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Specifics concerning Olmec religion are a matter of some conjecture. Early researchers found religious beliefs to be centered upon a jaguar god. [4] This view was challenged in the 1970s by Peter David Joralemon, whose Ph.D. paper [citation needed] and subsequent article posited what are now considered to be 8 different supernaturals.
Olmec arts are strongly tied to the Olmec religion, which prominently featured jaguars. [53] The Olmec people believed that in the distant past a race of werejaguars was made between the union of a jaguar and a woman. [53] One werejaguar quality that can be found is the sharp cleft in the forehead of many supernatural beings in Olmec art.
"Jaguar Baby or Toad Mother: A New Look at an Old Problem in Olmec Iconography", in The Olmec and Their Neighbors, edited by E.P. Benson, Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks: pp 149–162. Miller, Mary; Karl Taube (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London: Thames & Hudson.
Through subsequent research, it became apparent that not every cleft head nor every downturned mouth represented a werejaguar. [9] Some researchers have therefore refined the werejaguar supernatural, specifically equating it with the Olmec rain deity, [10] a proposition that artist, archaeologist, and ethnographer Miguel Covarrubias had made as early as 1946 in Mexico South.
This category and its subcategories are for articles relating to the belief systems of the pre-Columbian Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica, including aspects such as mythology, religion, iconography, ceremonial practices and observances.
Most of what is known about Olmec religion is speculative, but certain patterns do emerge at La Venta that are certainly symbolic and might have ritual meaning. For example, the crossed bands symbol, an X in a rectangular box, is often repeated in stone at La Venta, other Olmec sites, and continued to have significance to the cultures inspired ...
While the word religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion used in religious studies courses defines it as [a] system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations ...
The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05068-6. OCLC 27667317. 7; Pool, Christopher A. (2007). Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78882-3.