Communicate Co.

Maya Compendia

The Afterlife

To begin with, one must look at the way in which a person dies. For the Maya the most important thing was the type of death (sacred or normal) and not the manner in which a person lived this/her life (good or bad).

Sacred death is achieved through death in battle, human sacrifice, leprosy, drowning, suicide by hanging and death of a woman during her birth of her first child.

People who died a sacred death went to the heavenly realm.

Any other type of death consigned the person to the Underworld.

In the mythical journey to the Underworld (Metnal or Xilbabá), the soul has to cross a river with the help of a dog. Carrying a piece of jadeite made the journey easier. Note: some authors use the term jade. This is incorrect, true jade is only found in China. The green stone found in the Americas is jadeite.

The pilgrimage ended when the soul arrived in the Underworld. The Underworld for the Nahuas – among these the Aztecs and the Mexicas – is associated with the north and the colour black; for the Maya, with the south and the colour yellow.

The souls of the dead are ultimately reborn in other human bodies (regardless of the sex), without any recollection of their previous lives. This does not coincide with Eastern and Middle Eastern beliefs of resurrection and reincarnation (in resurrection the spirits take hold of the same body and the same mind, and in reincarnation they take the bodies of different creatures, even animals, and in some cases they have memories of past lives).