A2A World · Field Guide 11 of the World’s Mythologies
K’iche’ Maya · Yucatec Maya · Nahuatl
Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras
Mesoamerica is one of the world’s great cradles of civilisation. Its peoples shared a calendar, a sacred ballgame, a layered cosmos of sky, earth and underworld, and a deep reverence for maize as the substance of human life.
This guide focuses on the Maya, whose K’iche’ book the Popol Vuh is among the most complete mythological texts to survive from the Americas, with related figures from the wider Mesoamerican world.
© A2A World LLC 2026
Context
Maya myth survives in carved stone, painted ceramics, a small number of screenfold books and colonial-era manuscripts written down by Maya authors in their own languages. Living Maya communities continue to keep stories, ceremonies and the 260-day calendar today.
Principal Sources
The Popol Vuh (K’iche’ Maya, written in the 16th century, copied by Francisco Ximénez c. 1701). The Dresden, Madrid and Paris Codices. The Books of Chilam Balam (Yucatec Maya). Classic Maya inscriptions and painted vessels. Murals of San Bartolo, Guatemala.
The Three Levels of the Cosmos
The Maya world is layered: thirteen levels of the heavens above, the earth in the middle, often pictured as a great turtle or crocodile floating in water, and nine levels of Xibalba, the underworld, below. A great ceiba tree joins them at the centre.
Maize and the Making of People
In the Popol Vuh the gods fail three times to make people — from mud, from wood, and from other materials — before succeeding with dough of yellow and white maize. People and maize share one substance.
I · Creation
Sky, sea and the patient attempts of the creators.
Sovereign and Quetzal Serpent
Key Attributes
Creator powers resting in the primordial sea.
Story
In the stillness before creation, the creators speak with Heart of Sky, and the earth rises from the water at their word: “Earth,” they say, and it is formed.
Look For in the Land
Land emerging from water; feathered forms upon a sea.
Huracan
Key Attributes
Sky power of storm and lightning.
Story
A one-legged storm power, threefold as lightning, who joins the creators and later sends the flood that destroys the wooden people.
Look For in the Land
Storm shapes; a one-legged figure; lightning.
Key Attributes
Mud people, wooden people.
Story
People of mud dissolve and cannot speak. People of wood have no hearts and forget their makers; a flood destroys them and their own tools and animals turn against them. Their descendants are said to be the monkeys.
Look For in the Land
Crumbling figures; monkeys in trees.
Key Attributes
Four first fathers made of maize dough.
Story
Grandmother Xmucane grinds yellow and white maize nine times, and from the dough the creators shape the first four men, then their wives.
Look For in the Land
Figures of grain; a woman grinding at a stone.
Yaxche’, the ceiba
Key Attributes
Axis joining underworld, earth and sky.
Story
The green ceiba stands at the centre of the world, with trees of four colours at the four directions. Its roots reach Xibalba and its branches the heavens.
Look For in the Land
A tall tree with spreading crown and buttress roots; a cross-shaped tree.
II · The Hero Twins
The great cycle of the Popol Vuh.
Vucub Caquix
Key Attributes
A vain bird who pretends to be the sun.
Story
Before the true sun rises, Seven Macaw boasts that he is the sun and moon. The Twins shoot him with a blowgun and replace his jewelled teeth with maize, and his glory falls away.
Look For in the Land
A great bird with a broken beak; a bird on a tree top.
Key Attributes
The father and uncle of the Twins.
Story
Summoned to Xibalba for playing ball too loudly, they fail the lords’ tests and are killed. One Hunahpu’s head is hung in a calabash tree.
Look For in the Land
A head among gourds in a tree.
Xquic
Key Attributes
Daughter of an underworld lord; mother of the Twins.
Story
She approaches the calabash tree; the skull spits into her hand and she conceives. She escapes Xibalba and proves herself to Xmucane by gathering a net of maize from a single plant.
Look For in the Land
A young woman beneath a tree; a net filled with maize.
Key Attributes
Trials in the houses of the underworld.
Story
The Twins pass the House of Darkness, Razors, Cold, Jaguars, Fire and Bats. In the Bat House Hunahpu’s head is taken, and Xbalanque fashions a substitute from a squash.
Look For in the Land
A bat; jaguars; a ball court; a head shaped like a squash.
Key Attributes
Victory over death.
Story
By trickery the Twins defeat the lords of death, attempt to restore their father, and rise into the sky as the sun and the moon.
Look For in the Land
Two figures ascending; a sun and a moon together.
III · Deities & Powers
The forces on which the life of fields and cities depended.
Chac
Key Attributes
Rain god; carries an axe of lightning.
Story
Chaak strikes the clouds with his lightning axe to bring rain. He is often fourfold, one for each direction, and is honoured in Yucatec rain ceremonies still performed today.
Look For in the Land
A long-nosed face; an axe raised; masks on building facades.
Hun Hunahpu in Classic art
Key Attributes
Young, graceful; dies and is reborn.
Story
The Maize God is cut down at harvest and descends to the underworld; on painted vessels he is reborn from a cracked turtle shell, the earth, assisted by his sons.
Look For in the Land
A youthful figure rising from a split shell; a head like a maize ear.
Quetzalcoatl in Nahuatl
Key Attributes
The feathered serpent.
Story
Across Mesoamerica the feathered serpent is linked to wind, learning and rulership. At Chichén Itzá the equinox light forms a serpent of shadow descending the pyramid’s steps.
Look For in the Land
A serpent with feathers; a long body down a slope.
Key Attributes
Aged creator; patron of writing.
Story
An elderly god associated with the sky, priestly knowledge and the invention of writing, often shown seated on a throne.
Look For in the Land
An old man with a large nose seated; a figure holding a book.
Key Attributes
Goddess of the moon, weaving and childbirth.
Story
An elder goddess honoured on the island of Cozumel by pilgrims, associated with healing and with the loom.
Look For in the Land
A woman at a loom; a rabbit in the moon.
IV · Places & Signs
Where myth meets the landscape and the heavens.
Place of Fear
Key Attributes
The underworld; ruled by lords of death.
Story
Reached by steep stairs and rivers of blood and pus, entered at a crossroads of four coloured roads. Caves and cenotes were seen as openings to it.
Look For in the Land
A cave mouth; a sinkhole of water; a crossroads.
Pitz
Key Attributes
A sacred game of skill.
Story
Played with a heavy rubber ball struck with the hips. In myth it is the contest between heroes and the lords of death; ball courts stand in nearly every Maya city.
Look For in the Land
A long I-shaped court; a ball in flight between walls.
White Road; Sak Beh
Key Attributes
A road and a tree in the sky.
Story
The Milky Way was seen as a road to the underworld and, at other seasons, as the world tree or a great caiman stretched across the sky.
Look For in the Land
A long pale road; a crocodile across the night.
Noh Ek’, the Great Star
Key Attributes
Morning and evening star.
Story
Maya astronomers tracked Venus closely; the Dresden Codex contains a table of its cycles. Its appearances were linked to warfare and timing of ceremonies.
Look For in the Land
A bright star at dawn or dusk; a star glyph.
Ts’ono’ot
Key Attributes
Sacred water-filled sinkhole.
Story
In the dry Yucatán, cenotes are the source of water and doorways to the realm of Chaak. The Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá received offerings for centuries.
Look For in the Land
A round pool in the ground; a deep well among trees.
A Note on Names, Versions and Respect
Maya peoples are living cultures, with millions of speakers of Maya languages today. Spellings follow modern orthography where practical; older spellings such as Chac and Ixchel are widely used. Many versions exist; note the source a telling follows.
© A2A World LLC 2026 · a2aworld.ai/field-guides/maya-mesoamerican