Mayan Beliefs

507 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: 3 religious beliefs of maya

The mayans established a government.Some people believed they had god like rulers.However, they had kings and nobles.Sometimes they had women rulers.The kings and nobles lived inside the city in large stone palaces.The kings and nobles had everything provided for them.To go along with that they had slaves that carried them wherever they wanted to go. The mayans practiced a religion with many gods.The Mayans worshiped in temples and pyramids.A few of their gods names were Kisim,Chak,Hun Hunahpu,and Huracan.Kisim was the god of death and decay.Chak was he god said to rule the rain.Hun Hunahpu was the corn god.The god know as Huracan was believed to be the creator of earth.Huracan is also referred to as the heart of the sky or the heart of …show more content…

The Mayans had many crops that they traded.A few of the crops that they grew and traded were corn,peppers,sweet potatoes,avocados,and tomatoes.They also grew garlic and onions.They had livestock,and their livestock consisted of dogs,ducks, and turkeys.Aside from livestock they got food from hunting and fishing.The animals they they hunted were deer and wild pig. The mayans had many cities throughout Central America.The civilization was based around Mexico,Belize,El Salvador,and Honduras.some of their cities were Tikal,Dos Pilas,Caracol,and Calakmul.Their buildings were pyramids, palaces,temples,and huts.They were founded in Mesoamerica and did not have a founder. The mayans died out because of two different reasons.The Mayans civilization was founded in two 250 and lasted more than two thousand years.Although explorers and researchers have a good idea we don’t really know how they died out.Some people believe they died out from war,others believe they died out because of a

Show More
Related

  • Maya And Aztecs Compare And Contrast Essay

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    They were militaristic people, always ready to wage war on neighboring regions to earn and demand respect. The emperor, being a powerful king, was the one who would declare war. When Aztecs went to war it was to capture prisoners and pay tribute to their gods. Many young Aztec boys believed becoming a warrior was a glorified position and would enlist with great pride. Aztec warriors lived by the sword, and died for it. Capturing a prisoner was part of the initiation of becoming a warrior. The more prisoners the warriors caught, the more they were rewarded with land, and social rank. Similarly, Maya warriors could also move upward in rank and class through service in the military. The difference between the Aztec and the Maya military was that the Aztec military was led by their powerful emperor, whereas each Maya city-state had their own military which was led by a military leader, the halach uinic. The military leader not only controlled the city-states government but also had religious control over them. Maya city-states would fight one other for destruction of rival states, for dominance and to capture prisoners for sacrificing. The capturing of high-ranking officials were considered a priority and sacrificed immediately as supreme offerings to the gods, whereas commoners were forced into slavery, publicly humiliated, and weren 't sacrificed until one was needed. The Aztecs and the Mayas both

    Read More

  • The Mayans of Mesoamerica

    739 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Mayan hunters pursued large game like jaguars, wild boars, and snow leopards as well as small game like hares, rabbits, and squirrels. The three animals that seem to be the most prevalent in Mayan writings are the deer, iguana, and the quetzal bird. This has led archeologists to believe that these animals must have been more than just a food source. It is believed that the quetzal bird was not killed but only captured. While it was captured, they would pluck the feathers from it because they were considered very valuable. The Maya viewed hunting as more than just a food source, similar to the other native peoples we have studied. They had certain rituals t...

    Read More

  • Mayans

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mayan architectural achievements were remarkable, given the difficulties brought on by fragile soil, dense forest, and a harsh tropical climate. During the Classic period (250-900 A.D.), the largest Mayan cities had populations in excess of 50,000 people. These high populations required them to practice more intensive agriculture, instead of the typical slash-and-burn.

    Read More

  • Essay On Mayan Culture

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    When people think of the Mayans, they think of people that live in the deep, dark jungle. People are wrong. The Mayans are a smart group of people that lived in a big city on the top of the mountain. Their culture was centered on their belief in many gods. The ancient Maya were religious people that enjoyed practicing their religion by using sacrifices, sport and a strong belief in the afterlife.

    Read More

  • Mesoamerican Civilization Essay

    1254 Words  | 3 Pages

    It was the sacred duty and responsibility of the ruler to feed the gods with their own blood. They believed their rulers had the power to pass in and out body to the spirit world and acted as messengers to the celestial world. [109] Geographically, the Maya were formed individually as independent city-states. They used a government structure that allowed their individual rulers a great deal of individual governance within their own municipalities, instead of a strong centralized governing structure ruled by an emperor or empress. The Maya civilization wasn't a single unified empire, but were instead a multitude of separate entities that shared a common cultural background.

    Read More

  • Early Maya Civilization

    1389 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fish, meat from hunting and other gathered foods still made up for the majority of their diet.[3] The Maya at Cuello subsisted primarily on shell fish, deer, several small mammals, corn, beans, squash and a variety of other plants. So even though these Maya settlements had transitioned into early preclassical agriculture, they retained a degree of their archaic hunter-gathering practices.

    Read More

  • Maya: Death and Afterlife Beliefs

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Mayans worshipped a number of Gods and Goddess: their foremost god, Itzam Na "incorporated in himself the aspects of many other gods: not only creation b...

    Read More

  • Olmec Influence On The Mayans

    159 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Maya built their civilization in part on ideas they inherited from a people called the Olmec. The Olmec lived in the jungle areas on the east coast of Mexico. Their civilization reached its peak between 1200 and 500 B.C.E.

    Read More

  • Mayan Religion

    1535 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...nt crops like maize. Religious officials and their roles in Mayan society reflect on how seriously the Mayans took religion and how organized it was. Ceremonies, such as sacrifices, are evidence of how the Mayans honored their gods and how they believed the world worked. All are important to understanding Mayan religion.

    Read More

  • The Maya Civilization

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Mayan culture can be traced back to 1500 BC, entering the Classic period about 300 AD and flourishing between 600 and 900 AD. The basis of the culture was farming. They cultivated food crops such as maize (corn), beans, squash, and chili peppers. They also cultivated cash crops such as cotton and cacao (Palfrey 1). Maize was the principal food of the Mayas and maize production was the central economic activity. The Mayas, forced to cultivate in a tropical rain forest, used slash and burn agriculture. The growth is so rapid in the rain forest that the nutrients provided by dead plants and animal feces get used very quickly. This causes the soil to be unfertile within a few years. The Mayans would then have to use new land. Because of this, the Mayans required huge amounts of land to feed their people. The population, throughout the Classic period, remained small. Slash and burn agriculture is also labor intensive. It required the people to spend an average of 190 days in agricultural work (Hooker 4). Despite the difficulty of this labor, the remainder of the year was used to build ...

    Read More

  • Mayan Landforms

    449 Words  | 1 Pages

    There were four main classes for the Mayan. There was the ruling class of nobles or kings who controlled land. Next there were scholars and merchants. The broadest class were the peasants who were farmers and fishers. At the bottom were slaves who were usually war captives. The person who controlled everyone, even the kings was the emperor. The emperor had complete control over everything and everyone.

    Read More

  • The Mayans

    599 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Mayan way of life revolved their religion. They had a polytheistic religion praising many gods. Each god had a certain thing that they would rule over or take care of. Chac was the god of rain, Kinich Ahau was the sun god, and Yum Cimil was the god of the underworld. There were many gods and goddess for almost every reason one could think of, there is even a goddess of suicide. They would perform human sacrifices, bleeding rituals, and dances to praise and to please the gods and goddess. They also believe that there were two levels in life. The first is the current state of life. The second would be a spiritual life with the gods, souls of ancestors, and other supernatural creatures. There were many ceremonies. One was the Pok-a-tok. This was when they would take a rubber ball, about the size of a basketball, and bat it back and forth in a walled court.

    Read More

  • Ancient Mayan Civilization

    785 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Mayans were a very religious people. They believed in many gods. All events centred around religious beliefs. They wanted to stay in favour of the gods. In their belief system, the gods would bring the rain, heal the sick, bring plentiful harvests, and ensure the health and safety of the people if they were honoured.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Astronomy In Mayan Times

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    There regular daily activities included hunting, fishing and food collecting. They used slash and burn to help them grow plants, and slash and burn is when they cut down trees, burnt them and then planted the ashes and let more trees grow. At the beginning of Mayan civilisation there were not very many colonial activities, so family-related groups shared culture, language and territory. They also had class groups which were based on wealth, they had a class system including upper, middle and lower classes. They also had servants which would have been classed in the lower class and been asked to serve for people in the upper

    Read More

  • Mayan Geography

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some Mayan civilizations were located in Southern Mexico, Guatemala and northern Brazil mountainous region (“Maya Mountains”). The mountains isolated parts of Meso-America and resulted in the formation of separate city states. The city states were very similar because they influenced each other and they used the same calendar and lived in the same region but controlled by different kings ( Shuter 5). Other Mayan civilization were located in rainforest regions. The people that lived in the rainforest were hunters and farmers so they had to cut down trees and burn the underground in order to plant crops for food (“Ancient Maya and Aztec Civilizations...

    Read More

More about Mayan Beliefs

Open Document