Mayan Culture

​Many of the cultures that we have today have evolved from past events. Such as language it was something that became known throughout the years. Some of the languages that came from that were English, Spanish, German, and Latin to name a few. These languages were derived more past civilizations. One important civilization that is known for having great success is the Mayan civilization. The Mayan civilization is known for many things like they fully developed written language, art, architecture, math and some other factors. Historians have said that they don’t know an exact date of when this civilization rose up but they do mention that it flourished for about 2000 years. Although staring in 250 AD it is said that it was the start of their high point and it continued until the arrival of the Spanish in 1524. The Maya area covers southern Mexico and northwestern Central America. According to Sharer the area is divided into three regions: the Pacific coastal plain to the south, the highlands in the center, and the lowlands to the north. Even though these three regions were under the same civilization they all practiced different religious rituals. Religion plays a big role in every civilization. Some civilizations tend to praise more than one god and they always mention that what they have is thanks to their god. When they see things going wrong they often say that their god is punishing them because they did something that the god/s did not like. This tends to be the same

Throughout the humanities course, I have been intrigued by a vast amount of information on different cultures. However, there was a particular section that truly caught my attention, and has piqued an interest in me that has caused me to do my own research aside from this paper. The culture of the Mayas, and the Aztecs has been extremely fundamental in understanding my ancestry, being that I am Mexican American. I took an interest in their beautiful architecture, their ritualistic and sacrificial religious practices, as well as their history and how they began. Throughout this paper I will outline the similarities and differences of these two cultures, as well as articulate an understanding of the humanity disciplines outlined above.

The Maya were a people from Middle America, which includes modern Guatemala, Southern Mexico, and Northern Belize (Editors). The Maya civilization was considered to be “one of the most dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica,” (Maya). “The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making, and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork,” (Maya). They also gave mankind the modern calendar (Jarus, Maya). The Mayans were a very advanced people, but one of the most important things in the Mayan culture was their religion/god worshipping rituals.

‘’Have you ever known about the Mayan religious and the American religious, like how they are similar and different like the sacrifices,home's,beauty,and the numbering system.

These religious and spiritual influences play a major role in the Hispanics health, illness and daily life. In much a similar manner, the Native American Indian family adopts the cultural beliefs to associate with illness and health. They believe that a person’s state of exists when he or she exists in harmony with nature and sickness occurs when an imbalance between the natural or supernatural forces and the sick individual exists (Askim-Lovseth & Aldana, 2010). Traditional health believes and practices involving healing ceremonies and rituals restore balance when illness happens. “These can be conducted by their traditional medicine men or women, who are thought to have compelling powers, the ability to read minds, and know-how in concocting medicine, drugs and poisons.” For the white young family, the cultural belief of invincibility and youth are the driving force behind health prevention (Askim-Lovseth & Aldana, 2010). “Focus on the temporary is regularised, while thinking about health is assigned to an adult person where family accountabilities pertain.” Protecting against illness or disease does not feature into their daily lives. Disease or illness is something that is insubstantial and distant, and unimaginable to their young, resilient bodies and thus irrelevant (Edelman & Mandle, 2010).

If you were in the desert or woods and bitten by a snake, where you go for help? A call to the local ambulance and a fast ride to the emergency room are not available to you. How would you know what potions to use and what would heal your wounds? This was the dilemma of the Native American People hundreds of years ago. How did they handle it? The medical traditions and customs have remained a mystery to us for hundreds of years. This paper will try to explore some of these customs and possibly uncover some of the mystery.

Native American traditional medicine and spiritual healing rituals go back for thousands of years, these traditions often focus on different variations of alternative medicine. This knowledge is passed on throughout generations, many of the tribes learn that by mixing natural plants such as herbs and roots they can make remedies with healing properties. It is believed that being healthy is when people reach a state of harmony not only spiritually, mentally but physically. To be able to overcome the forces that cause illness people must “operate in the context of relationship to four constructs —namely, spirituality (Creator, Mother Earth, Great Father); community (family, clan, tribe/nation); environment (daily life, nature, balance); and self (inner passions and peace, thoughts, and values)” (Portman & Garret, 2006, p.453). In this research paper I am going to show evidence of the tremendous influence that Native American medicine and spiritual healing have over modern medicine in the course of healing

The healing rituals in the Navajo tribes included the spiritual healing rituals, which are a type of medicine or cure, which is believed to be being assisted by the spirits (Vogel 338). The Native Americans believed so much in these rituals especially the Navajo were the most community that believed in the capacity of this spiritual ritual healing. These healing influenced by the medium, which was the medicine, operate whom known as Shaman who would perform these rituals and will be able to heal a sick person. This paper will focus mainly on the beliefs, ceremonies and ritual events that were believed by the Navajo one of the Native Indians to treat their patients. It also argues ways and methods the Navajo used for their

The Maya civilization is a renowned part of history, as it is remembered for its delicate and detailed culture filled with alluring architecture and arts. Not only this, but the Maya civilization is also memorable for their astronomical and mathematical skills (Demarest 2004, Sharer & Traxler 2006, Houston & Inomata 2009). Yet, despite their flourishing agriculture, economy and political state, the Classic Maya society met their demise in the 9th century (Willey et al. 1967, Culbert 1973). Paleoclimatologists and archaeologists come together to better understand the circumstances which brought the end of the Classic Maya civilization, creating a variety of arguments which would explain so. Although many reasons are presented to explain the

In preurban RhoCancri, some ten thousands years ago, a collection of warring tribes held the animistic belief that offerings near carefully handcrafted totems of animals would grant them traits, mostly beneficial qualities, of the respective animal. In reality, a class of shamans and herbalists were actively supplying their tribes with all sorts of products, thus making sure of the survival of their respective tribes, and in doing so, laying the foundations of both a monotheistic religion and the contemporary RhoCancrian pharmaceutical industry.

In hieroglyphic writing, astronomy, and mathematics, the Mayan Indians were far ahead of any other people in the New World.(Foley 20) The Mayan invented a solar “civil” calendar including three hundred sixty- five days.(Ivanoff 86) The accuracy of the Mayan calculations is all the more extraordinary in view of the fact that they had no

The Aztecs made great advances in many areas. One of their accomplishments was herbal medicine. Aztec medicine was based on two areas which are spiritual healing and herbal healing. Many of the illnesses that affected the Aztecs were caused to religious reasons: an angry god, bad birth signs, or something to that effect. The first step of treating an illness was a prayer and/or sometimes animal sacrifices. After that, herbal medicine would be used. Today, many herbal medicines can be found in Central America. The Aztecs knew how herbal medicines would work. They concentrated on finding out what herbal medicine could do. The Aztecs also concentrated on curing the symptoms of an illness than finding the cause of the illness. They believed that if a god gave a person an illness, they cannot anything to cure that patient. According to Aztec legends, "Well, if the gods want this man to suffer, they can make my herbs powerless. If the medicine works, it means that the gods wish for the patient to be relieved." This statement was used to make herbal medicine useful. The Aztecs used leeches to help patients to ease their pain. The Aztecs developed a writing system in which they used pictographs. Pictographs were simple pictures that were used as a form of writing. With pictographs, they wrote many codices. The codices were a book or manuscript (written documents). The codices talked about ceremonies, the ritual calendar, and information about the gods and the universe. These

Massive temples hidden in the jungles of the Yucatan, mysterious stone stelas, and cryptic calendars eluding to advanced knowledge of the stars and mathematics are just some of the artifacts originating from the “Classic Maya” period (200 CE-900 CE). However, these popular items should not be the only defining characteristics of a society that dominated the Mesoamerican region for nearly a millennia. Dynastic lines, similar to those found in European houses, were important elements during this period in places like Palenque, Tikal, and Calakmul. Additionally, the Maya experienced violent and consistent warfare between localized powers and the backbone of their society, agriculture, suffered through several multi-year droughts. These factors

Overall, the Maya placed a priceless value on the importance of astronomical features and their deities and were even more concerned with the astrological interpretation of said features. Each of the astronomical features and deities addressed in this paper are a staple to a specific aspect of Maya culture; whether it be through the source of energy, childbirth and family life, agricultural gains, or communication with higher beings — it is all accomplished through the astrological understanding of astronomical beings. For the Maya, astrology and astronomy have remained so intrinsically tied together to create a web of cosmololgy and ideas of creation. In the modern day, there is almost no separation between astrological interpretation and

The Maya’s were an ancient civilization that faced many difficult tasks in their everyday lives that needed to be completed in order for survival. The Mayan tribes existed from about 400 BC until around 1524 when they were taken over by the Spanish conquistadors (Sharer p.3). They occupied three separate areas of land.