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As the jaguar is quite at home in the nighttime, the jaguar is believed to be part of the underworld; thus, "Maya gods with jaguar attributes or garments are underworld gods" (Benson 1998:64). One such god is Xbalanque , one of the Maya Hero Twins who descended to the underworld, and whose entire body is covered with patches of jaguar skin.
The Maya people saw the jaguar's attributes as a strong and powerful creature, as well as its easily recognizable coat, and incorporated it into their mythology. Many gods were portrayed as jaguars, or at least had characteristics not unlike jaguars, due to their powerful nature. [1] [2] [3]
Originally, many scholars believed that the werejaguar was tied to a myth concerning a copulation between a jaguar and a woman. [4] Although this hypothesis is still recognized as viable by many researchers, other explanations for the werejaguar motif have since been put forward, several questioning whether the motif actually represents a ...
Tezcatlipoca's nagual, his animal counterpart, was the jaguar. In the form of a jaguar he became the deity Tepeyollotl ("Mountainheart"). In one of the two main Aztec calendars (the Tonalpohualli), Tezcatlipoca ruled the trecena 1 Ocelotl ("1 Jaguar"); he was also patron of the days with the name Acatl ("reed").
In Aztec mythology, Tepēyōllōtl (Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈtepeːˈjoːlːoːt͡ɬ]; "heart of the mountains"; also Tepeyollotli) was the god of darkened caves, earthquakes, echoes and jaguars. He is the god of the Eighth Hour of the Night, and is depicted as a jaguar leaping towards the Sun.
The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus Panthera that is native to the Americas.With a body length of up to 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) and a weight of up to 158 kg (348 lb), it is the biggest cat species in the Americas and the third largest in the world.
Two lively were-jaguar babies on the left side of La Venta Altar 5.The two were-jaguars depicted on Altar 5 at La Venta as being carried out from a niche or cave, places often associated with the emergence of human beings, may or may not be mythic hero twins essential to Olmec mythology [1] and perhaps, or perhaps not, forerunners of the Maya Hero Twins.
In the 1500s, Diego de Landa called Ixchel “the Goddess of making children”. [2] He also mentioned her as the goddess of medicine, as shown by the following. In the month of Zip, the feast Ihcil Ixchel was celebrated by the physicians and shamans (hechiceros), and divination stones as well as medicine bundles containing little idols of "the Goddess of medicine whom they called Ixchel" were ...