5 Mayan mythological beasts that accompanied the creation of the human being in the Popol Vuh

Greater than 30 Mayan beasts seem in the Popol Vuh, accompanying, mediating and guiding the interplay of people and gods.

The pre-Hispanic world was not ruled by a linear understanding of time. The best way of understanding the world of the pre-Columbian peoples was organized in line with time cycles, which introduced with them new suns, new ages, new beginnings. In the similar approach, the relationship with nature was not understood vertically. On the opposite, the beasts of the animal kingdom that accompanied the Maya had been perceived as neighbors in the Universe, greater than beings dominated by the human being.

The intuition, love, friendship and rivalry they weren’t distinctive traits of humanity. These dynamics are illustrated in the Popol Vuh, the final compilation of Maya sacred scriptures. By understanding animals as friends with whom the earth is shared, these similar attitudes had been attributed to the mythological beings with whom they lived day by day. Messengers of the gods, mystical intermediaries, companions in the passage via the world: these had been some of the most consultant Mayan beasts of the Mexican southeast.

Quetzalcóatl: the feathered serpent

Images: Pedro Pardo / .

For hundreds of years, Quetzalcóatl dominated the skies of varied Mesoamerican cultures. He was one of the most revered gods by the Okay’iche ‘Mayans, who they thought-about as the creator god: El Señor de la Aurora, as described by the Nationwide Institute of Anthropology and Historical past (INAH). In the Mexican southeast it was achieved, particularly, in the winter equinoxes, when he glided with the pace of the solar down the steps of Chichén Itzá.

Previously, in this area of the nation it was represented as Kukulcán. May change form at will, and grow to be a priest on essential dates. The Mayans thought that, in the silly days, it might embody spiritual ministers to find out the destiny of the peoples. As the creator of the universe from the sea, the feathered serpent held a basic place in the founding myths of the historical Mayan cosmogony.

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Jaguars: the animals of the Mayan royalty

For the Mayans, animals served as messengers between gods and human beings, “capable of talk between each teams and with one another“As Jessica Sequeira, an anthropologist at the College of Cambridge, explains in her article for Aeon. One of the finest examples of this relationship is embodied in the jaguar: the animal that I used to be passing between the underworld and the world of the dwelling.

Particularly in the southeastern states of Campeche, Tabasco and Quintana Roo, the jaguar was thought-about an emblem of energy. Amongst the Mayan beasts, he stood out as the middleman between the god of the Solar and the darkest hours of the night time. As a result of of its magnificence, agility and energy, the ‘Balam’ – because it was referred to as at that time – served as an emblem of royalty south of Mexico and in some Central American international locations.

Spider monkey: the sample of creativity

{Photograph}: PHAS / Common Photographs Group by way of .

Greater than 30 species seem in the Popol Vuh, accompanying, mediating and guiding the interplay of people and gods. As such, in contrast to Western thought, there was no cause to cultivate or tame them. On the opposite, it was meant quite to reside with them, so that that they had a very good relationship with the beings with whom they shared territory.

One of them was the spider monkey – generally known as Chuén -, widespread in the humid jungle of southeastern Mexico. In the Mayan horoscope, this animal was thought-about as the patron of artisans and creators. In the similar approach, his epoch-changing powers had been alluded to, in addition to an aide in the passage of human beings into one other life. Because of this, rites had been carried out in his honor when the historical inhabitants of the Yucatan Peninsula they needed to clear up critical issues.

Eagles: warrior and smart birds

{Photograph}: Wolfgang Kaehler / LightRocket by way of .

For its majesty and bravado, the eagle was thought-about as the image of warriors amongst the Mayan beasts. Though, many occasions, the army class was represented with the jaguar, these birds typically acted as symbols of the energy of overseas events. Because of this, it is not uncommon to search out codices and stelae in the Mexican southeast in which each animals seem reverse one another.

So too, the Mayan moon goddess, Ixchel, was known as the ‘eagle lady’. The sages regarded her as the embodiment of knowledge, which soared via the skies late at night time. Because of this, the Mayan horoscope considers the species as a banner of the empowerment, consciousness and information.

Different snakes: hyperlinks to different worlds

{Photograph}: Chico Sánchez / .

In the Mayan worldview, snakes had been thought-about as hyperlinks between the macrocosm and the microcosm. That’s, the hyperlink between earth and sky: therefore their elongated, versatile and stylish our bodies. In the similar approach, the truth that they shed skins was thought to be a divine signal of epoch change, of reincarnation and religious renewal.

Likewise, the Serpent of Imaginative and prescient was commemorated with specific devotion: the Mayan beast that “dominated the central axis of the world tree“, As associated in the Popol Vuh. Later historiographic and anthropological critiques translate this idea as the hyperlink between the earthly world and that of the gods, that served, in flip, as a threshold and connection between each ranges of understanding.

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