Ix Chel - Mayan Goddess(es) of Fertility and Death

Ix Chel - Mayan Goddess(es) of Fertility and Death Ix Chel (at times spelled Ixchel) is, as indicated by longstanding archeological custom, the Mayan moon goddess, one of the most significant and old of Maya gods, associated with fruitfulness and reproduction. Her name Ix Chel has been interpreted as â€Å"Lady Rainbow† or as â€Å"She of the Pale Face,† a suggestion to the moons surface. Quick Facts: Ix Chel Known For: Goddess of the Moon, fruitfulness, physical love, weaving.Religion: Classic and Late Post Classic period Maya. Also Known As: Lady Rainbow, She of the Pale Face, Goddess I, and Goddess O. Appearance: Two perspectives: a youthful, erotic lady and an old crone. Shrines: Cozumel and Isla Mujeres, Mexico.Appearances: Madrid and Dresden codexes. As per Spanish frontier records, the Maya thought the moon goddess meandered the sky, and when she wasnt in the sky she was said to live in the cenotes (regular sinkholes loaded up with water). At the point when the winding down moon showed up again in the east, individuals made journeys to the Ix Chel sanctum on Cozumel. In the customary pantheon of Maya divine beings and goddesses, Ix Chel has two perspectives, that of a youthful erotic lady and a matured hag. In any case, that pantheon was worked by archeologists and students of history dependent on a wide assortment of sources, including iconography, oral history, and verifiable records. Throughout the times of research, Mayanists have regularly discussed whether they have erroneously joined two female gods (Goddess I and Goddess O)â into one Moon Goddess. Goddess I The essential part of Goddess I is as a young spouse, delightful and absolute attractive, and she is sporadically connected with references to the lunar bow and bunnies, a skillet Mesoamerican reference to the moon. (Truth be told, numerous societies see a hare in the moons face, however that is another story). She frequently shows up with a snout like member projecting from her upper lip. Goddess I is known as Ixik Kab (Lady Earth) or Ixik Uh (Lady Moon) in the Maya books known as the Madrid and Dresden codices,â and in the Madrid codex she shows up as both a youthful and matured variant. Goddess I manages marriage, human richness and physical love. Her different names incorporate Ix Kanab (Child of Lady of the Seas) and Ix Tan Dzonot (Child of She in the Middle of the Cenote). Ixik Kab is related with weaving in the post-exemplary period, and the matured type of Ixik Kab is frequently demonstrated weaving as well as wearing a couple of horn-like components on her head which likely speak to shafts. Goddess O Goddess O, then again, is an incredible matured lady distinguished with birth and creation as well as with death and world decimation. On the off chance that these are various goddesses and not parts of a similar goddess, Goddess O is well on the way to be the Ix Chel of the ethnographic reports. Goddess O is hitched to Itzamna and in this way is one of the two maker lords of Maya inception fantasies. Goddess O has a pile of phonetic names including Chac Chel (Red Rainbow or Great End). Goddess O is delineated with a red body, and here and there with cat viewpoints, for example, puma hooks and teeth; once in a while she wears a skirt set apart with crossed bones and other demise images. She is firmly related to the Mayan downpour god Chaac (God B) and regularly observed showed with pouring water or flood pictures. The way that Goddess Os name implies the two rainbows and decimation may come as an astonishment, yet dissimilar to in our Western culture rainbows are bad signs for the Maya but rather are terrible ones, the tooting of the evil presences which emerge from dry wells. Chac Chel is related with weaving, fabric creation, and arachnids; with water, restoring, divination, and demolition; and with making kids and labor. Four Goddesses? The Moon Goddess of the Maya folklore may really have a lot more angles. The most punctual Spanish voyagers in the mid sixteenth century perceived that there was a prospering strict practice among the Maya committed to aixchel or yschel. The neighborhood men prevented knowing the importance from claiming the goddess; however she was a divinity of the Chontal, Manche Chol, Yucatec, and Pocomchi bunches in the early provincial time frame. Ix Chel was one of four related goddesses venerated on the islands of Cozumel and Isla de Mujeres: Ix Chel, Ix Chebal Yax, Ix Hunie, and Ix Hunieta. Mayan ladies made journeys to their sanctuaries on the island of Cozumel and set her venerated images underneath their beds, requesting help. The Oracle of Ix Chel As indicated by a few authentic records, during the Spanish frontier time frame, there was an actual existence estimated fired sculpture known as the Oracle of Ix Chel situated on Cozumel Island. The prophet at Cozumel is said to have been counseled during the establishment of new settlements and in the midst of fighting. Travelers were said to have followed sacbe (the readied Maya highways) from as distant as Tabasco, Xicalango, Champoton, and Campeche to adore the goddess. The Mayan journey course crossed the Yucatan from west to east, reflecting the pathway of the moon through the sky. Frontier word references report that the pioneers were known as hula and the clerics were Aj Kin. The Aj Kin suggested the explorers conversation starters to the sculpture and, in return for contributions of copal incense, organic product, and winged animal and pooch penances, announced the appropriate responses in the voice of the prophet. Francisco de Lopez de Gomara (Hernan Cortes clergyman) depicted the hallowed place on Cozumel island as a square pinnacle, wide at the base and ventured all around. The upper half was erect and at the top was a specialty with a covered rooftop and four openings or windows. Inside this space was a huge, empty, furnace terminated mud picture attached to the divider with lime mortar: this was the picture of the moon goddess Ix Chel. Finding the Oracle There are a few sanctuaries situated close the cenotes at the Maya destinations of San Gervasio, Miramar, and El Caracol on Cozumel Island. One which has been distinguished as a conceivable area for the prophet place of worship is the Kana Nah or High House at San Gervasio. San Gervasio was a regulatory and stylized focus on Cozumel, and it had three edifices of five gatherings of structures all associated by sacbe. Kana Nah (Structure C22-41) was a piece of one of those buildings, comprising of a little pyramid, five meters (16 feet) in stature with a square arrangement of four ventured levels and a fundamental flight of stairs circumscribed by a railing. Mexican prehistorian Jesus Galindo Trejo contends that the Kana Nah pyramid seems, by all accounts, to be lined up with the major lunar halt when the moon sets at its outrageous point not too far off. The association of C22-41 as a contender for the Ixchel Oracle was first advanced by American archeologists David Freidel and Jeremy Sabloff in 1984. All in all, Who Was Ix Chel? American paleontologist Traci Ardren (2015) has contended that the distinguishing proof of Ix Chel as a solitary moon goddess joining female sexuality and conventional sex jobs of fruitfulness comes directly from the brains of the soonest researchers contemplating her. In the late nineteenth and mid twentieth hundreds of years, says Ardren, male western researchers brought their own inclinations about ladies and their jobs in the public arena into their hypotheses about Maya legends. Nowadays, Ix Chels presumed fruitfulness and magnificence have been appropriated by a few non-authorities, business properties, and new age religions, however as Ardren cites Stephanie Moser, it is perilous for archeologists to accept we are the main individuals who can make significance out of the past. Chosen Sources Ardren, Traci. Patching the Past: Ix Chel and the Invention of a Modern Pop Goddess. Artifact 80.307 (2015): 25â€37. Print.Boskovic, Aleksandar. The Meaning of Maya Myths. Anthropos 84.1/3 (1989): 203â€12. Print.Colas, Pierre Robert, Katja Christiane Stengert, and Urlich Wolfel. The Mapping of Ix Chel: A Terminal Classic Secondary Maya Site on the Northern Vaca Plateau, Belize, Central America. Northern Vaca Plateau Geoarchaeology Project, 2006. Print.Galindo Trejo, Jesus. Calendric-Astronomical Alignment of Architectural Structures in Mesoamerica: An Ancestral Cultural Practice. The Role of Archaeoastronomy in the Maya World: The Case Study of the Island of Cozumel. Eds. Sanz, Nuria, et al. Paris, France: UNESCO, 2016. 21â€36. Print.Iwaniszewski, Stanislaw. Time and the Moon in Maya Culture: The Case of Cozumel. The Role of Archaeoastronomy in the Maya World: The Case Study of the Island of Cozumel. Eds. Sanz, Nuria, et al. Paris, France: UNESCO, 2016. 39â€55. Print.Po lk, Jason S., Philip E. van Beynen, and Philip P. Reeder. Late Holocene Environmental Reconstruction Using Cave Sediments from Belize. Quaternary Research 68.1 (2007): 53â€63. Print. Ã… prajc, Ivan. Archeological Sites on the Island of Cozumel: The Role of Astronomy in Architectural and Urban Planning. The Role of Archaeoastronomy in the Maya World: The Case Study of the Island of Cozumel. Eds. Sanz, Nuria, et al. Paris, France: UNESCO, 2016. 57â€83. Print.