Essay On Mayan Culture

Sander Langfeldt
Mr. Roley
Reading and Language Arts
28 April 2014
Mayan Culture (religion)
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.
The Mayan people sacrificed a lot of animals and people. (As say in latinamericanhistory, .) To the Maya, death and sacrifice were spiritually linked to the concepts of creation and rebirth. In the secretary book of the Maya, the two twins Hunahpú and Xbalanque had to visit the underworld before they could be reborn again. Also in the book, it states that the god Tohil asked the Mayans for sacrifices in exchange for fire and heat (sun). The sacrifices often meant a beginning of a new era, and an election of a new king or a new calendar cycle. Captive kings and rulers were often highly prized sacrifices. A captured king was sacrificed only for a holy ceremonial festival. Another aspect of Maya blood sacrifice involved ritual bloodletting. In the Popol Vuh, the first Maya king offer blood to the gods Hacavitz, Avilix and Tohil. Maya, kings and lords would pierce their flesh – generally, lips, ears or tongues – with sharp objects such as stingray spines.
These offerings were made for the gods, temple consecration, the rise of a new leader and during natural disturbances such as drought and disease. They used animals like deer, dogs, jaguars and birds as offering. They cut the bird’s head of an...

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...th a reptile shaped body with a long nose, sometimes with a tear coming out of his eye. There is a sun god called Kinich Ahau. Kinich ahau is the main god in the city Itzamal, it says that he visited the city at noon every day. Kinich is usually shown with a jaguar feature. He also wears the symbol of Kin a Mayan day.
The Mayans were a great powerful group of people that followed what they believed in, build big beautiful temples. The Maya build a big temple inside the big jungle of southern Mexico. The temple is so big that you can see it from high in the sky. You can still see the temple today, but the temple lays in ruins because of the thick jungle that have grown over it. At that temple, they sacrificed people for the gods. If the Mayans had died out because of all the desices the Spanish brought we could have learned more about them.