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Sacrifice in Maya culture was a deeply symbolic and highly ritualized activity among the ancient Maya of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. However, many Indigenous Northern and Southern Americans do not agree with this claim, despite the discovery of evidence to the contrary, specifically in areas surrounding Mayan cities in Belize.[1][citation needed] It is said[who?] that intertwined with strong religious and political significance, different kinds of sacrifice were performed within a range of cultural contexts, from mundane everyday activities performed by commoners to rituals performed by elites and ruling lineages. The aim of the latter was the maintenance of sociocultural and political structure.
Some contend, falsely as the archaeological record has shown, that the idea of Mayans sacrificing their people came from Western historians' downplay of an advanced civilization to create the idea that the "savages" of North and South America deserved their eventual bloody downfall.[citation needed]
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Maya ideology and sacrifice
Sacrifice symbolized the renewal of the divine cosmic energy and the continuation of life. Its ability to do so is based on two intertwined concepts that are common to most Mesoamerican belief systems (in one form or another). The first is the notion that the gods had given life to mankind by sacrificing parts of their own bodies. The second is that blood, which often signified life among Maya belief systems, was partially made up of the blood of the gods (who sacrificed it and gave it to humans when creating life). Thus, to maintain order in their universe, the Maya, as well as most Mesoamerican groups, believed that blood and life had to be given back to the gods.
To the Mayans, the ritual of blood-letting was the most effective way to appease their gods to bring good luck or plentiful crops. An example of this can be seen in the limestone relief Shield Jaguar and Lady Xoc found in Mexico dated around 725 C.E. where Lady Xoc pierces her tongue with a thorny rope.
Types of sacrifice
Generally, sacrifice can be divided into two types: autosacrifice and human sacrifice. The different forms of sacrifice are reflected in the imagery used to evoke ideological structure and sociocultural organization in Mesoamerica. In the Maya area, for example, stele depict bloodletting rituals performed by ruling elites, eagles and jaguars devouring human hearts, jade circles or necklaces that represented hearts, and plants and flowers that symbolized both nature and the blood that provided life.[citation needed] Imagery also showed pleas for rain or pleas for blood, with the same intention – to replenish the divine energy.
Autosacrifice
Autosacrifice, also called bloodletting, is the ritualized practice of drawing blood from oneself. A religious story provides the base for the bloodletting ceremony and can be found in the creation stories of the Popol Vuh. It is commonly seen or represented through iconography as performed by ruling elites in highly ritualized ceremonies, but it is easily practiced among mundane sociocultural contexts (i.e., non-elites could perform autosacrifice). The act was typically performed with obsidian blades, decorated bone needles or decorated stingray spines, and blood was drawn from piercing or cutting the tongue, earlobes, and/or genitals (among other locations). Another form of autosacrifice (mainly by women), was conducted by pulling a rope with attached thorns through the tongue or earlobes. The blood produced was then collected on leaf and burned in a bowl.
Autosacrifice was not limited to male rulers, as their female counterparts often performed these ritualized activities. They are typically shown in performing the rope and thorns technique. A recently discovered queen's tomb in the Classic Maya site of Waka (also known as El Perú) had a ceremonial stingray spine placed in her genital area, suggesting that women also perform bloodletting in their genitalia.[citation needed] Women would often let blood before their husbands went into battle. In addition, women would participate in bloodletting rites associated with a king’s accession. They would do this to communicate, through a vision, with a warrior god who regularly took the form of an ancestor (Schele 1986).
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Sources
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