Female and Male Maize Deities
In Maya oral tradition, the maize is usually personified as a woman - like the rice in Southeast Asia, or the wheat in ancient Greece and Rome. The acquisition of this woman through bridal capture constitutes one of the basic Maya myths. In contrast to this, the pre-Spanish Mayan aristocracy appears to have primarily conceived the maize as male. The Classic period distinguished two male forms: a Foliated and a Tonsured Maize God. The Foliated Maize God is present in the so-called Maize Tree (Temple of the Foliated Cross, Palenque), its cobs being shaped like the deity's head. Whereas the Foliated Maize God is a one-dimensional vegetation spirit, the Tonsured Maize God's functions are much more diverse. On stelas, the ritual representative of the Tonsured Maize God tends to be a queen rather than a king. The queen thus appears to have become a maize goddess, in accordance with the Mayan narrative traditions mentioned above. A male maize deity representing the foliated type and labeled god E is present in the three extant Maya books of undisputed authenticity; the codical god H has been claimed to represent the Tonsured Maize God.
Read more about this topic: Maya Maize God
Famous quotes containing the words female and male, female, male, maize and/or deities:
“Said an ape as he swung by his tail
To his offspring both female and male,
“From your children, my dears,
In a couple of years
May evolve a professor at Yale.””
—Anonymous.
“You know, whenever women make imaginary female kingdoms in literature, they are always very permissive, to use the jargon word, and easy and generous and self-indulgent, like the relationships between women when there are no men around. They make each other presents, and they have little feasts, and nobody punishes anyone else. This is the female way of going along when there are no men about or when men are not in the ascendant.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)
“O Love, what hours were thine and mine,
In lands of palm and southern pine;
In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“The gods themselves,
Humbling their deities to love, have taken
The shapes of beasts upon them. Jupiter
Became a bull, and bellowed; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)