Another common misconception regarding the Mayans is the belief that they were completely destroyed back when they were conquered and decimated by the Spanish forces. This is false since the fact remains that there are still over six million people alive today, who can perfectly speak one or more of the many Mayan languages, and are direct descendants of the original Mayan empire. These living people have preserved much of the Mayan culture and tradition, minus the less sympathetic parts where they sacrificed other human beings to appease the gods. Or at the very least, that’s what the official word says they changed.
You can find modern Mayans throughout southern Mexico and northern Central America. They are said to be divided into various tribes such as the Yucatecs, Tzeltal, and Tzotzil. On a lighter note, they still like to play the Pok-a-Tok ball game, now known as Ulama. We’re happy to let you know that losers in these matches no longer get offered to the gods as human sacrifice either.
For Mayans, Calendars Were More Important Than Almost Anything
Love it or hate it, the calendar is the tool we use to help make sense of our days. We consult it when we want to know what our agenda is for the day, we check it to see how long it is until the paycheck comes in, we use it to set up dates and appointments, and even create predictions by setting goals and sticking them to later calendar deadlines. The Mayans also had a strong attachment to their calendar and could teach us a thing or two about the motivational significance of them. According to Mayan mythology, the first set of men and women were destroyed by the gods as a punishment for not consulting with their sacred calendars. This is why the Mayans devoted a lot of time and effort into perfecting their calendar system.
Based on the Mayan calendar, there are two types of events to track. On the one side, there is a secular variety of things. These could be anything from appointments to goals and so on and so forth. They believed these can be adhered to or dispensed with at your own suggestion. On the other hand, there was the sacred portion of the calendar, which tracked astrology and holidays fo the gods. They believed that this part of the calendar should be given the utmost respect and attention and that it even predicted the future. Priests and scribes would attempt to read the sacred calendar and make predictions based on what they found. These predictions would then be passed on to the king, who would relay the information to his faithful constituents.
Mayans Were Fluent Speakers of Many, Many Different Languages
A lot of people believe that because the Mayans were a single nation, they spoke one official language. We also tend to assume that the language was called something along the lines of “Mayan”. Well, when it comes to historical backgrounds, the Mayan empire was actually made up of a large number of small groups of people, each of which had their own dialect. These dialects eventually evolved into their own fully developed languages, making the total amount of languages spoken in the Mayan territories to be anywhere from 21 to 70 different languages.
All of these languages descend from one original meta-language called the Proto-Mayan language, a younger version of the spoken languages that dates back more than five thousand years ago. This is a very similar situation to what happened in Europe, with the meta language of Latin gradually developing into various versions and dialects of languages from English to German. The main Mayan meta language is said to have broken off into six different branches of development, or “sub-languages”, these six branches of Proto-Matan are: Quichean, Yucatecan, Qanjobalan, Mamean, Co-lan-Tzeltalan, and Huastecan. As cool as this may sound, here's something infinitely cooler, did you know that the Mayans still exist to this day?
The Mayans Were Chocoholics
Almost everyone in the world loves chocolate. Whether it's sweet chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, or any other kind — there's not much dispute about its awesome qualities. Chocolate is scientifically proven to make people happier, improve blood flow, and generally taste amazing. It can make your day brighter and is definitely a gift from the gods. The Mayans were very fortunate because they had a direct source of near-infinite amount of chocolate since cacao naturally grows in the rain forests of South and Central America. The Mayans quickly adopted the tasty material and found various ways to process and consume it as far as 2,600 years ago.
What's even cooler than the incredible supply of cacao they had, is just how the Mayans chose to use and consume their cacao. It's been widely suggested that Mayans would often mix cocoa with water, honey, chili peppers, cornmeal, and other ingredients to create their version of a chocolate shake. They would often drink these foamy shakes at festivals, rituals, ceremonies, and celebrations. It's been proven by science that chocolate has the characteristics of an aphrodisiac, which might explain the population growth spurts that got the Mayan population to almost twenty million strong. We've joked previously about the Mayans beauty standards and their tendency to replace teeth with precious stones. Let's check out just how far this joke actually goes…
Mayans Invented the World's First Rapper Grills
In today's culture, many rappers and would-be gangsters tend to plate and embellish their teeth with various precious materials such as gold and diamond. This is apparently considered to be a status symbol among these cultures despite looking absolutely ridiculous to the average citizens. You'd think that this kind of delicate dental surgery, where a person's teeth are plated or replaced with a replica from another material, would be somewhat of a modern invention, both because of its usually menial purpose and because of the high requirements for hygiene and sanitation. Apparently the Mayans managed to crack it first and had been doing dental surgeries very similar to today's literally thousands of years before science was even invented.
The high-class Mayans would often replace some of their teeth with various stones and diamonds such as jade, pyrite, hematite, or turquoise by inserting them directly into their teeth! The surgery would get done by drilling small holes into a person's teeth and then filling them with these precious materials. This was considered a very vogue thing to do and was a recognized sign of beauty and influence in Mayan society. Kind of like having your own Ferrari or mansion, just a lot less fun and with a lot more toothache. If that's not going deep enough into the Twilight Zone, you might be interested in knowing that Mayans actually tried communicating with their gods by using enemas. Yup. Enemas. More on that in the next entry.