User:Rsilva08/Maize in Maya Culture

Maize

Maize was (and still is) one of the most important crops amongst the Mayan peoples. From art and iconography it becomes clear that the use of maize was for several different purposes and was an essential part of not on their diet, but religion as well. It was a versatile crop and could be stored and shipped, all while nourishing the people who so highly praised.

Diet

In regards to their diet maize as well as other crops served an important tole. While their diet primarily consisted of maize, beans, and squash, other sources of food were available as well through hunting and fishing. Such animals included: white tailed and brocket deer, turkeys and dogs (two domesticated animals of the region), as well as turtles and other marine and freshwater fish. Although maize was very important amongst all the societies in the Mayan culture and now makes up to 75% of their diet, it was not always the staple to every diet, revealing one of the first indicators of socioeconomic distinctions. For example, at Cahal Pech, Beliz, people living in the site center relied more on maize and less on fish than those in the community margins.

There were a number of ways in which the Mayas prepared their corn. With hard stones they were able to use what was known as a mano and metate in order to grind maize and other seeds.

Karl Taube searched deeper into the diet of the Mayans claiming that the tamale and corn tortilla were an important part of their diet that is present in Mayan art, iconography and epigraphy stating that "Maya epigraphy supplies the most convincing evidence that the tamale constituted the principal maize food of the maya. While the descriptions on tortillas and comal seem to be absent in many of the ethnohistoric accounts the tamale was in fact the staple and was eaten with boiled beans, squashes and chile sauce, whereas the tortillas and tortilla making rarely occur. Some of the earliest representations of maize foods in the Maya appear in the Early Classic Esperanza phase of Kaminaljuyu.

Cultivation

Genetic research reveals that zea mexicana also known as teosinte was the wild ancestor of maize before it was domesticated, possibly originating in the Balsas River region of Guerrero, Mexico. "Geographers and archaeologists, in the 1970s and 1980s, produced evidence which showed that forms of sophisticated, intensive agriculture had been practiced in the pre-Hispanic era in the Maya lowlands of Central America. Across the Maya lowlands, the presence of raised fields and terraced hillsides attests to the fact that the ancient Maya manipulated the landscape to improve soil conditions and intensify agriculture in order to support their dense populations." Present over 6,000 years ago, maize cultivation spread to coastal Chiapas and eastern Mesoamerica by 3,000 BC, most likely through trade routes. Permanent village life emerged slowly throughout the Mayan colonies, but as the perfection of all different strains of maize came about, such stabilization was able to help produce enough food to support a group of people all year-round.

Rituals & Religion

Plaster Cast of the Foliated Cross Tablet at Palenque

Maize while an important and vital source food was also highly involved in Mayan rituals that are depicted in their art. On monuments and ceramic vessels the importance of maize. In the La Pasadita Lintel 2, bloodletting obligations of a Maya king are showcased during a period ending ceremony. The scene reveals the kind spilling his blood to fertilize the seed in the earth, to guarantee the growth of the maize plants as well as the continuation of his lineage by birth of a noble offspring.

In Maya religion, maize has also been depicted in the Foliated Cross- Tablet that is located in Palenque. The tablet reveals what the Maya paradise would look like. With a food-providing World Tree (that is shaped as a maize plant and is also referred to as "The Tree of Life"), the "K'an-cross adorned Water-lily Monster [is shown floating] in a water band symbolizing the watery realm of raised fields, canals and swamps." In this scene, a witz (mountain) Monster and a shell are covered by a maize plant that support the new Chan-Bahlum and his deceased father Pakal.

In the creation stories, the Temple of the Foliated Cross possesses a motif, the tablet reveals "in keeping with its location on the east, the life-giving direction of the rising sun, commemorates the earthly realm. It depicts the maize plant, sustainer of life, from which sprout human heads... rising from the mask of the waterlily monster." In creation myth of the Popol Vuh, human beings were created from maize dough and by the gods.