Aztec and Maya Civilization

Kiaya Nickens

Mr. Sanchez – p.8

Christian in the World

January 16, 2013

Aztec and Maya Civilizations

About 2,800 years ago, people known as the Maya lived in farming villages on the Yucatan Peninsula located in Mexico as well as Central America in places such as Guatemala and the highlands to the south.  The Geographic features of the Mayan civilization included mountains, volcanoes, jungles, coastal plains, and swampy lands. Tomb of king is who founded Mayan civilization. Some of the typical physical characteristics of the Mayan were short in height from 4 ft. 8 in. to 5 ft. 2 in., straight black hair, painted bodies, tattoos, and flat foreheads. The gods of the Mayan empire worshipped nature and daily life. The Mayan writing, mathematics, and astrology were very advanced. The civilization often studied the movement of the moon, sun and stars. The Maya practiced human sacrifice. In some Maya rituals people were killed by having their arms and legs held while a priest cut the person's chest open and tore out his heart as an offering. The Sun (Kinich Ahau) and Itzamna, an aged god, dominated the Maya idea of the sky. Another aged man, god L, was one of the major deities of the underworld. The night sky was considered a window showing all supernatural doings.

^^^Painting of Maya Civilization ^^^^^

Many years after the Mexica people first built their proud city, Tenochtitlan (later to become Mexico City), they formed an alliance with two other cities - Texcoco (Tetzcoco) and Tlacopan. Tenoch was the founder of the Aztec civilization. Ometecuhtli and his female counterpart, Omecihuatl, represented the primordial forces of nature and duality, and were the parents of many of the other major gods.  Sometimes they are called husband and wife, but they were really considered two sides of the same dualistic god. Quetzalcoatl was an important deity, since he had been the creator of humans. Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird of the South/Left) was a warrior sun god, requiring blood sacrifice to help him win the battle against darkness. Xipe Totec, or the Flayed one, was the god of the seasons, renewal, and growing things. A number of other pre-birth taboos were given to Aztec women. They were advised not to eat tamales that stuck to the side of a cooking pot for fear that the child would do the same in her womb.

 ^^^^Aztec Art^^^^

Aztec & Maya Civilization Location:

- Taboo -proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable

-Trickster-  a deceiver; cheat; fraud.

- Vision Quest -(especially among some North American Indians) the ritual seeking of personal communication with the spirit world through visions that are induced by fasting, prayer, and other measures during a time of isolation: typically undertaken by an adolescent male.

-Pantheism-

the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations: it involves a denial of God's personality and expresses a tendency to identify God and nature. 

-polytheism- the doctrine of or belief in more than one god or in many gods.

-monotheism- the doctrine or belief that there is only one God. 

-Revelation-the act of revealing or disclosing; disclosure.

-empathy- the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.