The Mayas Lifestyle

The Mayas Lifestyle

The Life of the Ancient Maya’s

The Maya’s were an ancient civilization that faced many difficult tasks in their everyday lives that needed to be completed in order for survival. The Mayan tribes existed from about 400 BC until around 1524 when they were taken over by the Spanish conquistadors (Sharer p.3). They occupied three separate areas of land.

The Southern area covers present day Guatemala. The central area stretched from what is now Tabasco to northern Guatemala. Finally the central region makes up a lot of the southern portion of Mexico (Coe p.31). The Maya’s believed that the universe was not the first, but the 7th. Floods destroyed all the other worlds. This one began on 4 Ahaw 8 Kumk’u 13.0.0.0.0 or August 13, 3,114. They predicted that the great flood would come on December 23rd, 2012 (Coe p.201)

The roles in the families were pretty simple. Son’s were expected to follow in their father’s footsteps, but did not have to. The only exception was priests. If your father was a priest you had to be a priest. Girls were taught and educated by their mothers. They were all raised to take care of the house and the children (Coe p.209). The men and boys lived in one house while girls and women lived in another. Boys were taught the arts of war and learned about jobs while the women taught the girls to sew and cook (Coe p.195).

The weather was humid and dry. The men usually wore a cloth around their waist. More elite men dressed in robes tying from their shoulders down to their kneecaps (Laughton p.37). These robes also contained elaborate designs. The women dressed in dresses that wrapped around their shoulders almost like a toga (Sharer p.103).

Until women were marr...

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...ety men were treated much differently then the rest of the people. They were cremated then their ashes were put in a clay pot then they built temples over their urns (Coe p.196). Women were not treated the same as men. They sometimes were just buried as is with a small stone to mark their death (Coe p.197).

The Maya’s were a very educated and intelligent tribe. They managed to live their lives with as little amount as trouble as possible. There was always a way for the Maya’s to find a new way to make life easier to survive.

Bibliography:

Coe, Michael The Maya. New York: Miller & Steven’s, 1999

Laughton, Timothy The Maya Life, Myth & Art. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1998

Sharer, Robert J. Daily Life in Maya Civilization. New York: Robertson,1996

Thompson, Michael P. The Rise & Fall of the Maya’s. California: Weinstien & Co., 1993