Y2kk Update (2000): "This religion presentation brings back a lot of bad memories. Overall, the presentation went just swell. My teacher complimented me on my use of the black-board, which I forced myself to draw on when people couldn't understand what I was talking about. The problem arose when I got my mark back; I was in a group, and knowing what their work habits are, my teacher deducted marks because I must've put a lot more work into this project than my other group members. And that wasn't true: I did do more research, but a lot of it was useless, and I tried to base this article on everything my partners gave to me. However, in the presentation, I don't think I ever did shut up. I just kept on talking, and talking, and Przemek next to me wondered when I would shut the hell up. I kept stressing the cool facts I found out, while leaving my two partners looking like they did nothing. I showed off, and at the time I didn't realize it. Does that make me innocent? In a way, but now I just feel guilty."

Many people today continue to believe that Christoper Columbus was the first person to ever discover the continents of America. But in fact, Columbus was greeted by numerous aboriginal tribes of the Central Americas as soon as he set foot in the West Indies. One of these tribes were the Mayans. At the time of Columbus’ arrival, the Mayans were merely a satellite kingdom in the vast empire of the Aztecs. However, 19^th and 20^th century archaeological findings have shed enormous light on the history of the Mayan civilization. The Mayans had actually been the dominant force in Central America for nearly 3000 years prior to their sudden collapse. They were a docile people forced to turn savage to survive, one of the founders of all of ancient Central American religious beliefs, and were creators of the greatest architectural structures of the ancient world since the collapse of the Egyptian empire.

Circa 20 000 BCE, nomadic Mongolians had crossed the frozen Bering Land Strait into the continent known as North America. Many of the Mongolian tribes decided to create a new life for themselves throughout the coastlines of the St. Lawrence River, Pacific Ocean, and Atlantic Ocean. However, a peaceful and tranquil tribe ventured even further south than their cousins, and set up camp in the tropical region known to the modern world as Central America. However, until the rise of the Aztecs, Central America had been given a different name by it’s inhabitants: it was known as the land of the Mayans. Upon their arrival in Guatemala and southern Mexico, the nomadic Mongolians had divided into two separate sects: the Olmec and the Mayans. Both tribes had already began cultivating their land and producing agriculture by the year 2000 BCE, but by 1200 BCE (in what is known as the Preclassic Period), the Olmec had risen to power, "dominating trade routes that extended from the modern Mexican state of Guerrero to Costa Rica" ("Mayan", Grolier). By 1000 BCE, the Mayans adopted the Olmec religion and imitated Olmec styles of pottery and religious symbols. This emulation of the Olmec civilization drew the two tribes closer and closer together until the point where the two tribes had actually merged into one huge tribe who called themselves the Mayans. By the Middle Preclassic Period (900-300 BCE), the Mayans grew to become arguably the most powerful and technologically advanced tribe of all of the American continents (up until the arrival of the Europeans) through their intensive farming and sophisticated aqueduct systems. These two factors helped fuel the Mayan population explosion of the Late Preclassic Period (300 BCE- 300 CE).

However, by 250 CE, the benevolent Mayans slowly took a turn for the worse. Several barbaric tribes who had a thirst for conquest had migrated from the north to the south. It was during this era known as the Classic Period that the Mayans adopted a government system completely controlled by a divine king who was called the Mah Kina. This age of tyranny was followed by the dark age of the Mayans which historians have called the "hiatus", "when few dated works of art or buildings were made" ("Mayans", Grolier). However, by 600 CE during the Early Classic Period, the Mayans managed to retake control of Central America through warlike measures. This golden age of the Mayans included vast achievements in the fields of art, architecture, and literature, while the total population of the empire escalated to an incredible 2 million. For centuries, the Mayans ruled with an iron fist over their conquered territory. However, by the end of the Late Classic period circa 900 CE, it became apparent that there were simply too many tribes within the Mayan empire to be adequately oppressed. Not only were the Mayans now faced with a massive insurrection, but also suffered from "famine, foreign invasion, chronic warfare, and perhaps disease, an era ended in what is generally called the Classic Maya collapse" ("Mayan", Grolier). The mammoth Mayan civilization soon shrunk small enough to be contained within one city, the city of Chichen Itza. The true Mayan civilization finally ended during the middle of the 15^th century CE when Chichen Itza fell to an uprising by it’s own people. By the time that Christopher Columbus finally arrived, the Mayans were as disorganized and powerless as the first day that they arrived in Central America.

Shared Beliefs

Although the Mayans civilization itself had collapsed, their values and shared beliefs lived on within their successors to the rule of Central America: the Toltecs and the Aztecs. Therefore, one can call the Aztecs the spiritual descendants of the Mayans. Religion was the sole purpose and focus in the life of a Mayan, which was a philosophy proven to be very similar to that of the ancient Egyptians. But before I begin reciting the famed myths of Mayan legends, I must point out that many of the following fables are actually from Aztec sources. However, these stories differ only slightly from their parent tales that were created by the Mayans.

The Mayans were an agricultural people who worshipped the fertile land that they walked on. They regarded the soil so highly that they even attributed the creation of all of humanity to the land. In other words, the Mayans regarded and respected the earth as highly as one regards their own mother. According to the Aztec myth, The Emergence of Ancestors, "from Colhuacan (ancestor place), from Chicomoztec (7 cave place), from Quineuhyan (emergence place)" and from the very ground that we stand on, humans simply sprung up from the mud like daisies in the spring (Bierhorst 67). The humans left the cave Chicomoztec (the cave where the Aztecs and Mayans emerged from) and wandered in the wilderness for 13 years until they parted ways and formed the tribes of the earth. Furthermore, the Mayans not only worshipped the land for it’s abundant crops, but also respected it as a sentient, personified being. Nearly all of the tribes of Central America, including the Mayans, believe that Mother Earth feeds on dead, human bodies as vengeance for crimes committed against her. Some tribes believe that it was humans who hurt or killed mother nature, while others believe that it was the gods who gave mother nature her lust for revenge. Nevertheless, the central idea of an angry earth originated with the Mayan culture, who in fear of Mother Earth’s retribution, prayed to the gods to alleviate the earth’s anger and bring forth a good harvest.

However, the earth is not the only factor that attributed to the Mayan’s agricultural success. Central America is in the middle of a large rainforest. Therefore, the Mayans were compelled to worship the gods of weather to annually yield plentiful crops. One such example of this is the Mayan myth of the discovery of corn, which is entitled, The Hidden Corn. It begins with a hungry fox who eagerly searches for food. He comes across a colony of ants who carry white kernels of a type of food never seen before. The fox manages to taste a few of the kernels that the ants drop, and is tantalized by the sweetness of the food. He followed the kernel-carrying ants to the side of a mountain. The mountain was full of white corn, but the opening into the hill was only small enough for an ant to crawl through. So the fox was forced to eat the few kernels of white corn that the ants would give him each day. Eventually, other animals of the world learned of the white kernels and before long, the entire side of the mountain was cluttered by animals with mouths salivating to be fed. The ants grew tiresome of being the slaves of countless species, and refused to give out any corn to any creature at all. As soon as humans got word of the forbidden white kernels, they immediately asked the 4 mams (thunder-gods) to break open the mountain with their lightning bolts. The younger 3 mams could not split open the mountain, despite their control over all of the world’s atmospheric abilities. However, the elder mam, Yaluk, had a an ingenious and wise plan. He used a woodpecker to find the weakest spot in the mountain summit and struck it with a single bolt of lightning. The entire peak of the mountain burst apart, burning the white corn into yellow and red colours. From that day forth, corn became one of the most important crops for the entire Mayan and Central American civilizations, and in thanks, the rain and thunder gods were worshipped even more intensely by the ancient Mayans, than the amount of reverence that the Mayan creator gods ever received.

However, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. The rain and thunder of the sky gods may have been the source for all life and agriculture in Central America, but according to myths, also proved to be the destruction of all of ancient Mayan civilization. Actually, the Mayans’ hieroglyphic records claim that humanity has already been destroyed as many as four times before, with each succeeding race superior than the previous ones and more similar to the true image of their gods. According to the Yucatec, one of the twenty plus tribes that made up the ancient Mayan empire, the first humans to exist on earth were a race of dwarves who called themselves the Adjusters. The Adjusters, unfortunately, were savage and animal-like. They managed to build huge pyramids in an attempt to please the gods, but it wasn’t enough. The gods had become disappointed in their creation’s lack of skill and proper worship, and so they sent forth a great flood that turned all of the humans into mere dragonflies and fish. The second age was ruled by a taller race of humans known as the Offenders. However, since they were made from the mud of the earth, the Offenders could not reproduce and were called a failure. One of the Mayan gods chose to rise high in the sky and turned into the Sun. The Sun dried out all of the humans, and when the Sun finally set, the stones and rocks of the land became Jaguars who ate the mud humans until there were none left. The third age was known as the Immersing, and was dominated by the Yucatec and the modern day Mayans. This era was also known as the rain age, and for good reason. Some tribes believed that the original Yucatec were flooded as well until only a few survived. However, most tribes believe in the myth that the Yucatec were at first created by wood. The gods soon became displeased with their new creations, and sent a rainstorm of fire, coal, and molten lava to burn the humans to ashes. The fourth age was dominated by the ancestors of the Yucatec. However this time, the humans were made out of corn, the food of the gods. However, for reasons that even the modern Mayans of today are not sure about, the Yucatec made of corn eventually faded out of existence. Some tribes believe that the fourth age was the age of the wind storm, in which a great hurricane blew away the humans and turned them into monkeys. However, historians strongly propose that the Mayans’ sudden collapse was due to constant warfare, rebellion, drought, and the cutting down of rainforests. According to the modern Mayans, humanity has now entered it’s fifth age, the age of movement, the age of the end of the Sun. Supposedly, our existence will end after the Mayans’ prophesized 676 year cycle is complete. According to ancient Aztec records, the end of the fourth age would take place in the 16^th century... which is exactly the period when the Aztecs came to power and the Spanish arrived.

No religion would be complete without the concept of the afterlife. All of the Central American tribes, including the Aztecs, adopted their philosophy of a multi-leveled universe from the Mayans. The Mayans believed in a cosmos that contained three basic layers: the "underworld, the earth’s surface, and sky world" (Bierhorst 150). The Mayans believed that there were 13 levels within the sky world, each plane smaller than the one below. In other words, the Mayans believed the universe to be flat, and the levels of the universe end up forming a step pyramid. However, unlike the Egyptians, the Mayans did not believe that one must climb the stars of the universe to reach heaven. Instead, the Mayans thought that there was a hole in each level of the cosmic pyramid in which a huge Ceiba tree grew through. The dead were forced to climb the tree to the heavens as their test to enter into the afterlife alongside their creator god, Chac. The Mayans also believed in reincarnation. They believed that a selected few people would rise from the dead as birds, butterflies, and moths, and would stay on earth until burned or eaten. Although the Mayans did not believe that their bodies would rise from the dead as the Egyptians believed, the Mayans, however, did bury their dead in tombs along with the person’s most valued possessions. The Mayans believed that the artifacts they left in their grave would eventually join the dead in the afterlife, which is why the Mayans also put mummified dogs into their tombs. Contrasting the Egyptian notion that cats were the spiritual creatures on earth, the Mayans believed that dogs were guardians of the afterlife, and the sacred mummification of a dog would allow the dead canine to help the deceased to their ultimate destination. Lastly, the Mayans believed that the universe was actually a huge crocodile known as the Celestial or Cosmic Monster. They believed that as fierce as the monster was, it’s long, snake-like body encircled and held together the contents of the cosmos and brought a state of harmony to the universe. The Mayans were a civilization built upon the knowledge and understanding of astronomy, which is why they based their afterlife on the fulfillment of the dream of joining the gods at the centre of our galaxy, or to the Mayans, join the gods at the pinnacle of the universe.

Worship and Community

As we just mentioned, the Mayans were a people that were both fascinated by religion and the study of the cosmos. Therefore, the science of astronomy in Mayan culture was essentially a form of worship and often involved religious gatherings of the community. The Mayans spent 3000 years perfecting and revising a solar calendar that is only a few minutes less accurate than the Gregorian calendar that is still used today. However, while the Gregorian calendar was completed in either the 14^th or 15^th century CE, the Mayan solar calendar had been nearly perfected before Jesus Christ was even born. What is also astonishing is the fact that despite lacking the technology of telescopes, the Mayans almost exactly measured the length of a Venusian year, the length of time that it takes Mars to rotate around the Sun, the length of a solar year for Jupiter, the duration of a year on Mercury, and the time it takes for the moon to complete a full rotation around the earth. Not only that, but the Mayans somehow could predict the exact dates and often the exact hour of solar and lunar eclipses, a feat that modern civilization, at times, have yet to completely master. Every 52 years of history would count to the Mayans as a full cycle of life. Every cycle was celebrated through fantastic festivals around the Mayan pyramids, while smaller festivals were dedicated to significant astronomical events such as the falling of shooting stars or meteor showers.

Unfortunately, not much is known about the Mayan festivals themselves. By 50 CE, the Mayans had become the first of the North or South American tribes to record history in writing. However, most of the Mayan books were burned by Catholic Spanish Missionaries who deemed the Mayan texts to be the bible of the devil. Unfortunately for historians as well, Mayan hieroglyphics were dedicated more to recalling the myths and the lives of nobles than for recording social history. Only five books are left to inform us of Mayan lifestyle, culture, festivals, and tradition: The Dresdan Codex, the Madud Codex, the Paris Codex, the Grolier Codex, and the Popul Vuh. However, from written records that were placed with the dead in their tombs, coupled with the historic facts that are passed on from generation to generation in the surviving Mayan tribes, historians have concluded that story-telling was a major factor in family lives. Each night the children would stay home and witness the telling or re-enactment of a myth by their parents, followed by a chanting to their ancestors. There is also evidence that a central part of the Mayan festivities were the story-telling by high priests of myths to large audiences, similar to Jesus’ teachings of parables to large crowds.

Although there is very limited amount of records left that depict the Mayan lifestyle for peasants and farmers, the walls of Mayan palaces and pyramids are covered with hieroglyphics recalling war efforts and barbaric traditions. The warrior-like Mayan civilization of the Classic Period was built upon the principle that the soldiers were going to war because their gods commanded them to. The Mayan crowds would gather around Mah Kina’s (Mayan King’s) palace until he was seen high on the building’s summit wearing a head dress full of feathers while holding a scepter of a two-headed crocodile. After communicating with the gods through the use of hallucinogenic drugs, the Mah Kina would take an obsidian (pitch-black) blade and cut a hole in his body. The king would then draw a rope through the wound, raise his bloodstained hand, and shout out to his anxious subjects: "Prepare to go to war!" . The Mayans also sacrificed enemy prisoners of war to the Mayan gods. In fact, the ritual to crown a new Mah Kina required the future king to capture an adversarial soldier himself, who would be sacrificed at an alter to finalize the king’s inauguration ceremony. Not only was the sacrifice of human blood a sacred ritual used for formal sacraments, but was a source of entertainment at religious festivals as well. At special occasions, the Mah Kina would either do a sacrifice of captured slaves in front of a colossal crowd, or preside over a ball game. It is not clear of what exactly a ball game was in Mayan civilization, although the penalty for losing is very dominant in ancient Mayan records. The losers of the game would be tied to a massive ball and bounced down the stairs of 200 ft tall of higher pyramid until they were dead.

The pyramids may have been used as a source of entertainment at times, but were mainly used as centres of worship in the Mayan communities. The Mayan pyramids have been compared to the greatness of the Egyptian Step Pyramid at Dashur that was built in 2686 BCE, despite the fact that the Mayan pyramids were built nearly 3000 years later. The Mayans possessed no known metal tools, and thus must have used stones to carve each individual black of the pyramid out of solid rock. Not only did the Mayans construct huge buildings using stone age implements, but built many more pyramids than even the Egyptians. The ancient Mayan city of Cholula houses more than 400 pyramids alone. The largest of these pyramids, known as the Pyramid of Cholula, is over 200 ft high. Actually, it was four pyramids built on top of each over a span of at least 40 years. Compared to the 481 ft height of the Great Pyramid belonging to the Pharaoh Khufu of the Egyptian empire, the Mayan pyramid at Cholula may not seem very imposing. However, while the overall height of the Mayan pyramid is half of that of the Great Pyramid, it’s base is over 4.3 million cubic yards, compared to only 3.36 million cubic yards for the Pyramid of Khufu. In other words, it takes about 40 minutes to walk around the base of the largest pyramid in Egypt, and over an hour to march around the Pyramid of Cholula. Because of the limits of Mayan technology, "thousands of people must have been involved in building such a huge structure, under the command of a priestly caste which exercised complete power" (Hawkes 42). It was the duty of each peasant to dedicate as many as 150 days of the year to assist in the construction of the Mayan stairways to heaven. The public complied with their daunting task in hope that one day, one of their pyramids would rise high enough to reach heaven and bring the gods back to earth.

Religion was also such of a huge factor in public life that entire cities were dedicated to the worship of the celestial gods. In fact, historians believe that the last powerful Mayan city, Chichen Itza, was actually an entire community devoted to the glory of the gods. Chichen was once littered with small pyramids that often were built with a four -story -high tower on top, which was most likely used for both astronomical purposes, and as guard towers. Many of the pyramids built in Chichen Itza contain the dead bodies of late Mayan nobility and priests, causing Chichen to appear as if it were a single, massive tomb dedicated to deliver the souls of the deceased to heaven. Jade ornaments are constantly found within the Mayan temples and beneath the soil. Jade was considered to be the jewel of the gods, and was believed to be even more important than gold. The tremendous amount of discovered Jade artifacts in Chichen seem to point out that Chichen Itza was used as a sacred place where thousands of Mayans would converge with their jade ornaments awaiting their turn to pay homage to the gods. Each temple was surrounded by an acre-sized plaza that housed dozens, if not hundreds of small buildings painted with religious murals. One mural was over 150 ft wide and depicted a ceremonial drinking that most likely celebrated the arrival of the rain gods and the sprouting of the harvest. Finally, nearly every wall of each of the temples, both internal and external, are completely covered in hieroglyphics that record both the ancient myths and the history of the entire Mayan civilization beginning from circa 50 CE. There was definitely something special about Chichen Itza. It was the last surviving centre of the juggernaut Mayan empire. To this day, it has managed to preserve the finest details of perhaps the greatest empire in the entire history of the ancient Americas, and if left undisturbed, will continue to do so well into the Mayan’s proposed sixth age, the age of the revival of the Sun and humanity.