The Ancient and the Contemporary

As mentioned in my previous post, the Mayan culture and ceremonial actions were heavily influential in Guatemala’s cultural and religious practices. The Mayans established their culture and society around their religious practices and ceremonial sacrifices. Nothing the Mayans did was without a ceremonial purpose. 

One of the beautiful things is that the Mayan culture, although no longer continues as it was in the past, still is active in a more contemporary way. Those who descended from the true Mayan culture continue to return to Tikal in order to offer sacrifice. In the past, their sacrifices were not just that of animals, but also human sacrifices as well in order to please the gods of the cosmos. Today, the Mayan people return for their ‘Holy Week’ to Tikal at the beginning of March. They spend one day sacrificing small animals (chickens, hamsters, birds, etc…) and spend about 5 days in prayer and contemplation. They have ceased doing human sacrifices today, but you can see all of the altars- those used for contemporary sacrifices and those used during that period of time. 

The structure of the temples and the altars was incredible to see. Although Tikal is not a National park and is over grown by the Jungle, the beauty of the Mayan culture is still there in the beauty- if you can imagine it- of how the temples and the altars were built. They cared deeply about their own worship, and practiced with honor and pride. 

In todays culture, there are many who continue to follow the Mayan practices and traditions, which we will elaborate later on. However, one of the beautiful things is that there are those who continue to practice the Mayan practices and traditions and are Catholic. What I mean by this is that, those people do not worship the gods of the cosmos, nor do they partake in the animal sacrifices- at least that’s what the tour guide said- but rather, when entering a Catholic Church, there is a ceremonial Mayan ritual that one does before entering the Church. This practice, from what I understand it to be, is that the individual would do a small prayer and a few small actions before entering into the Catholic Church. What this comes to show us is that those individuals, desire to keep their Mayan heritage alive, and incorporated it into their Catholic practices. 

The Mayans may not have fully accepted or embraced Catholicism at that time, but they did choose to respect the religion, learn from it, and incorporate some ‘practices’ in their worship. Now we see individuals incorporating the Mayan traditions into their Catholic faith. 

Well, I will let you soak all that in. We will continue to talk about other Mayan influences in the contemporary culture of Guatemala in the next few days or so. Until then- Hasta Luego.