Maya

One of the most brilliant, sophisticated cultures of the ancient New World, whose civilization encompassed the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras.

The “discovery” of the Maya by modern scholars is an interesting story in and of itself. To most of the outside world, it was a “lost” civilization, despite the fact that almost 7 million Maya still live in their ancestral lands. Writer John L. Stephens visited many of the larger ruins in 1839, such as Copan, Chicken Itza, Uxmal, and Palenque. His travel writings became international best-sellers and led to scholarly interest in the Maya. Although the Maya ruins contained many carved hieroglyphs, archaeologists were unable to make sense of them. Sir Eric Thompson realized that many of the glyphs contained numbers and developed a hypothesis that the Maya were a peaceful people who were concerned only about the abstract movement of time, calenders, and mathematics. This vision of the Maya survived until the 1980s, when a new generation of scholars began investigating these people. In one of the 20th century’s great scientific discoveries, scholars investigating the glyphs were able to crack the code, enabling them to translate Maya writing. These new advances, along with more sophisticated archaeological studies, have revolutionized our understanding of the Maya. Instead of being an ethereal, philosophical culture, it is clear that the Maya were a violent, complex people very much interested in the workings of the real world.

Brief Chronology

Archaeologists have divided the cultures of ancient Mexico into three major periods: the preclassic (or formative), the classic, and the postclassic. The culture of the Maya spans all three of these periods, making it one of the longest-lasting in the region. The preclassic (roughly 1500 B. c. to A. D. 200) was an era of great experimentation that led to the development of many of the cultural traits that defined the later Maya culture. The Maya’s slash-and-burn farming, in which community members cleared a field of trees and vegetation and then burned it to add a layer of nutrient-rich ash, provided sufficient food to support a growing populace. Maya leaders began to develop the symbols and rituals of kingship, borrowing heavily from their neighbors the Olmecs. These royal trappings remained remarkably stable over the centuries, with Maya kings using the same symbols of authority until the Spanish conquest. Maya religion also took shape during this time. The great Maya cities of the preclassic were Nak’be and El Mirador. The latter city was perhaps the largest Maya city ever built, containing enormous temples, raised platforms, and plazas. Its decline around A. D. 100 led to the development of new cities that flourished during the classic period.

Many developments that began in the preclassic reached their apogee in the classic era, which ran from A. D. 200 to 900. The population continued to grow, supported by intensive agricultural systems that converted many of the outlying regions into farmland. Moving away from simple slash-and-burn agriculture, the Maya constructed elaborate terracing systems, irrigation, and raised field networks to turn marginal areas into productive farmland. A number of Maya sites developed into densely populated cities, including Palenque, Dos Pilas, Kalakmul, Quirigua, Copan, and Tikal. The residents of these cities traded extensively among themselves and with many other regions of Mesoamerica. A clear example of this trend is that a number of Maya cities established contact with the great city of Teotihuacan in central Mexico, which led to cultural, religious, artistic, and military transformations across the region. The hallmark of this period was the development of writing. While it is clear that numerals, royal names, and city symbols had been developed many years before, it was in the classic period when true writing with syntax, complex signs, and grammar appeared. Through the decipherment of these texts, epigraphers have been able to chart the rise and fall of kings, the vicissitudes of war, and the religious beliefs of the Maya.

Around 900 the classic period came to an end. Written records abruptly cease, and over time the Maya abandoned their great cities in the lowlands. A great deal of scholarly attention has focused on the “collapse” of the classic Maya. Recent discoveries have shed light on this crucial era. It appears that as the population grew, competition between the cities also intensified. Warfare, which had been a highly ritualized affair, became more violent, destructive, and widespread. A number of cities engaged in what has been called “total war,” which led to the wholesale destruction

Of sites. It seems that large-scale immigration away from the lowlands began at this time as residents fled from the demands of warmongering rulers and marauding armies.

The final era of the ancient Maya was the postclassic. While many archaeologists view this as a step backward in terms of culture, it is clear that many of the traditional elements of Maya society continued, although adapted to meet new circumstances. Most of the postclassic period was characterized by militarism. Postclassic Maya culture centered on two main areas: the Guatemalan highlands and the northern portion of the Yucatan Peninsula. In the highlands two powerful kingdoms emerged: the Quiche (K’iche’) and the Kachiquels. Both were highly militaristic, containing heavily fortified cities and allowing a degree of upward social mobility for successful warriors. The kingdoms of the Yucatan were smaller but created a series of shifting military alliances to protect their interests. By the high standards of the classical era, art and architecture were of lesser quality. This period was also characterized by more extensive incursions by groups from central Mexico. Around 1000 the ToLTECS exerted considerable pressure on the northern Maya kingdoms, conquering Chichen Itza and using it as a power base of their own. In the early 1500s the AzTECS began penetrating the Maya region. Evidence suggests that they captured the Putun Maya city of Xicallango in TABASCO as well as Xoconusco, a region of southern Guatemala, from which they put pressure on the Quiche. The postclassic ended with the Spanish conquest.

With the arrival of the Spaniards, the colonial era began. A popular misconception suggests that the Maya simply vanished after the Spaniards moved into the region, but the Spaniards had great difficulty in conquering and holding the Maya area. PEDRO DE Alvarado succeeded in conquering the Quiche and Kachiquel kingdoms, but rebellions against Spanish rule in the Guatemalan highlands were so frequent that the area became known as the “Land of War.” Francisco de Montejo had no better luck in the Yucatan. In both these areas the lack of precious metals and the tenacious resistance of the Maya forced the Spaniards to all but abandon the region. Essentially, the Maya continued to live on their ancestral lands following traditional customs with relatively little interference. The interior of the Maya area was not even tentatively conquered until quite late in the colonial period: The Itza Maya kingdom of Tayasal (modern Flores, Guatemala) fell to the Spaniards in 1697, almost 200 years after the Spaniards first arrived.

Poli-tical Structure

The modern understanding of the Maya’s political systems has changed rapidly in recent years. Earlier, scholars believed that the Maya kingdoms were small, peaceful entities ruled by a “philosopher king.” Decipherment of the Maya’s writing system has allowed for a fuller, more

A monument to Mayan warriors, from Oaxaca in Mexico (Hulton/Archive)

Realistic assessment. Unlike the Aztecs and iNCAs, the Maya did not have a single empire ruled over by a single ruler. Maya kingdoms were smaller, more along the lines of the city-states of Renaissance Italy. The kingdoms consisted of forests, farmland, and outlying villages that were all ruled from a larger capital city. The urban centers were densely populated, and residents used much of the surrounding land for intensive agricultural purposes. Most kingdoms were divided into provinces of some sort, with a noble of royal lineage set up as a local magistrate or governor. A small number of states became more powerful and absorbed a number of their neighbors to form larger “empires.” The most powerful of these empires during the classic era were Tikal and its rival, Kalakmul. To achieve greater power and position, many Maya kingdoms formed alliances with distant kingdoms. This strategy secured borders or trade routes and provided a defense against a potentially hostile state. Tikal and Kalakmul both tried to use alliance networks to outflank each other, often urging their surrogates to fight wars on their behalf.

At the center of each kingdom was the holy king, called the ahaw (or ahau). Like the pharaohs of Egypt, these ahaws were sacred—the living embodiment of the gods. As such, they were able to communicate directly with the gods, petitioning for the gods’ continuing benevolence. The sacred aspect of the ahaw ensured that bloodlines were strictly guarded. Both men and women inherited this divine blood, and marriages were arranged so that heirs would have as much of this sacred element as possible. The ahaw held absolute power within the kingdom. At times he would consult with counsels of elders (who were usually princes of the blood), but in his guise as divine representative his word was final. The ahaw was expected to be a competent general and bring military glory to his realm. Frequently, he celebrated his ascension to power by attacking a rival kingdom in order to capture victims for sacrifice. He was also expected to pray and offer sacrifices on behalf of his people. In ceremonies of national importance or in times of national emergencies, the ahaw would perform a series of blood-letting ceremonies. After days of fasting, he would pierce his tongue, ears, or penis with a knife or stingray spine and pass a rope of thorns through the wound. The object was to splatter the blood onto sacred strips of paper, which were then burned over ritual fires of incense. The Maya believed that visions of gods or ancestral spirits would appear in the smoke and communicate with the ahaw. These bloodletting rituals were the fundamental connection between the people, their ruler, and the gods.

Religion

One of the most pervasive elements of Maya religion was the idea that the cosmos was governed by cycles of time that were constantly in motion. Some of these cycles were very long, while others were brief. In practical terms this meant that nothing truly ended, and nothing truly began. The cosmos was created, later destroyed, only to be created anew. Agricultural gods died but through their death ensured rebirth of new crops. On the human level parents died, but children continued their legacy on earth. Death and destruction were never permanent, nor was life eternal. All people, gods, and events were bound on a great cosmic wheel that turned endlessly. The present creation, just one in an endless series, began August, 13, 3114 B. c. It is not clear why the Maya chose this particular date, as the first recognizable Maya villages did not appear for thousands of years afterward. Nevertheless, they considered this point the beginning of the present cycle of creation, which would end on December 23, 2012. The Maya felt that the end of the great cycle would not bring about an absolute Apocalypse, but the death of this era of creation would serve to give birth to a new one.

The importance of these cycles is evident in the Popol Vuh, a great compendium of Maya thought and belief written down shortly after the Spanish conquest. In this work humans were not simply created ex nihilo. First, the gods experimented by making people of mud. These specimens were imperfect and ultimately destroyed. Later, the gods fashioned new humans from wood. These, too, proved inadequate and, again, needed to be destroyed. Finally, the gods made people from their own flesh. They were the most successful, although the act of creation greatly weakened the gods themselves. Therefore, it became the duty of humans to make sacrifices to the gods, who continued to support the cosmos.

Unfortunately, the Maya gods themselves remain poorly understood. The main problem in understanding the roles and characteristics of the Maya gods has been that most of the information regarding them dates from the postconquest period and was often colored by the prejudices of the Spanish missionaries who recorded information from indigenous informants. There were as many as 166 named gods in the pantheon, although their duties and spheres of influence were seldom mentioned in the texts that have survived. Moreover, it is clear that there were vast religious differences between Maya regions. At the time of the conquest, Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent, was an important royal god in the Yucatan, but it seems clear that he was a Maya version of the central Mexican god QuETZALCOATL brought by Toltec invaders in the 10th century. Therefore, he was all but unknown in the Maya cities to the south during the classic era. Several of the Maya gods had some connection with food and fertility, which is not surprising in a culture that depended on intensive agriculture. One of the oldest, most important Maya gods was Chak, the rain god. It is possible that he was adopted from the Olmecs during the preclassic period. Whatever his origin, Chak the Thunderer was among the most venerated and most frequently depicted of Maya gods; his cult has survived to the present day.

One final aspect of Maya religion was its preoccupation with Xibalba, the underworld. For the Maya, Xibalba was a bleak, watery realm where most living things went after they died. Even the sun and the moon passed through this dismal land on their constant journeys through the skies. Caverns and pools of water were seen as gateways to this dark land and thus became both venerated and feared. Among the most frequently depicted gods in Maya art were the nightmarish Lords of Xibalba—nine lords of death, disease, and filth who were the constant scourge of humans. Many of these images survive in tombs, depicted in ceramics, paintings, and royal carvings, either alone or in conjunction with the Hero Twins, who defeated them in one of the most memorable sections of the Popol Vuh.

The Maya Writing System

The Maya writing system was the most fully developed in the Americas. Other cultures, such as the Zapotecs, Mixtecs, and Aztecs developed rudimentary writing, but the Maya had an integrated system that used complex grammar. Much of the writing dealt with religion. The texts were in books made of long strips of beaten bark paper, folded accordion-style to make individual pages. For the most part these books were religious almanacs that listed the cycles of the sun, moon, and Venus, ascribing ritual significance to the days, and explaining which gods were associated with the various cycles. Only four books of this type have survived from the Maya area. Many decayed naturally in the hot, tropical climate of the Maya region, but most were destroyed by Spanish missionaries, who felt they were heretical and ordered them burned. Maya also used writing to commemorate completed cycles of time. Maya rulers set up stone monuments to mark important anniversaries of the Maya calendar. These monuments have helped clarify the reigns of Maya kings and have provided some of the most notable Maya sculpture in existence.

The majority of Maya texts, historical in nature, were carved on stone monuments, plaques, and tomb walls. These texts detail the great events of rulers’ lives, list the ahaws’ ancestors, and relate the great deeds of former rulers as well. This material has helped scholars to reconstruct Maya political history and to understand the relationships among Maya states. The texts also describe the great rituals of the Maya world, particularly those associated with coronation and warfare. These monuments at times create problems for scholars because they often discuss the reigns of certain rulers, leaving large gaps in the historical record. Additionally, these monuments list only the important moments of an ahaw’s life. It would be much like trying to reconstruct the life of Abraham Lincoln based on the inscribed text of the Lincoln Memorial. Further, because the chroniclers tended to depict their rulers in a favorable light, much of the writing consists of propaganda. Readers who encounter descriptions of the length of an ahaw’s reign, his conquests, and his lineages must cross-reference particular parts to ensure that the information is accurate.

All surviving evidence confirms that the Maya were a highly sophisticated people living in ancient Mesoamerica. They developed an advanced system of writing and calen-drics, which has allowed modern scholars to unravel the mysteries of Maya history. Although their civilization had been in long decline by the time the Spaniards arrived, they were much more successful than most Native groups in resisting the Spanish CONQUiSTADORes and maintaining their culture under Spanish rule. They continue to survive today, with more than 7 million Maya living in Mexico and Central America.

Further reading: General works: Michael Coe, The Maya, 6th ed. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1999); Linda Schele and David Freidel, A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Maya (New York: William Morrow, 1990); Robert J. Sharer, The Maya, 5th ed. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994); Gene S. Stuart and George E. Stuart, Lost Kingdoms of the Maya (Washington D. C.: National Geographic Society, 1993). On Maya religion: Linda Schele, David Freidel, and Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path (New York: William Morrow, 1993); Dennis Tedlock, ed., Popol Vuh: The Maya Book of the Dawn of Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985). On Maya art: Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art (Fort Worth, Tex.: Kimbell Art Museum, 1983). On Maya writing: Michael Coe, Breaking the Maya Code (London: Thames & Hudson, 1992). On the Maya after the conquest: Nancy M. Farriss, Maya Society under Colonial Rule (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).

—Scott Chamberlain