Maya world view is shaped from the pages of the Popul Vuh, the written story, in the Mayan's own words, of creation. The Mayan world is shaped in more real terms by a culture that preceeded it, known as Olmec. The Olmec culture is best represented by the site of La Venta on the coast the Veracruz region of Mexico. This site is located near a mythic place known as Tollan. It is believed that the Olmecs constructed the first mountain monuments to honor the birth place of the "world". These mountains were mounds on top of which were constructed pyramidal temples. The become the great pyramids of Mesoamerica.

The mythic place called Tollan is a swampy place (due to reed symbolism), where three mountains exist: Snake Mountain, Sustenance Mountain, and the Cosmic Monster. These mountains exist in the primordial sea (the three volcanic mountains emerge from a lake near La Venta) and bitter water runs through the base of Sustenance Mountain. It is believed that these mountains existed before the dawn of man. Man was born in the fourth creation. The gods wanted to create a being that could worship them. Yet, the first beings were perfect and had the knowledge of gods. So, the gods created inferior beings that could only see things near to them. The flesh of humans were molded from the multi-colored kernels of maize (corn) that were found and ground into a type of food in sustenance mountain.

Mayan cosmology was born through the rebirth of the maize god. Hun-Nal-Yeh's decapitation and death by the hands of the Underlords of Xibalba and subsequent rebirth at the hands of the Hero Twins gave rise to maize. It is from the bloody sacrifice of the First Father that humanity draws substenance. This covenant with the gods is the root of sacrificial offerings in the form of blood. The Maya were nurtured by the rain that feed the corn of their fields. In turn, they nurtured the gods through the rain of their blood which contained their sacred chu'lel (blood). The modes of blood sacrifice were ritual blootletting through drawing ropes with thorns through pierced tongues, penis perforation (which occasionally involved careful synchrinous dancing with ropes strung through each individual), or the death of captives.

It was part of the duty of a ruler to sacrifice for the larger community. This was the legitimization of their sacred connection to the gods. Part of this connection is the ability to open a portal to the "other world". When this portal ('ol) is open, ancestors, inanimate objects, and the gods are alive in the human plane of existance. The "White-Bone Serpent" is conjured through trance. Trance can be achieved through extensive pain, dance, hallucinogens, or the smoking of pure tobacco.

The portal was often symbolized as a double-headed serpent which is also the ecliptic plane that the planets follow across the sky. The center of the cosmos is the world tree, sometimes depicted as maize or the First Father, which is the Milky Way. The branches of the tree are the ecliptic. The main actors in the creation myth were the literal movements of the stars across the celestial plane surrounding the human world during seasonal changes during key days of the year.

We now know that the titles of Maya kings describe them as the k'ul ahaw or "divine lord" of a kingdom. They are the ones who are able to open the portal to the Otherworld. They are the ones who can have visions of what is to be. They are the ones who can bring rain for bountiful harvests of maize. The images throughout this page are of the god Chac - the rain god. It is Chac who the divine lord reaches in his efforts to bridge between the world of the gods and this world of the living.

Click HERE to proceed to the next part of the story - the Lords of the Forest, the Shamans Who Call Upon the Gods for Rain.