In pity, Xmucane enabled the return of the pipers and singers, the painters and sculptors, so that they live and bring joy to everyone. Kinich Ahau is the Maya sun god, known as Ahau Kin or God G, whose defining characteristics include a "Roman nose" and a large square eye.
In frontal views, Kinich Ahau is cross-eyed and he is often illustrated with a beard, which might be a representation of the rays of the sun. Other traits associated with Kinich Ahau are his filled incisors, and rope-like elements curling out of the sides of his mouth.
Inscribed on his cheek, brow, or another part of his body is the quatrefoil symbol of the sun. His "Roman nose" has a pair of beads at the very tip. The identification of Kinich Ahau with decapitation and jaguars is common in Maya iconography from the Late Preclassic to Postclassic periods. Moan Chan is the aged merchant called Moan Chan or "Misty Sky" and God L, who is most often illustrated with a walking stick and a merchant's bundle.
On one vase God L is portrayed with a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with feathers, and a raptor sits on the crown. His cloak is commonly a black-and-white design of stepped chevrons and rectangles or one made from a jaguar pelt. Misty Sky is most often illustrated as an ancient man, stooped with age, with a prominent, beaked nose and a sunken, toothless mouth. Occasionally pictured smoking a cigar, God L is also associated with tobacco, jaguars, and caves.
Chac Chel "Rainbow" or the "Great End" is known as Goddess O, an old and powerful woman who wears spotted jaguar ears and paws—or perhaps she is an older version of Ix Chel. Unlike modern western mythology which perceives rainbows as beautiful and positive omens, the Maya considered them the "flatulence of the deities," and were thought to arise out of dry wells and caves, sources of sickness. Frequently appearing clawed and fanged and wearing a skirt marked with death symbols, Chac Chel is associated with birth and creation, as well as death and the destruction and rebirth of the world.
She wears a twisted-serpent headdress. Ix Chel , or Goddess I, is a frequently clawed goddess who wears a serpent as a headdress. Ix Chel is sometimes illustrated as a young woman and sometimes as an old one. Sometimes she is portrayed as a man, and at other times she has both male and female characteristics. Some scholars argue that Ix Chel is the same deity as Chac Chel; the two are simply different aspects of the same goddess. There is even some evidence that Ix Chel is not this goddess's name, but whatever her name was, Goddess I is the goddess of the moon, childbirth, fertility, pregnancy, and weaving, and she is often illustrated wearing a lunar crescent, a rabbit and a beak-like nose.
According to colonial records, there were Maya shrines dedicated to her on Cozumel island. There are many other gods and goddesses in the Maya pantheon, avatars of others or versions of Pan-Mesoamerican deities, those who appear in some or all of the other Mesoamerican religions, such as Aztec, Toltec, Olmec, and Zapotec. Here are a few of the most prevalent deities not mentioned above. Bicephalic Monster: A two-headed monster also known as the Celestial Monster or Cosmic Monster, with a front head with deer ears and capped with a Venus emblem, a skeletal, upsidedown rear head, and the body of a crocodile.
Diving God: A youthful figure that appears to be diving headfirst from the sky, often referred to as a bee god, although most scholars believe he represents the Maya Maize God or God E. Fat God: A huge potbellied figure or simply a massive head, commonly illustrated in the Late Classic period as a bloated corpse with heavy swollen eyelids, refers to sidz , signifying gluttony or excessive desire. God C: The personification of sacredness.
God E: The Maya god of Maize. God H: A youthful male deity, perhaps a wind god. Hun-Hunahpu: Father of the Hero Twins. Jaguar Gods: Several deities associated with jaguars and the sun, sometimes illustrated as a person wearing the cloak of a jaguar; includes Jaguar God of the Underworld, associated with Tikal; Jaguar Baby; Water Lily Jaguar; Jaguar Paddler. Jester God: A shark god, with a head ornament that resembles that used on a medieval European court jester.
Long-nosed and long-lipped deities: Numerous gods have been called long nosed or long lipped; those with upward-turning snouts are associated with serpents, those with downward curving snouts are birds.
Pauahtun: The Skybearer god, who corresponds to the four directions and appears in both single and quadripartite form God N , and sometimes wears a turtle carapace. Scribal gods: Numerous avatars of gods are illustrated sitting cross-legged and writing: Itzamna appears as a scribe or a teacher of scribes, Chac is illustrated writing or painting or spewing out numbers strips of paper; and in the Popol Vuh are illustrated the monkey scribes and artists, Hun Batz and Hun Chuen.
Sky Bearers: Pan-Mesoamerican gods who had the task of sustaining the sky, four deities known as bacabs , related to Pauahtun. Tohil: Patron god of the Quiche at the time of the Spanish conquest, and the principal god named in the Popol Vuh, who demands blood sacrifice and might be another name for God K. Things get a bit complicated when it comes to the mythical scope of the Mayan gods of death, and in Mayan religion, Ah Puch is just one of the many names associated with the aspect of death, including Ahal Puh, Cizin, and Yum Cimil, and he stands above the others known for his sovereign rule over death, disaster, and darkness.
Ah Puch was the ruler of the Mayan underworld and Metnal, the most abysmal of the nine Mayan hells. Ah Puch, similar to the devil, is not a kind god. His image is usually depicted as being in a state of decay, with his skeletal mask, protruding belly filled with rotting matter , body adorned with bones, and a neckless hanging with eyeless sockets. He was generally accompanied by a dog or owl and he thrived on human sacrifice, and was especially revered in the city of Chichen Itza, where people were thrown into a Cenote, a sacred well, as human ritual sacrifices for Ah Puch.
He took pleasure in extinguishing the very essence of souls and keeping them in the underworld where they could be tortured. Ah Puch is also known as the god of childbirth and beginnings, but he works against the gods of fertility. Buluc Chabtan was the Mayan god of war, violence, and sudden death. People prayed to him for success in war and, simply put, to stay on his good side in order to avoid sudden death. Blood was seen as nourishment for the gods and a human life was the ultimate gift to a deity.
So many human lives were sacrificed to appease this deity on a regular basis. In Mayan art, Buluc Chabtan is typically portrayed with a thick black line around his eyes and down one cheek. Sometimes, he is shown stabbing people with a spit which he uses to roast them over a fire. These are only five of the Mayan gods whom we considered important to mention, who represent good as well as evil and helped the Mayans to explain concepts like knowledge, nature, and death, but as we said earlier, there are literally hundreds more.
In hieroglyphics, the body of the sky-serpent is marked not only with its own sign of crossed bands, but also those of the Sun, the Moon, Venus and other celestial bodies.
The image of the human face emerging from the jaws of the serpent is a recurrent theme in Maya art. In this case, however, the sculpture of the feathered serpent is a later Toltec addition to the Maya geometric mosaic design - part of an elaborate frieze on the West facade of the "Nunnery" at Uxmal. Heaven was believed to have 13 layers, and each layer had its own god. Uppermost was the muan bird, a kind of screech-owl. The Underworld had nine layers, with nine corresponding Lords of the Night.
The Underworld was a cold, unhappy place and was believed to be the destination of most Maya after death. Heavenly bodies such as the Sun, the Moon, and Venus, were also thought to pass through the Underworld after they disappeared below the horizon every evening. Very little is known about the Maya pantheon. The Maya had a bewildering number of gods, with at least named deities. This is partly because each of the gods had many aspects. Some had more than one sex; others could be both young and old; and every god representing a heavenly body had a different Underworld face, which appeared when the god "died" in the evening.
His wife was Ix Chel , the goddess of weaving, medicine and childbirth; she was also the ancient goddess of the Moon. The role of priests was closely connected to the calendar and astronomy.
Priests controlled learning and ritual, and were in charge of calculating time, festivals, ceremonies, fateful days and seasons, divination, events, cures for diseases, writing and genealogies.
The Maya clergy were not celibate, and sons often succeeded fathers. All Maya ritual acts were dictated by the day Sacred Round calendar , and all performances had symbolic meaning.
Sexual abstinence was rigidly observed before and during such events, and self-mutilation was encouraged in order to furnish blood with which to anoint religious articles. The elite were obsessed with blood - both their own and that of their captives - and ritual bloodletting was a major part of any important calendar event.
Bloodletting was also carried out to nourish and propitiate the gods, and when Maya civilization began to fall, rulers with large territories are recorded as having rushed from one city to the other, performing bloodletting rites in order to maintain their disintegrating kingdoms. For the Maya, blood sacrifice was necessary for the survival of both gods and people, sending human energy skyward and receiving divine power in return.
A king used an obsidian knife or a stingray spine to cut his penis, allowing the blood to fall onto paper held in a bowl. Kings' wives also took part in this ritual by pulling a rope with thorns attached through their tongues.
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