Mayan Bloodletting Ceremony: Serving the Gods - Research Paper

Introduction

Bloodletting is a ceremony conducted in the Mayan culture that involved several noble people with the use of several sharp tools. The ritual involved letting blood to flow freely onto a piece of paper which is later burned, and the smoke goes up, a belief that they believed they were serving the gods. Some of the tools used include shark's teeth, stingray spines, perforators, and jade. Several monuments, temples, and pyramids were used to conduct the sacrifices because they were high raised places where people would gather and see for themselves what was taking place. The ball court was a large place where a game was usually played that involved players knocking around a softball and whoever that lost the game had to undergo the bloodletting ritual. Some of the instruments used were riskier when used than others and could result in catastrophic endings which resulted in precarious situations. Scholars believe that such tools as stingray spines were used on special occasions when the ritual at hand was essential and the person was ready for a life-threatening situation. Stingray spines were dangerous because they contained poison, well known by the fishermen who were fishing day in day out, and for them to be used, they had to undergo thorough cleaning to ensure minimum damage to the individuals. The blood that the people used for sacrifice was obtained from the soft parts of the body, tongue, ears and even the genitals.

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Several vital attributes and social activities were attached to the bloodletting rituals conducted in the Maya culture. Maya culture involved people who believed in gods and their tie to the gods for existence. Most importantly, they believed that they consulted when the case of catastrophe arrived for instance floods. They also believed that the gods had to use some of their organs to create men and for that reason, they had to lose some blood to appease the gods. In addition to that, they believed that human blood is mixed with god blood which the gods used to create man, hence the more the reason why they had to lose the blood as a sign of their gratitude to the gods. As a result of these beliefs, the bloodletting ritual became essential to the Maya culture because e it was a symbol of their religion.

The bloodletting rituals also represented politics and power. When a new position in the administration came up, a bloodletting ritual of a noble took place to show how important and necessary the position is. It was also a form of showing that the political power was well maintained by the administrators and also, as a way of making legit a ruling lineage that was about to be introduced as the new rulers of the Maya community. Bloodletting rituals also acted as ways of communicating with the gods and asking for something from them in return. For instance, when the bloodletting was conducted on the part of the body, like the genitals, it meant that the person was asking for reproduction potential especially fertility for them to have the ability to bear and raise children.

Lastly, the Maya culture left a lasting legacy on the face of the earth. Through the bloodletting rituals, they were able to build places where they carried out their sacrifices, and in the modern world, people are using the architecture used in the Maya culture monuments to build their houses and decorate other structures.

Bibliography

Joyce, Rosemary A. "A Precolumbian gaze: male sexuality among the ancient Maya." Archaeologies of sexuality (2000): 263-283.

Munson, Jessica, Viviana Amati, Mark Collard, and Martha J. Macri. "Classic Maya bloodletting and the cultural evolution of religious rituals: quantifying patterns of variation in hieroglyphic texts." PloS one 9, no. 9 (2014): e107982.

Sharer, Robert J., and Loa P. Traxler. "The ancient Maya." Journal of Latin American Anthropology 11, no. 1 (2006): 220-222.