The ancient Maya believed that everything in the universe, from the natural world to everyday experiences, was part of a single, powerful spiritual force. They were not polytheists who worshiped different gods, but pantheists who believed that different gods were merely manifestations of that power.
Some of the best evidence for this comes from the behavior of two of the Mayan world’s most powerful beings: the first is a creator god whose name is still spoken by millions every fall – Huracán, or ‘hurricane’. The second is a god of lightning, K’awiil, from the early first millennium AD
As a researcher of the indigenous religions of the Americas, I recognize that although these beings are separated by more than a thousand years, they are related and can teach us something about our relationship to the natural world.
Huracán, the ‘heart of the sky’
Huracán was once a god of the K’iche’, one of the Mayan peoples who now live in the southern highlands of Guatemala. He was one of the main characters of the Popol Vuh, a religious text from the 16th century. Its name likely comes from the Caribbean, where other cultures used it to describe the destructive power of storms.
The K’iche’ associated Huracán, which means “one leg” in the K’iche’ language, with the weather. He was also their primary god of creation and was responsible for all life on earth, including humans.
Because of this he was also known as U K’ux K’aj, or ‘Heart of Sky’. In the K’iche language, k’ux was not only the heart, but also the spark of life, the source of all thought and imagination.
Yet Huracán was not perfect. He made mistakes and occasionally destroyed his creations. He was also a jealous god who damaged people so that they would not be his equal. In one such episode, it is believed that he clouded their vision, preventing them from seeing the universe as he saw it.
Huracán was a being made up of three different people: Thunderbolt Huracán, Youngest Thunderbolt, and Sudden Thunderbolt. Each of them embodied different types of lightning, ranging from huge bolts of lightning to small or sudden flashes of light.
Despite the fact that he was a god of lightning, there were no strict boundaries between his powers and the powers of other gods. Any of them could wield lightning, create humanity, or destroy the Earth.
Another storm god
The Popol Vuh implies that gods could combine their powers at will, but other religious texts are more explicit. A thousand years before the Popol Vuh was written, there was another version of Huracán called K’awiil. During the first millennium, people from southern Mexico to western Honduras worshiped him as a god of agriculture, lightning and kingship.
Illustrations of K’awiil are found throughout Mayan pottery and sculpture. In many images he is almost human: he has two arms, two legs and a head. But his forehead is the spark of life – and so there is usually something in it that produces sparks, such as a flint ax or a flaming torch. And one of his legs doesn’t end in a foot. In its place is a snake with an open mouth, from which another creature often emerges.
Rulers and even gods once performed ceremonies for K’awiil to attempt to summon other supernatural beings. It was believed that as personified lightning, he created portals to other worlds through which ancestors and gods could travel.
Representation of power
To the ancient Maya, lightning was pure power. It was the basis of all creation and destruction. Because of this, the ancient Maya carved and painted many images of K’awiil. Scribes wrote of him as a kind of energy – as a god with “many faces,” or even as part of a triad similar to Huracán.
He was everywhere in ancient Mayan art. But he was never the center of attention either. As a brute force, it was used by others to achieve their goals.
For example, rain gods wielded it like an ax and created sparks in seeds for agriculture. Magicians summoned him, but mainly because they believed he could help them communicate with other beings from other worlds. Rulers even carried scepters made in his image during dances and processions.
Furthermore, Mayan artists always made K’awiil do something or be used to make something happen. They believed that power was something you did, not something you had. Like lightning, power was always moving, always moving.
An interdependent world
Because of this, the ancient Mayans believed that reality was not static, but constantly changing. There were no strict boundaries between space and time, the forces of nature, or the animate and inanimate worlds.
Everything was malleable and interdependent. Theoretically, everything could become something else – and everything was potentially a living being. Rulers could ritually transform themselves into gods. Sculptures could be hacked to death. Even natural features such as mountains were believed to be alive.
These ideas – common in pantheistic societies – persist in some communities in America today.
However, they were once mainstream and became part of the K’iche religion a thousand years later during the time of Huracán. One of the lessons of the Popol Vuh, told during the episode where Huracán obscures human vision, is that human perception of reality is an illusion.
The illusion is not that different things exist. Rather, they exist independently of each other. Huracán has damaged himself in this sense by damaging his creations.
Hurricane season should remind us every year that humans are not independent of nature, but are part of it. And just like Hurácan, when we harm nature, we harm ourselves.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit organization providing facts and trusted analysis to help you understand our complex world. It was written by: James L. Fitzsimmons, Middlebury
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James L. Fitzsimmons does not work for, consult with, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.