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The priesthood provided high status positions for those children of the Maya nobility who could not obtain political office. They were trained through an apprentice system, with young adults being selected according to their descent and individual abilities.
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The most important source on traditional Maya religion is the Mayas themselves: the incumbents of positions within the religious hierarchy, diviners, and tellers of tales. More generally, all those persons who shared their knowledge with outsiders in the past, as well as anthropologists and historians who studied them and continue to do so.
The peoples and cultures which comprised the Maya civilization spanned more than 2,500 years of Mesoamerican history, in the Maya Region of southern Mesoamerica, which incorporates the present-day nations of Guatemala and Belize, much of Honduras and El Salvador, and the southeastern states of Mexico from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec eastwards, including the entire Yucatán Peninsula.
Ancient Mayan social classes included a complex relationship between elites, including kings and merchants, and commoners. [1] The highest ancient Mayan social class included a single centralized leader known as the king or Kʼuhul ajaw, who was most often a man but occasionally a woman. [1]
The 16th-century Maya priesthood was headed by a high priest who instructed the other priests and advised the king. Kahuna Nui, presides over the temple or heiau. Below the Kahuna Nui are various types and ranks of priests. In Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, the High Priest is considered to be successor to Nichiren, through the lineage of Nikko Shonin.
This category and its subcategories are for articles relating to the belief systems of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, including aspects such as mythology, religion, ceremonial practices and observances.
A Classic period Maya polity was a small kingdom (ajawil, ajawlel, ajawlil) headed by a hereditary ruler – ajaw, later kʼuhul ajaw. [5] Both terms appear in early Colonial texts including Papeles de Paxbolón [6] where they are used as synonyms for Aztec and Spanish terms for rulers and their domains.