Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, and Channing Tatum with supporting roles by Christina Applegate, Ice Cube, Ron Perlman, and Kate del Castillo. Based on an original idea by Gutierrez, the story follows a bullfighter who, on the Day of the Dead, embarks on an afterlife adventure to fulfill the expectations of his family and friends.
The Lakandon Chʼol were a former Chʼol-speaking Maya people inhabiting the Lacandon Jungle in what is now Chiapas in Mexico and the bordering regions of northwestern Guatemala, along the tributaries of the upper Usumacinta River and the foothills of the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes.
The Acala Chʼol were a former Chʼol-speaking Maya people who occupied a territory to the west of the Manche Chʼol and east of the Chixoy River in what is now the Alta Verapaz Department of Guatemala. The Acala should not be confused with the people of the former Maya territory of Acalan, near the Laguna de Terminos in Mexico.
The Spanish conquest of Chiapas was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Mesoamerican polities in the territory that is now incorporated into the modern Mexican state of Chiapas. The region is physically diverse, featuring a number of highland areas, including the Sierra Madre de Chiapas and the Montañas Centrales, a southern littoral plain known as Soconusco and a central depression formed by the drainage of the Grijalva River.
Domingo de Vico was a Spanish Dominican friar during the Spanish conquest of Chiapas and the conquest of Guatemala in the 16th century. He was originally from Jaén. Chronicler Antonio de Remesal recorded that de Vico studied theology in Úbeda and finished his studies in the San Esteban convent in Salamanca.
The Spanish conquest of El Salvador was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores against the Late Postclassic Mesoamerican polities in the territory that is now incorporated into the modern Central American country of El Salvador. El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, and is dominated by two mountain ranges running east–west. Its climate is tropical, and the year is divided into wet and dry seasons. Before the conquest the country formed a part of the Mesoamerican cultural region, and was inhabited by a number of indigenous peoples, including the Pipil, the Lenca, the Xinca, and Maya. Native weaponry consisted of spears, bows and arrows, and wooden swords with inset stone blades; they wore padded cotton armour.
Pascual Abaj, also known as Turcaj, Turk'aj, Turuk'aj and Turukaj, is a pre-Columbian Maya idol at Chichicastenango that survived the Spanish conquest of Guatemala and which is still venerated by the local community. It is the best-known example of such an image. The image was badly damaged in the 1950s by members of Catholic Action.
