ILLUSTRATIONS: Danyael Lopes
Discover the pantheon of this important Central American culture.
ITZAMNA
He was the god of the skies, day and night, helping humanity with his healing powers. For the Mayans, he was the inventor of writing, the calendar and the creator of religious rituals. Despite his status, his portrayal was not very impressive: a toothless old man with a crooked nose!
IXCHEL
Wife of Itzamna, Ixchel was an elderly goddess of great power. Goddess of childbirth, pregnancy and fertility, Ixchel was the protector of weavers and could predict the future. But she also had a dark side. With serpents in place of hair, the goddess showed her dissatisfaction by shaking the snakes
TOHIL
The god of fire and sacrifice. According to the Mayan creation myth, the first age of mankind came to an end under much fire and water. At the beginning of the second era, the ancestors of humans first encountered Tohil in a place called «the seven caves».
CHAC
He was the god of rain, represented by a warrior whose tears fall to the earth. The rains helped the crops and Chac became the god of agriculture. He was worshiped as four different entities – each representing one of the cardinal points.
PAUAHTUN
He was the god of the heavens and upheld the firmament. Despite his important role, Pauahtun had a reputation for being drunk and unstable, linked to winds and thunder. He was depicted with a shell or a tortoise shell. For the Mayans, the sky was shaped like a shell!
KINICH-AHAU
One of the sun gods, he took on different forms. By day, he was a firebird. At night, he walked in the underworld of the dead, Xibalba, like a jaguar, a feline feared and at the same time admired by the Mayans. Kinich-Ahau was one of the governors of Xibalba
AH PUCH
With his bones exposed, the god of death was unmistakable. According to the Popol Vuh, the sacred writings of the Maya, their symbols were also typical: a skull and the head of a corpse. Ah Puch prowled the homes of the sick to capture their souls.
VUCUB CAQUIX
It was a monstrous bird and one of the demon gods of Xibalba. Arrogant, he considered himself the sun, moon and light. He competed with the «good» gods for the place of main leader of the pantheon. Vucub ended up defeated by the twin heroes because of his behavior.
HUN HUNAHPU
Born as a human, but thanks to interaction with the gods, he ended up becoming a deity. He and his brother, Vucub Hunahpu, were challenged to a ball game in the realm of the dead. As soon as they arrived, they were murdered. Revenge was on account of his twin sons, Hunahpu and Xbalanque
HUN BATZ AND HUN CHOUEN
They were human and became gods associated with artistic activities. The eldest sons of Hun Hunahpu were artists and depended on the youngest, the twins, to hunt. The youngest didn’t like it and ended up trapping them in a magic tree. There, they turned into monkeys in order to descend.
HUNAHPU AND XBALANQUE
The “hero twins” have human origins and later became gods. With the death of the father, they went to the underworld for the “return game”. After the match, they cut themselves into pieces and reformed again. The gods wanted to do the same. The twins tore them apart but didn’t put them back together.
FROM CORN TO MAN
Humans were created to keep company with superiors
The Mayan creation gods decided to spawn a race of worshipers for company. They raised the animals, but when they saw that they didn’t have a voice, they sent the animals to the jungles. The gods then created man, first of mud, but he dissolved. They fashioned a man out of wood, but he had no soul. Enraged, the gods destroyed the world with rain and fire. In a last attempt, more creator gods got together and made man out of cornmeal. Finally it worked and the Mayans came to believe that corn was the raw material for their formation.
DEATH IS THE LESS
Dead go to dark underground realm and undergo trials
In Mayan mythology, the dead went to the underground realm of Xibalba, the «place of fear». Their entry points, called cenotes, were caves or small lakes. Although there are paradises in areas within Xibalba, what marked the subterranean realm were ten demonic gods (among them, Kinich-Ahau), associated with human suffering. When they arrived in Xibalba, the dead were not judged, as in other cultures, but underwent trials and tests, such as rivers of blood, fire, cold, bats and leopards.
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