The ritual Mayan sacrificial
The people of the Maya has created the largest pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica, and was marked, throughout its history, a real obsession ritual: even after the invasion of the Toltecs, the division that was created in the ruling class would lsciato them the noble class, while that of the Maya priests, entrusted, in fact, the management of the sacrifice. The Mayans lived in an area between the coasts of the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Canpeche and the Yucatan Basin (Caribbean Sea). Their ancestors arrived in the area around 2500 - 2000 BC, giving rise to rural communities based on patrilineal farming villages, characterized by strong trends in endogamy. As early as 1500 BC, the various groups can be considered direct ancestors of the Maya, as evidenced by the linguistic research in recent years.
The influence of other socio-cultural populations, such as the Olmec, characterized by a rigid social hierarchy, and drove the material needs of villages in order to join together under even more important dynasties, the only ones able to centrally manage the engineering work necessary for the collection and redistribution of rainwater, of fundamental importance for the irrigation of more extensive cultivation of corn in particular. It is not, however, never came to a single centralized unitary state, but in most centers in dynastic war between them, for economic reasons and also for reasons of ritual. The management of wider areas to a surplus of food and manufactured goods, which allowed a differentiation of society into classes, such as that of the reigning dynasty, with various members of the nobility, appointed by the sovereign and able to submit their functions by inheritance, or that of the priests, who could also convey their function to their children. The Olmec influence was interrupted around 400 BC Around 200 AD held the founding of the first royal dynasty at Tikal and is based in two hundred years later other major centers, including the city of Palenque, to the 390. This period is described as Protoclassic and is followed by the period medium-classical proper, which lasted from 400 to 610, under the dominion of Teotihuacan (the northern part of the upper valley of Mexico). After the economic collapse of Teotihuacan we see the slow rise of the Maya centers (including Tikal), which are structured by economic and political reasons, like the Greek polis, made by the city and surrounding area, and strongly stratified from the point social perspective: the Maya society included the reigning dynasty, the nobles, peasants, artisans, priests, etc.. From the ninth century Mesoamerica is the subject of invasions from the north and going through a crisis situation, not always with local rulers, which leads a slow decline, although some states continue to flourish, at least until the thirteenth century. There were ups and downs throughout the dynasties ruling the region since the second half of the fifteenth century, when the whole Mayan Yucatan system collapsed completely, for reasons not yet fully understood, but perhaps due to problems of population and food, or because of some severe natural disaster.
Ritual maya maya
The ritual is centered on the blood: it is understood as a tool of fundamental importance to nourish the gods, the cosmos and the universe. The ritual practices are continued reference blood, from which no one is free: the sovereign must do at the time of his elevation to the throne, a blood sacrifice, made by piercing the penis with blood collection on a sheet which is then burned, in women This practice is replaced by piercing of the tongue. But the blood was obtained, especially for some time later by slaves, especially children, who were sacrificed on top of the pyramid: four officers held his legs and arms of the young man to be sacrificed, lying on the sacrificial altar, while the priest would open the chest to extract the heart, to offer the rising sun. The blood was then collected and paid on statues of divinities, both towards the four cardinal points, while the body of the sacrificed was thrown from the pyramid. The obsessive need to procure sacrificial victims meant a continuous state of war, not only due to economic reasons or territorial. According to some calculations, would have been about three million human beings as sacrifices to the gods from the fourth to the sixteenth century.
The ritual of the dead
The Maya pantheon is quite complicated: the gods were very numerous, although some had more events. Some sources also mention a supreme god, accompanied by a spouse. The world, which was marked by cycles of 5200 years of existence, whose last round should be completed around 2011 of our era, was tripartite: the land, seen as a giant crocodile, over which there was the sky (represented by a two-headed snake) divided into thirteen layers, each of which was responsible for a deity. Under the crocodile, separated by a layer of water, there was the kingdom of death, divided into nine layers, each governed by a gentleman of the night. Not all maya, after death, could enter the higher realm, but only a few: the king also had to pass into the realm of the dead, but has special powers, he could rise again in the afterlife, transformed into a deity. After the death
the Maya was buried with special ceremonies: Recent studies have confirmed that there were up to six different types of burial, although it is unclear whether this reflects a division of hierarchical or if it was only based on the census. The deceased was dressed in the clothes better and provided food for the journey, which took place in its first part, under water: the deceased had to pass through the layer of water covering the realm of the underworld, in whose presence would appear . The trip to the Mayan highlands, had instead a place to walk through the caves. The king was buried in the pyramids or under the floor the building (with a small opening such as to facilitate the travel of the deceased), a custom also typical of ordinary people, buried under the floor of the house, perhaps a sign of the presence of an ancestor worship. (1)
Notes 1. R. Tress, rites of initiation, DVE, Milan, 2006
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