The Pantheon of the Mayan Gods
According to the Book Popol Vuh which has a great knowledge of Mayan mythology, sacred text of the Quiche Maya. Including also the books of Chilam Balam, they contribute most of the knowledge about the Mayan life of Century XVI.
The most important Mayan god is Itzamna, known as the creator god, lord of fire and heart. It represents the death and rebirth of life in nature. Itzamna is also linked to the sun god Kinich Ahau, and to the goddess Luna Ixchel, who is depicted as a demoniac old woman. Four genii or divinities, the Bacabs, on the other hand appear as sky holders, identified with the four cardinal points which in turn are associated with symbolic colors (East-Red, North-White, West-Black, South-Yellow ), A tree (the sacred ceiba) and a bird.
There is also another version that tells that the Mayan people would be children of Hunab Ku, supreme and almighty.
The God Chac, who is identified by his great nose, is the god of rain and often appears multiplied in chacs, divinities that produce the rain emptying their pumpkins and throwing axes of stone. The uo (frogs) are their companions and act as announcers of the rain.
The god of corn, Ah Mun, is another of the deities that have a lot of importance, which remains in constant fight with the god of death, Ah Puch, god of the ninth hell.
Ah Puch rules the ninth and last underground world; The Mictlán, a nauseating place inhabited by frightening demons. It symbolizes the evil that fights with good and is represented with a rotting body with the almost cadaveric head adorned with bells and necklaces of bones and feathers. From time to time he climbs at night to the Earth in search of prey, round the houses of the sick but although the noise of the bells reveals it, it can not be avoided. The only way for humans to confuse it is to scream and cry in an overwhelming way to make him believe that it is not on the earth but in the Mictlán and passes by.
Other gods which are associated with the underworld or the darkness of death are:
Ek Chuah, known as the black god of war, merchants and cacao plantations.
Ixtab, goddess of suicides.
The similarity of the descriptions of each god between the Maya and Aztec cultures explains the appearance among the Mayas of the feathered serpent (Quetzalcoatl), which is called Kukulcan in Yucatan and Gucumatz in the lands of Guatemala.
Among the myths of the origin is given much importance to the figures of their parents Gugumatz and Hurakán, and also Ixpiyacoc and ixmucané, Alba's grandparents.
According to Mayan mythology at first everything was darkness and nothing existed, but the word would arise the universe.
The creation of the human being undergoes several tests until you reach their final state. In the first attempt, the material used was the mud, "but they saw that they were not well because it was falling apart" they could not walk or multiply, "At first I spoke but had no understanding." In the second test the parents decided to make wooden dolls but although they multiplied, they had no soul, no understanding or memory of their creator, "walked aimlessly and on all fours". They were destroyed and a great flood came.
The final attempt of creation concluded with the men of corn, which were four: Balam-Quitzá (sun tiger or fire tiger), Balam-Ahab (earth tiger), Mahucutah (tiger Luna) and Iqui-Balam These were endowed with intelligence and good eyesight, the power to speak, to walk and to seize things. They were beautiful, too.