Talk:Maya mythology/Archive 1

Archive 1

Initial text

Different areas had different gods and certain gods had different roles in different areas; some gods also had different aspects based on four directions.

I do not understand the clause after the semicolon. Anyone? Koyaanis Qatsi, Sunday, June 23, 2002

-- That's probably a reference to the MesoAmerican concept of 4 part dieties, for example one can refer to Chac the Raingod, or to the 4 Chacs, one at each of the 4 cardinal directions. That should be explained.

The whole thing needs a rewrite. I'm daunted by the first phrase, claiming that "Evidence of the Mayan's religious beliefs is extremely limited" which seems to me so massively wrong that I can't understand why the writer would say such a thing. (There are many volumes of ethnographic data on 20th century Maya beliefs, and the same for the colonial and early post conquest era, much of the later writen by Maya scribes themselves, some of it being transcriptions into latin letters of Pre-Columbian texts. Yes, a large amount of this has been published in translation. In the past 25 years major advances in reading the Maya heiroglyphs has extended our knowledge back through the Classic era.) -- Infrogmation

Hunab Ku

Anon contribution moved here for discussion. WBardwin 21:52, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

"Hunab Ku is the symbol the ancient Mayans said is the gateway to other galaxies beyond our sun. Gazing upon this symbol allows you to transcend the barriers of perception and time. It has all the balance and symmetry of the Asian yin-yang symbol, and so much more. (This information contradicts information given in the Popol Vuh.)"

This can only be some modern, mystical, and non-authentic reinterpretation, at best- the actual ancient Maya of course had no conception of "other galaxies beyond our sun". Unless this can be further supported by some credible source (which I doubt), I agree it should be removed.--cjllw | TALK 22:44, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Page move attempt

I have reversed the attempted (unilateral) move of this article to Mayan mythology. This is for several reasons:

1. The move isolated the talk:Maya mythology page (ie, this page) from the content of the active article, thereby disassociating more recent talk from its subject (that is, the talk page was not also able to be moved since the existing talk:Mayan mythology page had a non-trivial history).
2. The use of Maya instead of Mayan in this context is not, in fact, incorrect. By a long-standing convention in Mesoamerican studies, Maya is used both nominally and adjectivally, and stands also for both singular and plural. A large majority of the Mayanist sources behind the articles observe this convention; see for example this reference for a discussion on this very point. The only field in which Mayan gets a regular outing is in linguistics, where it is indeed more common to refer to Mayan languages and the like; all other disciplines prefer Maya. Granted, not all sources are consistent in observing this distinction, but the majority are.
3. Maya- related articles in wikipedia do follow this convention; so we have Maya civilization (not Mayan civilization), Maya peoples (not Mayan peoples or Mayas), Maya calendar (not Mayan calendar), etc etc. We need to treat such articles consistently. (I do disclose my interest and role in this, however, for I have previously taken steps to maintain the convention and consistent representation.)
4. The point has been debated previously on a couple of other occasions, and consensus remains with Maya (or at least, has not been overturned). See for eg talk:Maya civilization.

Am perfectly willing to consider arguments to the contrary, but IMO wikipedia usage ought to mirror that of its sources, and hence Maya ought to be preferred.--cjllw | TALK 13:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal with "Mayanism"

I see that someone has tagged this article for proposed merger with Mayanism. I would say, definitely not. They are not the same thing at all- this present article is concerned with aspects of belief systems genuinely held (in so far as they are known) by the historical Maya peoples, whereas "Mayanism" is a completely syncretic (and one may say, rather odd) modern confabulation, devised by a rather obscure New Age "philosopher" Dennis Alexander, and as such has absolutely nothing to do with the beliefs and mythologies of the historical Maya themselves. And contrary to what the Mayanism article states, it is not "the native religion of the Mayan people, as it is practiced today", but instead merely a modern term coined for whatever spiritual meanderings some decidedly non-Maya folks have come up with, coated in a flavour of basic Maya history and practice. Whether 'Mayanism' merits encyclopaedic coverage is debatable- it certainly should not be merged (and thereby, possibly confused with), this present article.--cjllw | TALK 11:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Good call; I agree with cjllw. "Mayanism" should be a seperate article about the contemporary New Age Maya influenced beliefs. -- Infrogmation 16:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

If that's the case, then Mayanism has to be edited so that it doesn't purport to represent the tradition religion of the Maya people. If anyone knows anything about this New-Age thing, please edit the article and remove the tag!--Rockero 18:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I vote the two article remain distinct as well. WBardwin 23:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks like Mayanism has been modified, so I have removed the two tags. Discussion over.--Rockero 23:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Redirect

Is there a reason that 'Chamer' redirects to this page? If not, please undo the redirect. Michaelbusch 02:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

chamer is a word for death or great pestilence in Chorti, one of the Mayan languages, and "Chamer" is correspondingly a name for a deity associated with death in some Maya accounts. It used to exist as a separate stub, but along with many others has for now been redirected and listed here. Is there some other use for Chamer you want to make an article for?--cjllw | TALK 05:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Confusion

There is a confusion between the deities Vucub Caquix and Vucub-Camé. In the text of this article they are confused one with each other when they are really two diferent characters (the second one is never mentioned, instead is named after the first one).

Yeah I was wondering about this - Vucub Came might be the better one to go with (as it makes more sense as Xibalba refers to them as One Death (Hun Came) and Seven Death (Vucub Came) and see this) it does appear they aren't separate individuals though [1] - at the very least an AKA might be worth inserting? (Emperor 17:19, 28 June 2006 (UTC))

Then again this is a very different tale with Vucub Caquix as an actual (if supernatural) macaw having a run in with the Hero Twins [2] which seems to suggest theya re separate but I have always found GodChecker.com a reliable resource before. Can anyone consult "An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya"? (Emperor 17:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC))

Vucub Caquix is a macaw Vucub Came is an underworld god. Mayan names often begin with a number. Vucub is the number 7. Caquix means macaw. Came means death. In the Popol Wuj they are quite distinct characters.--Maunus 15:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

All discussion surrounding the requested move should take place at Talk:Maya calendar#Requested move. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 05:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Mayan mythology as recounted in The Fountain

Has anyone else seen The Fountain? It has a lot of stuff about Mayan mythology, basically that there was a First Father who became the tree of life, and the rest of the world.... thematically very pandeistic stuff.... how reflective is that of real Mayan mythology? There's also reference to a nebula that appears to be in Orion's belt, but did the Mayans actually identify any such nebula as their underworld? //// Pacific PanDeist * 01:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC) @Much of this is scholarly "mythology about mythology" from the pen of Linda Schele and David Freidel.86.87.62.150 13:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

amount of detailing

What is the point of giving the names of the first humans in the popol vuh? Surely this wouldn't interest any general reader. An important article like this one should as a rule not descend to this level of detailing. The same holds true for the Yucatec names of the four bacabs. This sort of information should be reserved for articles of a much smaller scope.77.162.130.139 13:37, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Bacabs: why this section??

I have several times tried to remove the Bacabs section since it is out of place in an overview article with a general scope. Moreover, I have rewritten and improved this section as a separate article, "Bacab". So why is this superfluous section each time being restored?77.162.130.139 22:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Retal. I suspect that your efforts have been reverted because you did not use an edit summary to explain your reasons for removing portions of the text from this article. If no rationale is given at the time of making a substantial alteration, either via an edit summary or talk page comment (in which case the edit summary shld say something like "see talk page"), then other editors who are on the lookout for malfeasance and other unhelpful changes have no real way to second-guess your motives, or distinguish a good-faith change from a suspect one. Unfortunately there are way too many detrimental changes made that are uncommented for it to be feasible for others to chase up on the motives behind each case. Text deletions in particular are not immediately and obviously justifiable.

As for why or how this article came to contain a perhaps disproportionate mix of general and specific info- I believe that much of this article was stitched together from a number of separate one-line stub articles, that had been created back in the early days. I suppose it was then thought that these would not be able to stand up on their own and a number of them were redirected and pasted in here. Since then, this article has languished somewhat and I agree that it is in good need of a complete overhaul to address the topic in an appropriate overview sense, and that many of the lower-level and 'minor' mythological characters and subtopics could probably be restarted as separate articles. In my view, if we could theoretically write at least a couple of paragraphs on some aspect then there's no reason why we can't have a separate article- as you appear to have done with Bacab for example. If an item is truly obscure and information lacking, then at least the name could appear on some list-type article somewhere (but not on an overview article such as this one). Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

208.50.112.85

Can someone deal with this strike through vandalism? (I need an account.) 64.105.32.147 (talk) 02:40, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Universal Creation and World Creation

In this overview, I believe we should not insert too many details, especially not from the Popol Vuh: A lot of attention is already being given to this source in other articles. Moreover, 'Universal Creation' is a very vague label. I intend to restore this passage back to its former shape, unless arguments are given to the contrary.77.162.130.139 (talk) 13:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)