The Maya Kingdom was huge and phenomenal. Big buildings and castles were made. With a big kingdom there was also a scary military. This military was build up of very athletic mayan men. Most of them were professional warriors and worked full time for their kingdom.
These militaries were actually much more complex than most people may realise. The boss of the military was a chief, known as a nacom. He was elected to a three year term by the other warriors. The military was also a spiritual place to be. The gods were the supreme spiritual forces, but even the spiritual essence of a tree or a frog deserved respect.
Dance rituals were performed to communicate with the gods. Dances included ornaments such as spears, rattles, scepters, and even live snakes as dance aids. They would also dress up as gods and act as gods so that they would be overtaken by the god’s spirit and therefore would be able to communicate with him or her.
They did a lot of offering to the gods. The more precious items the better. It could be things such as jade, gold, masks, shells, carved human bone, and ceremonial or sacred tools.
One of the Maya warriors’ primary functions was to capture and sacrifice victims for their particular kingdom. There was a big desire for human blood among these militaries, not for consuming – but for sacrificing it to their gods. Blood rituals took many forms. They would cut and sacrifice their own blod, but the more well-known act of human sacrifice was to sacrifice others. They mostly sacrificed captured warriors or chiefs from other kingdoms. Since the act of human sacrifice played such an important role in Maya society, those warriors who captured the victims were given special status.
The rules of Maya Warrior Battle
Maya warriors usually went into battle with a fearless attitude. The wars between kingdoms were almost like sports. There were benefits and victory got celebrated. They had a long spiritual ruleset to give warriors benefits when they performed.
- Chuk, which means “to capture.” To the Maya warrior, it was better to capture one’s foes than to kill them because wars were usually fought to acquire human sacrifice victims instead of the gain of new territory.
- The warriors gained status among their peers and in their cities with the more enemy warriors they captured.
- Maya warriors saw it as an honor to be captured in battle, as long as they fought valiantly. Being a sacrifice victim was an honorable way to die.
- Every Mayan had a spiritual guide, a Wayob that could appear as an animal or in a dream in order to help that person through life.
https://dailyhistory.org/Why_Were_the_Maya_Such_Excellent_Warriors
https://www.worldhistory.org/Maya_Religion/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43042817