The Mayan myths are perhaps the most interesting in Mesoamerican history. It was a culture full of legends and myths. Its main characteristic was to be highly influenced by magic and the supernatural, and this is why it stands out from the rest. Their stories are embodied in stories that are told from generation to generation. Their myths, in a way, are a photograph of what their lives were like and their experiences in general.
Mayan myths
A large number of Mayan texts were destroyed with the arrival of the conquerors from Spain, despite this, their myths survived. Of all the Mayan myths there are several versions, as they have undergone changes over time, since they were transmitted orally from generation to generation.
Even those documented in manuscripts, during the colony, were affected by the point of view of religious Catholics. These applied some literary licenses and made many changes.
The Mayan myths fascinate and allow us to take a look at the life, uses and customs of this incredible culture. Next, we will present some of the most outstanding myths. You may also like, Bolivian legends.
The Aluxes
The myth of the aluxes, is one of the most popular and comes from the Yucatan peninsula. It is said that they are tiny beings, and that they were created with mud. People hid them for protection and for that reason, it was not uncommon for them to become closely related to the person who created them. As soon as they were made, while the clay hardened, they offered gifts and prayers so that they would come to life.
It was popular knowledge that the aluxes They played pranks on strangers, since they were only faithful to their owner or creator. If the owner's home was sold or transferred to another family, the aluxes They appeared to terrorize children. The traditional way of appeasing one of them, by the new inhabitants of the house, is to offer them food, tobacco, corn and honey.
Today, the descendants of the Mayans continue to create aluxesFor your protection and that of your family. Archaeologists have found these original clay statuettes of the time, in the Samula and Dzitnup cenotes, which are very close to Valladolid.
There are still many believers in the Mayan myths. These people think that aluxes, they are bearers of light for humanity, they grant it a divine power greater than the traditional one. They are no longer just protectors, they are also a kind of benefactors. These clay beings are practically impossible to see, since they are very fast and light as the wind.
The Mayans, and all believers in their traditions, believe that if they consider and pay respect to the luxury, this creature will protect them and take care of their property.
Xtabay and the flower of Xtabentun.
Among the Mayan myths, the legend of Xtabay and the flower of Xtabentún. The story revolves around a pair of extremely beautiful sisters. Of both, people had very different opinions, one of them was known as the sinner and her sister as the good one. That was the general impression of the people of the town where they lived.
The considered sinner, was not desired by anyone, because she gave herself to carnal love. But she was really loved by people with health problems and the weakest. The good sister, however, was appreciated by the townspeople. Even so, inside of her she was very stern, she was not able to love anyone she had around her.
one day dies Xkeban, this was the sister with a reputation as a sinner, however she received visitors from everywhere, people came to show their respect. the tomb of Xkeban It was covered with beautiful flowers of many colors. From far away a sweet aroma could be perceived that filled the air and comforted the one who perceived it.
then passed away Utz Colel, this was the considered good sister. The moment she passed away, an unpleasant stench began to emanate from her body. All the flowers around her grave died.
Where is the tomb of Xkeban, you can find a very particular flower known as Xtabentún. While in the tomb of Utz Colel, you can find a cactus known as tzacam. The passing of Utz Colel, it was very difficult and instead of resting in peace, she decided to return from eternity to take revenge for her sister's kind actions.
Xtabay fright
Trying to imitate the actions of his sister in life, Utz Colel she conquers men by offering worldly love, although, once she attracts them, she kills them.
Xtabay, appears with his long and very black hair, with his white clothes. For those who see her, she reminds them of the aquatic women. She moves without touching the ground between the sharp spikes of the ceiba tree. In this place she combs her hair and awaits the drunken and distracted, who come lurching in the dark of night.
She uses her charms to perform curious methods of torture, often culminating in death, sending them into the watery depths of the underworld. Even today, men from practically the entire town of Yucatan say they have run into the mysterious woman. Xtabay he usually goes after them when they suffer from delusions and blurred vision.
Sac–Nicte y canek
the fable of Sacnicte y Canek Sac – Nicte, represents the White flower. She is a native of Mayapán, very particular because of the great strength of her three territories that managed to live together in peace: Uxmal, Chichen Itza y Mayab. The word canek, has the meaning "black snake".
It is one of the most unique Mayan myths there is, since it tells a love story. Talk about Sac–Nicte y canek. These two characters were sons of the rulers, natives of Mayapan and formed a powerful alliance of peace between Mayan Uxmal y Chichen Itza.
The call canek he was noble-hearted but very brave, a great prince. When he turned 21 years old, he was elected king of Chichen Itza. On the morning of the day of his appointment, he met the princess Sac–Nicte, and fell in love with her, who was barely 15 years old. However, they immediately fell in love.
But this crush wasn't meant to be easy, as Sac–Nicte was engaged to marry, with the young man ulil, prince of Uxmal. According to the Mayan myths, there was a young guide of Sac–Nicte, he informed canek that the princess would wait for him among the green flowers. Besides that it would be forced to fight for her.
On the date of the wedding ceremony, while everyone was enjoying the wedding celebration. canek appeared with his most skillful warriors, sixty in number. He reached the altar calling itzalán shouting and with the same attitude of a place of battles, to rob Sac–Nicte of the altar. There were the priests burning incense and singing songs.
The end of Chichen Itza
canek, arrived at the place with the Itzá sign on his chest: «Inzalan» everyone shouted on the battlefield, and at that moment, he took his princess in front of everyone present.
going into a rage, ulil, declared war: Mayapán and Uxmal against Itza. The inhabitants of Itza left the town, abandoning their houses and their sacred places in Chichen Itzá. This migration was led by the king canektogether with his beloved Sac-Nicte.
When the warriors from Uxmal and Mayapán arrived and saw the town completely alone and empty, as if dead, they understood that all was lost. And thanks to this Mayan Myth, it was how it was explained that the reign of Mayapan came to an end and how did Chichen Itza it had died, since its inhabitants had abandoned it.
The dwarf in Uxmal
This is perhaps one of the best known Mayan myths. Legend has it that in the town of Kabah, in ancient Maya, lived a wise old woman who performed the trade of healer, who could never have children. One day the old woman decided to go to the temple to pray, she asked the god Chic-chan, deity of fertility, to grant him to have a son.
The old woman went to the cenote every day. On one of those trips she observed something different, it was the egg of a turtle, much larger than any she had seen in her entire life. The woman she knew she took it and took it to her house.
Every day he talked to him, cared for him and pampered him. Thus the months passed and the old woman continued to treat the egg with great affection. One day she found the shell of the egg broken, and out of it came a tiny child, much smaller than any child she had ever seen in her long life.
The boy was very ugly, but his mother loved him very much, in other words, she had an immense love for him. She named him xayah uini ko. The boy was highly intelligent, more so than anyone the old woman had ever met. At just one year old he was able to speak very well and walked. Months passed and the woman could notice that the child did not grow, but his beard and mustache grew, along with his nose. To learn more Latin American legends follow this link: Paraguayan legends.
The mother, who was a wise woman, went back to the god Chic-chan. This deity heeded her call and handed her a k'uum, which is a kind of instrument, and told him that he should take great care of the k'uum, because the fate of his son would be linked to this object.
The woman hid it under a stove. xayah uini ko he was dying of curiosity to know what was under the stove that his mother took care of so hard. One day she made a chiquihuitl (basket) very large, so that when his mother went to the cenote it would take much longer to return.
xayah uini ko, found the K'uum that his mother jealously guarded, which he began to play. The sound of the instrument became stronger and stronger, to such an extent that its echo was heard in all the cities of the Maya, both large and small.
The noise of the drum reached the Halvach-Uinik, who immediately remembered with terror the prophecies, which said that when someone touched a K'uum, and its sound was heard in all cities, whoever played it would be the new king.
Halvach-Uinik sent his servants in all directions to find the one responsible for having touched the k'uum. After a few days, they arrived before the king, with the dwarf and his old mother. The ruler, seeing the dwarf, immediately guessed what it would mean for such a thing to be appointed as the new Halvach-Uinik.
the three tests
Since the king did not want to give up his throne, much less to such a dwarf, he looked for a way to get rid of him. The priests, aware of the prophecy, advised him not to do so, since he could unleash the wrath of the gods. Then the king had a great idea, the dwarf would be challenged to various tests in order to prove that he would be a better ruler than him.
For the first challenge or test for the dwarf, he was asked to build a long, perfectly straight and very white path. His wise mother advised him and told him to follow his instructions to the letter and see what would happen. She had asked the astral sages for advice, and they had told her what to do.
The dwarf asked the ruler to place the first rock on the road. The king placed the stone that was very heavy, with a lot of effort, in turn the dwarf placed another similar one when it was his turn. With the help of the magical influence that his mother possessed, the dwarf managed to finish the Sac be' very easily, in this way he connected the towns of Uxmal and Kabah.
The king was furious with the dwarf, and gave him the second test. In the course of the night of that same day, he was to build the tallest house ever seen on the spot, taller than any other. In addition he warned her that if she was not ready by dawn she would be executed. The dwarf returned to his house very upset, because of the difficulty of the challenge, but his mother comforted and reassured him, and he went to sleep.
At dawn the next day, the dwarf woke up lying on top of the tallest and most imposing pyramid in the place. It was such a beautiful and tall building that the king was even more furious when he saw it. He sent for the dwarf and gave him the third and final challenge.
He sent him to look for ten cocoyoles, which are large and very hard seeds. The test was that each one would break the cocoyoles, against the other's head, until one of them triumphed. The dwarf's mother rubbed her head with a corn tortilla, to magically protect it from any physical harm.
Returning to the ruler, the dwarf was the first to take turns with the cocoyoles. The king hit him on the head with the ten cocoyoles without hurting him. His mother's magical protection had taken effect. Fearful, the king tried to repent, but as his subjects watched him he could not.
The dwarf took the first cocoyol and broke it against the king's head, the king resisted. He took the second cocoyol and broke it again against the ruler's head, he also resisted it. But on the third cocoyol the monarch's head broke, much blood came out of it and he himself fell dead to the floor.
This is how the dwarf ended up being declared the winner of the three tests, and proclaimed King of the place. Once he established himself as king, he had the well-known temple built "governor's house", and a house for his elderly mother whom he named "the old mother's house". Even today the two buildings can be seen in the Mayan ruins of Uxmal.
A few years later the old woman passed away. The inhabitants of the area have a strong belief that the mother of the dwarf sits at the entrance of a very long tunnel, which joins the town of Peanut with the town of Tho. You have to remember that in life she was a woman endowed with a lot of power. She remains seated in this tunnel without being distracted from her task, which is to watch over a large snake that guards the subterranean waters and the underworld.
The Mayan Myths about Creation
Of the Mayan myths this is the main one. It is a story of the beginning, when everything was calm, silence and water. There was no land, vegetation, people, light, or animals. Six gods, wrapped in green and blue feathers, rested in the fundamental waters: these were the trainer, el creador, the Feathered Serpent y tepeu, Together with xpiyacóc y Xmucane.
They all supported the Heart of Heaven, also known as Hurricane, to generate the world as we know it. Her soul essence and miraculous gifts gave the Earth its creative energy. Now she had a heart and they named her Heart of the Earth.
To separate heaven and earth, they planted a ceiba tree, giving space to all kinds of life. The roots penetrated deep into the nine levels of the underworld, the trunk remained on the surface of the earth, and the branches reached thirteen levels of the superworld. Plants were later created to inhabit the planet. And then animals were created, although these did not speak and could not perform acts of worship.
Therefore, the gods created people from clay. But these first beings had no soul and were not good "worshipers of their divinity." They were destroyed in a great flood. The gods tried again and created people made of wood. But these wooden people couldn't worship them either, so they destroyed them. Those who survived are said to have turned into apes in the trees.
Now heaven and earth existed, but there was neither a sun nor a moon. A smug and vain bird, she claimed to be the sun and the moon. But this was not going to happen, since two powerful brothers, Hunajpu e IxbalanqueThey defeated the bird, shooting him with darts.
The big brothers were conceived when, their mother ixkik, spoke to the decapitated head of his father, Hun Hunahpu, who spat on his hand from a cocoa tree. Hun Hunahpu died at the hands of the Lords of Xibalba, the underworld. Some time later, the brothers became great ball players and to bring their father back to life, they challenged the Lords of the Underworld to a game in Xibalbá.
The brothers were allowed to play the ball game only after they had survived dangerous trials in the underworld. With great skill and cunning, they won the game and this allowed their father to return to life as the corn god. This rebirth was very significant for the deities, as they saw glorious life in the corn.
The hero brothers left the Xibalbá and went back up to the world of the living. Even so, they continued on their way to the sky and became the Sun and the Moon. Now that the Sun and Moon were in the sky and illuminated the Earth, the deities created the ultimate form of human beings using the white and yellow corn. Not only the Mayan myths exist, follow the following link to learn more, the alicanto.
The gods talked among themselves, they talked about what natural element and how they would make the first woman and the first man. So both yellow corn and white corn were used to make their muscles and skin. They agglutinated the corn and molded the person's hands, arms and both legs. Only the kneaded corn was used to form the meat of the first progenitors, in this way the first four humans were created.
Therefore, according to this legend, it is said that the first men were manufactured and molded from dough, they were not procreated by women or by any man. They were created by enchantment of Tepeu y Gucumatz. Since they looked like a man, they were men.
They could talk, converse, looked and listened, walked and took things with their hands. Good and beautiful men were known and their figure was masculine. These created men were given as names: Balam-Quitzé; Balam-Ahab; Mahucutah; Iqui-Balam.