Many have heard of the Dreamworks classic The Road to El Dorado, a tale of two adventurers who find the “City of Gold” itself: El Dorado. It is filled with adventure, fun, dark magic, and, of course, gold. And while there was an overriding sense of peace and tranquility in the film, this actually represents the way ancient mayans cared for their dead.
Ancient Mayans believed in tributes to their gods as a way of showing their gratitude for health and prosperity. In fact, these tributes included sacrifices of their own people, their supposed gold, and many other goods—all sent to Xibalba, the name of their spirit world.
Burial Rituals
The ancient Mayans regarded the afterlife as a perilous realm of existence. As a result, the way in which the dead were buried was done to make it easier for the soul to pass through the afterlife into paradise. The deceased would be buried with maize in their mouths as a symbol of the re-birth of their souls, as well as to nourish the soul on its journey through Xibalba (the netherworld of the afterlife). Bodies were positioned in their graves in the direction of the Mayan paradise, as this allowed the soul easier passage through the afterlife.
The bodies were then sprinkled with red mineral cinnabar: red being the colour of death. Wrapped in cotton, these markings acted as a disguise for the soul as it passed through the netherworld of demons. Everyone who died was believed to have to make this journey. Only in the cases of deaths due to childbirth, sacrifice, suicide, or battle did the soul pass directly into paradise.
Death in The Mayan Ball Game
The Mayan ball game was also a source of rituals and religious rite—an active play commemorating part of the drama in the ancient Maya creation story. The ball game is a running theme in the Popol Vuh (“Book of Counsel”—comparable to the Bible’s Book of Genesis) and is often portrayed as a way that humans interacted with the gods.
One theory is that it was not the losers of the ball game, but the winners who were sacrificed—that teams volunteered to play in the ceremony and that if you won, you would be sacrificed to the gods. The incentive was the great honor that was placed upon the individual and their families—typically leading to advancement in society. The losers, on the other hand, were demoted to a life or impoverished slavery.
Ancient burial rituals are a fascinating subject, each being an acknowledgement to the culture and practices in place at that time.
Sources:
https://www.talkdeath.com/the-most-fascinating-ancient-burial-rituals/