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Daily Life and Social Structure
The Maya had a social structure that was very precise. The kings and priests were very rich and they were the most important. Then there were kings' advisors and the regular priests. Next there were the merchants. At the bottom of the list were the men and women peasants who were generally poor and not very important at all.
The Maya were pretty normal people from the point of view of their daily life. Most men went to work in the fields and most women sold goods at the market or stayed home to take care of their children.
The food the Maya ate consisted mostly of corn, bread and beans and they drank water that they got from the wells. They treated illness by calling a priest in to their house and when a person died they thought there was a bad spirit in the house.
The Maya believed in many gods; some were evil spirits and some were good. The Maya believed that the gods had made them out of their own blood and that they needed blood as their food. According to their very accurate calendars, the Maya would give blood sacrifices to the gods. The symbolic color of the sacrifices was blue, and so they would decorate the buildings where sacrifices were to be held blue.
Many of the sacrificial victims were war captives and slaves. . While they were still alive a priest would take a flint knife and cut out the victim's heart in front of a cheering crowd. Then the victim's body would be rolled down the steps to the crowd.
On very special occasions, the king himself would give blood by piercing his own skin, and letting the blood drip onto piece of paper. Then the paper would be burned and the Mayans believed they would be able to see the gods in the rising smoke.
The ancient Mayas also played a ball game where padded players had to keep a rubber ball moving without using either their hands or feet. The team which lost would be sacrificed.
External links: Here is some additional information about blood sacrifice among the ancient Mayas. They are: Maya Religion, Mystery of the Maya: Cosmology and Religion, Bloodletting Symbolism in Maya Art, The Story of Lintels 24, 25, and 26 from Yaxchilan, Mayan Blood Rituals and The Mayan Ballgame.
Pages Created: Tuesday, 12-May-98 11:50:14 EST
URL: http://www.best.com/~swanson/maya/eg_maya_project1.html
This page has been visited . times since August 15, 1997
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