Mayan or Maya mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. The legends of the era have to be reconstructed from iconography. Other parts of Mayan oral tradition are not considered here.
Qʼuqʼumatz was a god of wind and rain of the Postclassic Kʼicheʼ Maya. It was the Feathered Serpent that according to the Popol Vuh created the world and humanity, together with the god Tepeu. It carried the sun across the sky and down into the underworld and acted as a mediator between the various powers in the Maya cosmos. It is considered to be the equivalent of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and of Kukulkan, of the Yucatec Maya.
Cipactli was the first day of the Aztec divinatory count of 13 X 20 days and Cipactonal "Sign of Cipactli" was considered to have been the first diviner. In Aztec cosmology, the crocodile symbolized the earth floating in the primeval waters. According to one Aztec tradition, Teocipactli "Divine Crocodile" was the name of a survivor of the flood who rescued himself in a canoe and again repopulated the earth. In the Mixtec Vienna Codex, Crocodile is a day associated with dynastic beginnings.
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.
In the Late Post-Classic Maya mythology of the Popol Vuh, Camazotz is a bat spirit at the service of the lords of the underworld. Camazotz means "death bat" in the Kʼicheʼ language. In Mesoamerica generally, the bat is often associated with night, death, and sacrifice.
Popol Vuh is a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people of Guatemala, one of the Maya peoples who also inhabit the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo, as well as areas of Belize, Honduras and El Salvador.
Kʼicheʼ are Indigenous peoples of the Americas and are one of the Maya peoples. The eponymous Kʼicheʼ language is a Mesoamerican language in the Mayan language family. The highland Kʼicheʼ states in the pre-Columbian era are associated with the ancient Maya civilization, and reached the peak of their power and influence during the Mayan Postclassic period.
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.
Xquic is a mythological figure known from the 16th century Kʼicheʼ manuscript Popol Vuh. She was the daughter of one of the lords of Xibalba, called Cuchumaquic, Xibalba being the Maya underworld. Noted particularly for being the mother of the Maya Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, she is sometimes considered to be the Maya goddess associated with the waning moon. However, there is no evidence for this in the Popol Vuh text itself.
Popol Vuh were a German musical collective founded by keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Frank Fiedler, Holger Trülzsch (percussion), and Bettina Fricke. Other important members during the next two decades included Djong Yun, Renate Knaup, Conny Veit, Daniel Fichelscher, Klaus Wiese, and Robert Eliscu. The band took its name from the Mayan manuscript containing the mythology of highland Guatemala's K'iche' people.
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 Maya 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.
Vucub-Caquix is the name of a bird demon defeated by the Hero Twins of a Kʼicheʼ-Maya myth preserved in an 18th-century document, entitled ʼPopol Vuhʼ. The episode of the demon's defeat was already known in the Late Preclassic Period, before the year 200 AD. He was also the father of Zipacna, an underworld demon deity, and Cabrakan, the Earthquake God.
The traditional Mayas generally assume the Moon to be female, and the Moon's perceived phases are accordingly conceived as the stages of a woman's life. The Maya moon goddess wields great influence in many areas. Being in the image of a woman, she is associated with sexuality and procreation, fertility and growth, not only of human beings, but also of the vegetation and the crops. Since growth can also cause all sorts of ailments, the moon goddess is also a goddess of disease. Everywhere in Mesoamerica, including the Mayan area, she is specifically associated with water, be it wells, rainfall, or the rainy season. In the codices, she has a terrestrial counterpart in goddess I.
The pre-Columbian Maya religion knew various jaguar gods, in addition to jaguar demi-gods, (ancestral) protectors, and transformers. The main jaguar deities are discussed below. Their associated narratives are still largely to be reconstructed. Lacandon and Tzotzil-Tzeltal oral tradition are particularly rich in jaguar lore.
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 Diego de 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.
Many Mesoamerican flood myths have been documented in written form or passed down through in oral tradition. Some clearly have Torah influences, but others are believed by scholars to represent native flood myths of pre-Columbian origin.
Mesoamerican cosmovision or cosmology is the collection of worldviews shared by the Indigenous pre-Columbian societies of Mesoamerica. The cosmovision of these societies was reflected in the ways in which they were organized, such as in their built environment and social hierarchies, as well as in their epistemologies and ontologies, including an understanding of their place within the cosmos or universe. Elements of Mesoamerican cosmovision are reflected in pre-Columbian textual sources, such as the Popol Vuh and the Cuauhtinchan maps, the archeological record, as well as in the contemporary beliefs, values, and practices of Indigenous people, such as the Maya, Nahua, and Purépecha, as well as their descendants. It has been argued that the Day of the Dead ceremony exists as a legacy of Mesoamerican cosmovision.
Cabrakan was a Maya god of earthquakes and mountains. Cabrakan is a son of Vucub-Caquix and the brother of Zipacna. He serves as a minor character in the Popol Vuh, where the Maya Hero Twins defeat him.
