Pantheon
Every entry the archive files to this pantheon, with the record for each shown as it stands.
84 entries
These three are recorded for the Maya pantheon as a whole. The archive holds no separate culture, civilization or period for the individual entries below.
Entries
Showing 1–84 of 84, alphabetically.
The Maya death gods known by a variety of names, are two basic types of death gods who are respectively represented by the 16th-century Yucatec deities Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau mentioned by Spanish Bishop Diego de Landa. Hunhau is the lord of the Underworld. Iconographically, Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau correspond to the Gods A and A' .
Acat was a deity in Maya mythology associated with the process of tattooing. The Maya placed great importance on the tattooing process, believing that tattoos in the image of a god would imbue a person with some of that god's power. Because of the importance and difficulty of this art form it was natural that this god would be prominent among the Maya.
In Maya mythology, Ah Peku (pek-ku) was a god of thunder.
Ah Muzen Cab is the Maya god of bees and honey. He is possibly the same figure as "the Descending God" or "the Diving God" and is consistently depicted upside-down. The Temple of the Descending God is located in Tulum.
An alux is a type of sprite or spirit in the mythological tradition of certain Maya peoples from the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize and Guatemala, also called Chanekeh or Chaneque by the Nahuatl people. Aluxo'ob are conceived of as being small, only about knee-high, and in appearance resembling miniature traditionally dressed Maya people. Tradition holds that aluxob are generally invisible but are able to assume physical form for purposes of communicating with and frightening humans as well as to congregate.
Ancient Maya graffiti are a little-studied area of folk art of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. Graffiti were incised into the stucco of interior walls, floors, and benches, in a wide variety of buildings, including pyramid-temples, residences, and storerooms. Graffiti have been recorded at over 50 Maya sites, particularly clustered in the Petén Basin and southern Campeche, and the Chenes region of northwestern Yucatán.
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.
Awilix was a goddess of the Postclassic Kʼicheʼ Maya, who had a large kingdom in the highlands of Guatemala. She was the patron deity of the Nijaʼibʼ noble lineage at the Kʼicheʼ capital Qʼumarkaj, with a large temple in the city. Awilix was a Moon goddess and a goddess of night, although some studies refer to the deity as male.
Bacab is the generic Yucatec Maya name for the four prehispanic aged deities of the interior of the Earth and its water deposits. The Bacabs have more recent counterparts in the lecherous, drunken old thunder deities of the Gulf Coast regions. The Bacabs are also referred to as Pawahtuns.
Bacab is the generic Yucatec Maya name for the four prehispanic aged deities of the interior of the Earth and its water deposits. The Bacabs have more recent counterparts in the lecherous, drunken old thunder deities of the Gulf Coast regions. The Bacabs are also referred to as Pawahtuns.
Balankanche is an ancient Maya cave site lying at short distance from the archaeological Maya-Toltec city of Chichen Itza, Yucatan. For more than two thousand years, it has been the focus of rituals dedicated to the Maya rain god, Chaac, and, in the Post-Classic period, also to his Toltec counterpart, Tlaloc. The cave complex was visited by Edward Thompson and Alfred Tozzer in 1905 and has since 1932 been explored and studied by various Mexican and US scholars.
Kʼawiil, in the Post-Classic codices corresponding to God K, is a Maya deity identified with power, creation, and lightning. He is characterized by a zoomorphic head, with large eyes, long, upturned snout and attenuated serpent foot. As a creator god, K'awiil usually has a torch, stone celt, or cigar coming out of his forehead that symbolizes the spark of life.
Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil was a Maya king of Dos Pilas. He is also known as Ruler 1, Flint Sky God K and Malah Chan Kʼawil.
In Maya mythology, Cabaguil was a solar god who assisted in the creation of human beings.
Cabrakan was a Maya god of earthquakes and mountains. Cabrakan is a son of Vucub-Caquix and the brother of Zipacna. He serves as a minor character in the Popol Vuh, where the Maya Hero Twins defeat him.
Cabrakan was a Maya god of earthquakes and mountains. Cabrakan is a son of Vucub-Caquix and the brother of Zipacna. He serves as a minor character in the Popol Vuh, where the Maya Hero Twins defeat him.
In the Late Post-Classic Maya mythology of the Popol Vuh, Camazotz is a bat spirit at the service of the lords of the underworld. Camazotz means "death bat" in the Kʼicheʼ language. In Mesoamerica generally, the bat is often associated with night, death, and sacrifice.
Chaac is the name of the Maya god of rain, thunder, and lightning. With his lightning axe, Chaac strikes the clouds, causing them to produce thunder and rain. Chaac corresponds to Tlaloc among the Aztecs and Cocijo among the Zapotecs.
Maya or Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with each other play the main roles. The mythology of the Pre-Spanish era has to be reconstructed from iconography and incidental hieroglyphic captions. Other parts of Mayan oral tradition are not considered here.
Vucub-Caquix is the name of a bird demon defeated by the Hero Twins of an ancient Maya myth preserved in an 18th-century K'iche' document, the ʼ'Popol Vuh'ʼ. The episode of the demon's defeat was already known by the end of the Mesoamerican Preclassic period, before the year 200, as represented in steles 2 and 25 at Izapa in Mexico, which is its earliest representation and the precedent of the story that was narrated in the Popol Vuh many centuries later. In his appearances, Vucub-Caquix is described as a demon bird and a false sun god with shining eyes that daily sat on a big tree to eat its fruits, he was also the father of Zipacna, an underworld demon deity, and Cabrakan, the Earthquake God.
Chin, together with Cu, Cavil, and Maran, is mentioned as the name of the male deity said to have demonstrated sexual intercourse with other male deities and humans.
Chin, together with Cu, Cavil, and Maran, is mentioned as the name of the male deity said to have demonstrated sexual intercourse with other male deities and humans.
In Maya mythology, Chriakan-Ixmucane was a creator goddess formed out of four earlier creator gods. She is one of the thirteen creator deities who helped construct humanity. Other Maya stories speak of another goddess with many of Chirakan-Ixmicane's attributes, who is called Ixcuiname.
Cizin is a Maya god of death and earthquakes. He is the most important Maya death god in the Maya culture. Scholars call him God A.
Cizin is a Maya god of death and earthquakes. He is the most important Maya death god in the Maya culture. Scholars call him God A.
A flood myth or a deluge myth is a narrative in which a great flood—usually sent by one or more deities—destroys civilization, typically as an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the floodwaters of these myths and the primordial cosmic ocean that appears in certain creation myths, because the floodwaters are described as a means of social cleansing or purifying humanity of its corruption, for example, in preparation for rebirth. Most flood myths also feature a culture hero who "represents the human craving for life".
Ek Chuah, also transliterated as Ek Chuaj and known as God M in the Schellhas-Zimmermann-Taube classification of codical gods, is a Postclassic Maya merchant deity and patron deity of cacao. Ek Chuah is part of a pantheon of Maya deities that have been depicted in hieroglyphs and artwork of various Maya sites and has been interpreted as a significant part of Maya religion.
Ek Chuah, also transliterated as Ek Chuaj and known as God M in the Schellhas-Zimmermann-Taube classification of codical gods, is a Postclassic Maya merchant deity and patron deity of cacao. Ek Chuah is part of a pantheon of Maya deities that have been depicted in hieroglyphs and artwork of various Maya sites and has been interpreted as a significant part of Maya religion.
The consumption of hallucinogenic plants as entheogens goes back to thousands of years. Psychoactive plants contain hallucinogenic particles that provoke an altered state of consciousness, which are known to have been used during spiritual rituals among cultures such as the Aztec, the Maya, and Inca. The Maya are indigenous people of Mexico and Central America that had significant access to hallucinogenic substances.
The Maya death gods known by a variety of names, are two basic types of death gods who are respectively represented by the 16th-century Yucatec deities Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau mentioned by Spanish Bishop Diego de Landa. Hunhau is the lord of the Underworld. Iconographically, Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau correspond to the Gods A and A' .
Kʼawiil, in the Post-Classic codices corresponding to God K, is a Maya deity identified with power, creation, and lightning. He is characterized by a zoomorphic head, with large eyes, long, upturned snout and attenuated serpent foot. As a creator god, K'awiil usually has a torch, stone celt, or cigar coming out of his forehead that symbolizes the spark of life.
God L of the Schellhas-Zimmermann-Taube classification of codical gods is one of the major pre-Spanish Maya deities, specifically associated with trade. Characterized by high age, he is one of the Mam ('Grandfather') deities. More specifically, he evinces jaguar traits, a broad feathery hat topped by an owl, and a jaguar mantle or a cape with a pattern somewhat resembling that of an armadillo shell.
Goddess I is the Taube's Schellhas-Zimmermann letter designation for one of the most important Maya deities: a youthful woman to whom considerable parts of the post-Classic codices are dedicated, and who equally figures in Classic Period scenes. Based on her representation in codical almanacs, she is considered to represent vital functions of the fertile woman, and to preside over eroticism, human procreation, and marriage. Her aged form is associated with weaving.
Ixchel or Ix Chel is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture.
Qʼuqʼumatz was a god of wind and rain of the Postclassic Kʼicheʼ Maya. It was the Feathered Serpent that according to the Popol Vuh created the world and humanity, together with the god Tepeu. It carried the sun across the sky and down into the underworld and acted as a mediator between the various powers in the Maya cosmos.
Qʼuqʼumatz was a god of wind and rain of the Postclassic Kʼicheʼ Maya. It was the Feathered Serpent that according to the Popol Vuh created the world and humanity, together with the god Tepeu. It carried the sun across the sky and down into the underworld and acted as a mediator between the various powers in the Maya cosmos.
Among the Classic Mayas, the howler monkey god was a major deity of the arts—including music—and a patron of the artisans, especially of the scribes and sculptors. As such, his sphere of influence overlapped with that of the Tonsured Maize God. The monkey patrons—there are often two of them—have been depicted on classical vases in the act of writing books and carving human heads.
Hunab Ku is a colonial period Yucatec Maya reducido term meaning "The One God". It is used in colonial, and more particularly in doctrinal texts, to refer to the Christian God. Since the word is found frequently in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, a syncretistic document heavily influenced by Christianity, it refers specifically to the Christian God as a translation into Maya of the Christian concept of one God, used to enculturate the previously polytheist Maya to the new religion.
Huracán, often referred to as U Kʼux Kaj, the "Heart of Sky", is a Kʼicheʼ Maya god of wind, storm, fire and one of the creator deities who participated in all three attempts at creating humanity. He also caused the Great Flood after the second generation of humans angered the gods. He supposedly lived in the windy mists above the floodwaters and repeatedly invoked "earth" until land came up from the seas.
Itzamná is, in Maya mythology, an upper god and creator deity thought to reside in the sky. Itzamná is one of the most important gods in the Classic and Postclassic Maya pantheon. Although little is known about him, scattered references are present in early-colonial Spanish reports (relaciones) and dictionaries.
Ixchel or Ix Chel is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture.
Ixchel or Ix Chel is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture.
In Maya mythology, Chriakan-Ixmucane was a creator goddess formed out of four earlier creator gods. She is one of the thirteen creator deities who helped construct humanity. Other Maya stories speak of another goddess with many of Chirakan-Ixmicane's attributes, who is called Ixcuiname.
Xmucane and Xpiacoc, alternatively Xumucane and Ixpiyacoc (Xpiyacoc), are the names of the divine grandparents of Maya mythology of the Kʼicheʼ people and the daykeepers of the Popol Vuh. They are considered to be the oldest diviners who are very close to the supreme creators of the Kʼicheʼ pantheon and are identified by a number of names throughout the text, reflecting their multiple roles throughout the Maya creation myth. They are usually mentioned together, although Xmucane seems to be alone during most of the interactions with the Maya Hero Twins, when she is referred to as simply "grandmother".
At the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán (1527–1546), Ix Tab or Ixtab was the indigenous Maya goddess of suicide by hanging. Playing the role of a psychopomp, she would accompany such suicides to heaven.
Jacawitz was a mountain god of the Postclassic Kʼicheʼ Maya of highland Guatemala. He was the patron of the Ajaw Kʼicheʼ lineage and was a companion of the sun god Tohil. It is likely that he received human sacrifice.
Kʼawiil, in the Post-Classic codices corresponding to God K, is a Maya deity identified with power, creation, and lightning. He is characterized by a zoomorphic head, with large eyes, long, upturned snout and attenuated serpent foot. As a creator god, K'awiil usually has a torch, stone celt, or cigar coming out of his forehead that symbolizes the spark of life.
Kinich Ahau is the 16th-century Yucatec name of the Maya sun god, designated as God G when referring to the codices. In the Classic period, God G is depicted as a middle-aged man with an aquiline nose, large square eyes, cross-eyed, and a filed incisor in the upper row of teeth. Usually, there is a k'in ('sun')-infix, sometimes in the very eyes.
Kukulkan, also spelled K’uk’ulkan, is the serpent deity of Maya mythology. It is closely related to the deity Qʼuqʼumatz of the Kʼicheʼ people and to Quetzalcoatl of Aztec mythology. Prominent temples to Kukulkan are found at archaeological sites in the Yucatán Peninsula, such as Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan.
Kukulkan, also spelled K’uk’ulkan, is the serpent deity of Maya mythology. It is closely related to the deity Qʼuqʼumatz of the Kʼicheʼ people and to Quetzalcoatl of Aztec mythology. Prominent temples to Kukulkan are found at archaeological sites in the Yucatán Peninsula, such as Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan.
Kʼinich Yax Kʼukʼ Moʼ is named in Maya inscriptions as the founder and first ruler, kʼul ajaw, of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization polity centered at Copán, a major Maya site located in the southeastern Maya lowlands region in present-day Honduras. The motifs associated with his depiction on Copán monuments have a distinct resemblance to imagery associated with the height of the Classic-era center of Teotihuacan in the distant northern central Mexican region, and have been interpreted as intending to suggest his origins and association with that prestigious civilization. He is the founder of the Yax Kuk Mo Dynasty of rulers of Copan that lasted until 822 a.
Lady of Itzan (7th-century) was a queen of Dos Pilas.
Maximón is a Maya deity and folk saint, represented in various forms by the Maya peoples of several towns in the Guatemalan Highlands. Oral tradition of his creation and purpose in these communities is complex, diverse, and born of the ancient Maya traditions centuries ago.
Maya codices are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of deities such as the Tonsured Maize God and the Howler Monkey Gods. The codices have been named for the cities where they eventually settled.
The Maya death gods known by a variety of names, are two basic types of death gods who are respectively represented by the 16th-century Yucatec deities Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau mentioned by Spanish Bishop Diego de Landa. Hunhau is the lord of the Underworld. Iconographically, Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau correspond to the Gods A and A' .
The pre-Columbian Maya religion knew various jaguar gods, in addition to jaguar demi-gods, (ancestral) protectors, and shapeshifters. The main jaguar deities are discussed below. Their associated narratives are still largely to be reconstructed.
Like other Mesoamerican peoples, the Maya peoples recognize in their staple crop, maize, a vital force with which they strongly identify. This is clearly shown by their mythological traditions. In the Mesoamerican Classic period (200–900), the Maize God shows aspects of a culture hero.
Maya medicine concerns health and medicine among the ancient Maya civilization. It was a complex blend of mind, body, religion, ritual and science. Important to all, medicine was practiced only by a select few, who generally inherited their positions and received extensive education.
The traditional Mayas generally assume the Moon to be female, and the Moon's perceived phases are accordingly conceived as the season. In the codices, she has a terrestrial counterpart in goddess I.
Pilgrimage is the travel from one's home to a sacred place of importance within one's faith. The journey itself holds a spiritual significance for the traveler because by participating in this ritual, they renew their faith and/or try to bring about a practical result. In the Maya faith, the believers may make a pilgrimage at any time of the year and to multiple places.
Until the discovery that Maya stelae depicted kings instead of high priests, the Maya priesthood and their preoccupations had been a main scholarly concern. In the course of the 1960s and over the following decades, however, dynastic research came to dominate interest in the subject. A concept of royal ʼshamanismʼ, chiefly propounded by Linda Schele and Freidel, came to occupy the forefront instead.
In ancient Maya cosmology, Middleworld is the Earth, or the world of men. "In ancient Maya thought, the universe was suffused with sacredness that resonated from the presence of deities. The ancestors, spirits and deities not only resided in the Upperworld and the Underworld, but also shared the Middleworld, or Earth with its human and animal populations.
Midwifery is a women's profession that assists women from pregnancy to newborn care. In some traditional Maya communities, a goddess of midwifery is invoked, and midwives are generally believed to be assigned their profession through signs and visions. In pre-Spanish Yucatan, the aged midwife goddess was called Ixchel.
Quetzalcoatl is a deity in Aztec culture and literature. Among the Aztecs, he was related to wind, Venus, Sun, merchants, arts, crafts, knowledge, and learning. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood.
Qʼuqʼumatz was a god of wind and rain of the Postclassic Kʼicheʼ Maya. It was the Feathered Serpent that according to the Popol Vuh created the world and humanity, together with the god Tepeu. It carried the sun across the sky and down into the underworld and acted as a mediator between the various powers in the Maya cosmos.
Ritual of the Bacabs is the name given to a manuscript from the Yucatán containing shamanistic incantations written in the Yucatec Maya language. The manuscript was given its name by Mayanist William E. Gates due to the frequent mentioning of the Maya deities known as the Bacabs.
Tepeu is a word of the Kʼicheʼ Maya language meaning "sovereign". The title is associated with the god Qʼuqʼumatz of the Kʼicheʼ-Maya, one of the creation gods of the Popol Vuh; his whole name translating as "Sovereign Plumed Serpent". The title has also been used by numerous Kʼicheʼ rulers such as Tepepul.
Tlalchitonatiuh was a Mesoamerican deity associated with the setting sun, when the stars start to appear in the night sky. Tlalchitonatiuh was worshipped among many Mesoamerican cultures including Mayans, but originated from the Toltec civilization.
Tlālōcān is described in several Aztec codices as a paradise, ruled over by the rain deity Tlāloc and his consort Chalchiuhtlicue. It absorbed those who died through drowning or lightning, or as a consequence of diseases associated with the rain deity. Tlālōcān has also been recognized in certain wall paintings of the much earlier Teotihuacan culture.
Tláloc is the god of rain in Aztec religion. He was also a deity of earthly fertility and water, and worshipped as a giver of life and sustenance; many rituals and sacrifices predicated upon these aspects were held in his name. He was feared—albeit not as a malicious figure—for his power over hail, thunder, lightning, and rain.
Tohil is the Maya god of fire. He is a deity of the Kʼicheʼ Maya in the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica.
Like other Mesoamerican peoples, the Maya peoples recognize in their staple crop, maize, a vital force with which they strongly identify. This is clearly shown by their mythological traditions. In the Mesoamerican Classic period (200–900), the Maize God shows aspects of a culture hero.
In Maya mythology, Tzacol or Tzakol was a sky god and one of the creator deities.
In Maya mythology, Voltan was an earth and drum god, married to Ixchel.
Votan is a legendary or mythological figure mentioned in early European accounts of the Maya civilization.
Vucub-Caquix is the name of a bird demon defeated by the Hero Twins of an ancient Maya myth preserved in an 18th-century K'iche' document, the ʼ'Popol Vuh'ʼ. The episode of the demon's defeat was already known by the end of the Mesoamerican Preclassic period, before the year 200, as represented in steles 2 and 25 at Izapa in Mexico, which is its earliest representation and the precedent of the story that was narrated in the Popol Vuh many centuries later. In his appearances, Vucub-Caquix is described as a demon bird and a false sun god with shining eyes that daily sat on a big tree to eat its fruits, he was also the father of Zipacna, an underworld demon deity, and Cabrakan, the Earthquake God.
Xbaquiyalo is a Mayan deity. She was the wife of Hun-Hunahpú, and mother to the Monkey Twins, Hun Batz and Hun Chouén.
Xmucane and Xpiacoc, alternatively Xumucane and Ixpiyacoc (Xpiyacoc), are the names of the divine grandparents of Maya mythology of the Kʼicheʼ people and the daykeepers of the Popol Vuh. They are considered to be the oldest diviners who are very close to the supreme creators of the Kʼicheʼ pantheon and are identified by a number of names throughout the text, reflecting their multiple roles throughout the Maya creation myth. They are usually mentioned together, although Xmucane seems to be alone during most of the interactions with the Maya Hero Twins, when she is referred to as simply "grandmother".
Xmulzencab are a group of Maya bee deities.
Xquic is a mythological figure in the myth of the Hero Twins known from the stelae of Izapa, Mexico and the 16th century Kʼicheʼ manuscript Popol Vuh. She was a maiden and the daughter of one of the lords of Xibalba, who became pregnant by the god Hun Hunahpu while being a virgin and became the mother goddess of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque. The myth of Ixquic and the Twin Gods originated at the ancient site of Izapa in Mexico dating back to the Preclassic period of Mesoamerica, her earliest representation is found on the stela 10 from Izapa, which contains a complex mythological scene depicting Ixquic after giving birth to the twins Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué, who appear at her side and under the tree into which the head of Hun-Hunahpú was transformed after being severed.
La Xtabay is a Yucatec Maya folklore tale about a demonic femme fatale who preys upon men in the Yucatán Peninsula. She is said to dwell in the forest to lure men to their deaths with her incomparable beauty. She is described as having beautiful, shining black hair that falls down to her ankles and wearing a white dress.
Yopaat was an important Maya storm god in the southern Maya area that included the cities of Copán and Quiriguá during the Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology. Yopaat was closely related to Chaac, the Maya rain god. Yopaat is depicted as bearing a flint weapon that represents a thunderbolt.
Yum Kaax, also known as Yumká is a Yukatek Maya name for the god of the wild vegetation and guardian of its animals.
In Maya mythology, Zipacna was a son of Vucub Caquix and Chimalmat. He and his brother, Cabrakan (Earthquake), were often considered demons. Zipacna, like his relatives, was said to be very arrogant and violent.
Complete index
All 84 names, alphabetically. This pantheon is too small for a letter rail to be worth the space — 84 entries do not fill 26 letters — so it runs as one list.