Ritualistic Ceremonies of the Maya and the Cherokee

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The ritual ceremonies
Calendars
Dancing
Blood sacrifices
Ball games
Preparation and Cleansing rites
Holy documents
Conclusion
Works cited

Introduction

Ritualistic ceremonies played a central role in the traditions and cultures of ancient tribes. These were expressed in many ways depending on the tribes in question and could include the following dancing, music, prayers and chantings, games, traditional medicinal substances, smoke, sacrifices and other expressions. The purpose of all these is to stimulate connectedness, communion and spiritual experiences of the group participating (Authentic maya.com). The Maya occupied the Yucatan peninsula which is modern-day Guatemala, Belize, parts of Honduras and El Salvador and Southern Mexico for 3000 years in three time periods and had a common culture though there were independent Mayan states (Foster, 2002). The Cherokee on the other hand is a Native American tribe that occupied the mountain region of Alleghenies in South West Virginia, western North Carolina, north Georgia, east Tennessee and North East Alabama (Tice, 2005). These two tribes were deeply spiritual and their ceremonies revolved around this. Their ceremonial rituals were similar in some aspects and different in others. The following discussion seeks to compare and contrast the ritualistic ceremonies of the Maya of Latin America and the Cherokee tribe of Native America.

The ritual ceremonies

Ritual ceremonies were an important aspect of the Maya religion and cosmology. They were important means of communication between the gods and the people and also legitimized the rules of the Maya kings. They were performed in a way that the performers imitated the actions of created deities. The most important were the dances, blood sacrifices and ball games. Specific rituals were performed to match various aspects of their lives such as agriculture, economics, hunting civic and domestic productions among others. In the Cherokee on the other hand, ritual ceremonies formed part and parcel of daily life and were deeply entrenched in the religion. Like the Maya, they were expressed in dances, ballgames, sacrifices and also in prayers (Tice, 2005 and Foster, 2002).

Calendars

The Maya ritual ceremonies were timed using the 260-day sacred count calendar. Before the ceremonies, a lot of vigorous preparations were done depending on the specific rites such as fasting, observation of certain taboos, sexual abstinence. Ritual ceremonies were conducted by shaman-rulers and priests who were cleansed through bloodletting, dancing and swallowing of hallucinogens and were believed to transform themselves into gods and speak with the gods directly on the people’s behalf (Foster, 2002). The Cherokee on the other hand observed their ritual ceremonies according to the moons. These signify the Cherokee calendar of events and follow the modern-day calendar with twelve months in a year. Specific rituals were assigned to different moons which were for the purpose of the current event. ‘Cold Moon Dance’ ceremonies were held to mark the ending of one cycle of seasons and welcoming the begging of another. This was usually held in cold moon season modern-day January. Ritual and personal observance were held by fasting and personal purification. Green corn dance was held during the Green corn moon in modern-day June in celebration of the ripening of first foods. This is the ceremony that marked the commencement of the stickball games and dances. The ceremonies were led by the chiefs, medicine men and clan elders and the rest of the community followed (Cherokee by blood.com Religion, 2009).

Dancing

It was seen as a form of expression of religious beliefs. During the ceremonies, those conducting wore costumes that were in the form of images of the deities or reincarnated creations which helped forge a relationship with them and create the necessary purity for interactions. Dancers wore costumes which included beads, shells; feathered headdresses and complex backpacks decorated with deity images and carried items such as serpents, staffs, rattles, banners, spears, etc believed to be sacred (Freidel, Schale & Parker, 1995).

Dances were also part of the Cherokee ritual ceremonies. During the fire ceremony the chief, medicine men, elders hold meetings in the evening which culminate with the chief calling for the first dance which is by invitation only then the second and from there the rest of the community dance in the holy grounds until the wee hours of the morning. This is referred to as the stomp dance. During stomp dance ceremonies, strict preparation and execution are observed. It starts at dawn by lighting the sacred fire by the fire keeper and the medicine man and sacrifice meat to the fire during lighting. This is then followed by a traditional meal and reading of the keetoowah bible made of woven shells. Later a stickball game is played and more reading of the bible and sermons which are about peace and love at sunset. After this the dance begins with the special group then women follow and the rest of the group follows. This also has accompaniment and costumes such as the shaker who wears leg-rattles made of shells and filled with stones. There were also booger or ghost dances mainly performed by the young people for the purpose of individual health and social welfare and also to weaken evil spirits. The dancers wore brightly colored wooden masks depicting human features which were exaggerated. They were also decorated with fur and feathers and also wore sheets around their shoulders (Tice, 2005).

Blood sacrifices

The most important ritual ceremonies of the Maya involved the offering of blood, which is considered both by the gods and humans as the most precious offering substance, by the rulers. This was practiced even during the colonization by the Spanish who condemned it as dangerous and unorthodox. Bloodletting involved men cutting their earlobes, foreskins, lips, phalli, cheeks, female genitals and tongues considered the most sacred parts and could be accompanied by objects such as straw and chords being inserted into the incisions or even the priest forcing his hands in the incision.

Monuments of this period show that women and men participated in the blood sacrifice. Autosacrifice was believed to take one beyond cosmic boundaries to communicate with the deities and ancestors. The sacrifice of others was also performed and justified by this sacred communication. High-ranking War captives were sacrificed by chaining them at the great sacrifice stone and being fought by another warrior to death while all he has is a feather-edged sword.

The bloodshed through these ceremonies was believed to fulfill the obligation to nourish the gods with human blood as is in the agreement between the people of Maya and the gods. This agreement was believed to emanate from the blood the deities shed willingly on to maize cob for the creation of humans.

Blood sacrifice through bloodletting was believed to connect the rulers with divine powers beyond cosmic boundaries thereby bringing visions. This allowed them to communicate with deified ancestors and gods thereby a demonstration of their divine heritage and justification to temporal rule.

Kingly births, successions, anniversaries and certain calendars events were particularly important and involved blood sacrifices either by bloodletting or autosacrifices. Women also performed the bloodletting rites before their husbands went to war.

Blood sacrifices were done using special implements thought to harbor their own special powers. The penis, cheeks, ears and tongue were perforated using stingray spines, carved bone awls and obsidian lancets. Stingray spines were in a design that the ritual participant once started bloodletting will go all the way as a reversal of the act would cause more severance. Models of these made from precious material such as jade were buried with the rulers to show that they had participated. Blood was caught with three knotted strips of paper or cloth that adorned the arms of the bloodletters (Freidel, Schale & Parker, 1995).

Blood scattering is another form of blood sacrifice performed by the Maya people during the period-endings as indicated by the Maya calendar or important calendar dates. This involved casting of blood drops from the hands of the participants who were principally men.

In blood sacrifice rituals also, the participants donned costumes appropriate for the purpose of the sacrifice. An example is the scattering ritual where the ruler adorns in a cape, pectoral, high-backed sandals, jade ornaments, and a headdress among others.

In addition to human blood sacrifice, the jaguar was also sacrificed. This was seen as the most sacred animal in Maya land.

In the blood rituals, offering plates were used which represented small versions of the universe, earth and sky (Foster, 2005).

The Cherokee unlike the Maya had no elaborate and widespread blood sacrifice rituals. A scratching and bleeding ritual performed by the priests was the commonly practiced blood sacrifice ritual. This was used to purify warriors and ballplayers before the war or ball game to make them strong. This was done using a scraper with turkey-cock spurs known as the kunaga. The other form of sacrifice for the Cherokee was meat sacrifice during the fire ceremony where the meat was put in the burning fire in order to purify and cleanse by the medicine men (Tice, 2005).

Ball games

These had cosmological and religious importance to the Mayan people. They were played between individuals or teams in a masonry ball court. The goal of the game was to pass a rubber ball through the rings suspended high on the wall of the court using other body parts apart from the hands such as hips, legs and shoulders. The players wore costumes such a pudding in the forearms and knees for protection. Specially made u-shaped belts were worn high on the waist to protect the ribs and lungs and were made of leather or wicker. Other costumes include hashas and headdresses.

They were played for entertainment, competition and waging war with enemies among other reasons. In reenacting wars, losers were often sacrificed and captives of war would be bound and used as the ball. They were associated with cosmological aspects as the motions of the ball were likened to those of the earth, sun, moon and Venus.

Ball game as a ritual was seen as a means through which players recreate the heroic actions of the Hero Twins who had fought and conquered the lords of the Xibalba in the underworld ball court. This battle to the Mayans signified life, death and rebirth (Freidel, Schale & Parker, 1995 & authentic maya.com).

The Cherokee, on the other hand, played the stickball game which unlike in the Mayan community was done as part of another ritual ceremony. The stickball game (A-ne-jo-di), considered a holy game, was similar to the modern-day American lacrosse is played during the fire ceremony at the designated time of the year (Cherokee by blood.com, 2009).

Preparation and Cleansing rites

In the Maya tribe, ritual ceremonies started with a lot of vigorous preparations were done depending on the specific rites such as fasting, observation of certain taboos, sexual abstinence. These served the purpose of purifying and cleansing the participants. Ritual ceremonies were conducted by shaman-rulers and priests who were cleansed through bloodletting, dancing and swallowing of hallucinogens and were believed to transform themselves into gods and speak with the gods directly on the people’s behalf (Foster, 2005). Cleansing rites were also part of ritualistic ceremonies of the Cherokee tribe. For the Cherokee cleansing involved putting meat to the sacred fire in the holy grounds. It also involved taking medicines and ritual cleansing at the river where participants dipped seven times. Just like the Mayan people fasting and abstinence from sex and liquor was an important part of purification and cleansing. A purifying ritual called the white drink was another ceremonial ritual for the Cherokee tribe. This involved partaking of a white, frothy, black-bodied yaupon tea in a conch shell passed among the participants. This had an emetic and hallucinatory effect. There was also the pipe smoke ritual for sanctifying proceedings of a deliberation done by the chiefs, medicine men and elders conducting the ceremonies who took seven puffs of the pipes each before passing it to the next person. The pipe’s heads were carved from stone according to the shape of the animal representative of the clan. They were filled with tobacco and special herbs and lit from the sacred fire (Tice, 2005).

Holy documents

The Maya had a sacred book called Popol Vuh, which gave their creation story and was the center of their religion. In this book, the creation story is told as the creator, Heart of Sky made several attempts at creating human beings finally succeeding with the use of corn to create humans by pouring blood onto the maize cob by the deities. The first book was written in hieroglyphics. The contents of the book guided the Mayans in practicing religion and some rituals were based on it for example the sustenance of the gods through blood sacrifice as a charter made between the deities and humans during creation. It was also read during ritual ceremonies (Freidel, Schale & Parker, 1995).

The Cherokee the other hand had a ‘bible’- Keetoowah. This was composed of seven wampum belts with words woven into them. The words are made of pearls and shell beads woven with seaweed fibers found in the Gulf of Mexico. The bible was read during the ritual ceremonies which preach peace and love to the people. Sermons during the ceremonies were based on the keetoowah just like in the Mayan tribe (Tice, 2005).

Conclusion

Ritualistic ceremonies played a central role in the traditions and cultures of Maya and Cherokee tribes. These were expressed in many ways depending on the tribe in question. The purpose of all these in both communities was to stimulate connectedness, communion and spiritual experiences of the group participating. The Maya and Cherokee tribes had many similar ritualistic ceremonies such as ball games, dances, cleansing and purifying rituals and sacrifices. However, the way these rituals were practiced in Maya and Cherokee differed in some aspects such as sacrifices where the Mayans practiced elaborate and widespread human blood sacrifice and the Cherokee offered mostly meet for burning as a way of sacrificing.

Works cited

Authentic maya.com. Web.

Cherokee by blood.com Religion, 2009. Web.

Foster, L. V. Handbook to life in the ancient Maya world. Oxford University Press Inc., 2002.

Freidel, D, Schale, L & Parker, J. Maya Cosmos. William Morrow, 1995.

Tice, P. Indians in the Americas: the untold story. The Book Tree, 2005.

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