Whether it was human sacrifice, treasure tossed into sacred sinkholes, or rituals surrounding resource extraction from the land, the ancient Maya had a rich worldview that involved a close reciprocal relationship with their gods.
But what did the ancient Maya have to do to avoid the inconvenience of an apocalyptic reset, or at least keep the gods happy enough to favor new temples or even small homes? According to archaeologists, it depended a lot on the time, place, and scale of the occasion.
Why Did the Maya Have to Please Their Gods?
One of the ancient Maya’s origin stories involves a tale chronicled in the Popol Vuh, a sacred text from the K’iche’ Maya people who still live in parts of southern Mexico and Central America. This text was first recorded in Spanish in the early 1700s by a priest of the Dominican order, though the narrative dates back centuries earlier.
According to the Popol Vuh, the gods made humans out of corn and gave them fire after failing several times. “[They] wanted to create beings that would recognize and worship them, who could speak and were knowledgeable—but not all-knowing,” says Elizabeth Paris, an archaeologist at the University of Calgary who studies the Maya.
