Sources of Traditional Mayan Religion
The most important source on traditional Maya religion is the Mayas themselves: the incumbents of positions within the religious hierarchy, diviners, and tellers of tales, and more generally all those persons who shared their knowledge with outsiders (such as anthropologists) in the past and continue to do this until today.
What is known of pre-Spanish Maya religion stems from heterogeneous sources (the primary ones being of Maya origin):
- (1) Primary sources from pre-Spanish times: the three surviving, authentic hieroglyphic books (the Maya codices of Dresden, Madrid, and Paris) dating from the Postclassic period (after 900 AD); the 'ceramic codex' (the corpus of pottery scenes and texts) and mural paintings; the petrographical texts from the Classic (200-900 AD) and Late-Preclassic (200 BC-200 AD) periods;
- (2) Primary sources from the early-colonial (16th-century) period, such as the Popol Vuh, the Ritual of the Bacabs, and (at least in part) the various Chilam Balam books;
- (3) Secondary sources, chiefly Spanish treatises from the colonial period, such as those of Landa for the Lowland Mayas and Las Casas for the Highland Mayas, but also lexicons such as the early Motul (Yucatec) and Coto (Kaqchikel) dictionaries;
- (4) Archaeological, epigraphic, and iconographic studies; and
- (5) Anthropological reports published since the late 19th century, used in combination with the sources above.
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