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The ancient Maya concept of 'deity', or 'divinity' (k'u in Yucatec, ch'u in Ch'ol, and qabuvil in ancient Quiché) can by no means be reduced to a mere personification of natural phenomena. The life-cycle of the maize, for instance, lies at the heart of Maya belief, but the role of the principal Maya maize god transcends the sphere of ...
The Aztecs abandoned their rites and merged their own religious beliefs with Catholicism, whereas the relatively autonomous Maya kept their religion as the core of their beliefs and incorporated varying degrees of Catholicism. [6] The Aztec village religion was supervised by friars, mainly Franciscan. Prestige and honor in the village were ...
The Maya developed a highly complex series of interlocking ritual calendars, and employed mathematics that included one of the earliest known instances of the explicit zero in human history. As a part of their religion, the Maya practised human sacrifice.
The writings of 16th-century Bishop Diego de Landa, who had infamously burned a large number of Maya books, contain many details of Maya culture, including their beliefs and religious practices, calendar, aspects of their hieroglyphic writing, and oral history. [115]
The Aztecs would often adopt gods from different cultures and allow them to be worshiped as part of their pantheon. For example, the fertility god, Xipe Totec, was originally a god of the Yopi (the Nahuatl name of the Tlapanec people), but became an integrated part of the Aztec belief system.
Graulich, Michel (1997) Myths of Ancient Mexico. Translated by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Guggenheim Museum (editor) (2004) The Aztec Empire (Curated by Felipe Solís). Guggenheim Museum, New York. Hassig, Ross (1988) Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political ...
The Aztec empire's state-sanctioned religion meanwhile had to fulfill the spiritual obligations of the upper classes while maintaining their control over the lower classes and conquered populations. This was executed in grand public religious ceremonies, sponsorship of the most popular cults, and a relative degree of religious freedom.
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.