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Adoration of gods
In the Maya culture, music and dance were very important to showing their adoration to the gods. For each ceremony they had special compositions and dances. For the Mayas, the sun also was very important because it gave them light and heat. They adorated Ahaw K'in as sungod. In the morning, he was a young god but while his travel to the west during one day he became old. The Mayas believed that the sun transformed into a jaguar in the night. They adorated the jaguar because they thought that he had supernatural power. In the Maya mythology, the sungod in the night as a jaguar had to fight against the lords of death. Fortunately, he wins each time the fight so that each morning, the sun can rise again. In the Maya culture, there existed priest kings which were mediators between the alives, gods and ancestors. They made rituals beeing in trance to enter into contact with the gods and the ancestors. Important events (e.g. birth, death, successions to the throne) needed a blood sacrifice. This could mean some drops of blood, but also an animal or human sacrifice. A special kind of adoration of gods by the Maya elite was the ball game. The looser team often has been killed. It is not clarified if this game each time ended with the death of the loosers. It is supposed that this happened only at special events. These ball-game-places were situated mostly very nearly by the most important ceremonial buildings. Two onf the most important ceremonial centers of the Mayas were Tikal and Palenque. Another important place for special rituals was Chichén Itzá. Other gods of the Mayas were Chac (rain god, admired and feared), Hun Hunahpu or Yum Kax (maize god, creator of growth), Itzamna (god of heaven), Ah Puch (god of death) and much more. Known is also Quetzalcoatl but this one was the superior god of the Toltecas (they lived long time before the Aztecas the central region of Mexico). The Mayas called this god Kukulcán.
The "Cenote" (called Holy or Sacrifice spring) in Chichén Itzá: On its ground were found skeletons and offerings. Investigations resulted that there had been sacrificed 42 persons (13 men, 8 women, 21 children). The "Cenote" of Chichén Itzá probably was a pilgrimage place of the Mayas.
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