The bleeding and ultimately the sacrifice of the captives in Source 6.2 was part of a more pervasive practice of bloodletting that permeated Maya religious and court life. Significant occasions — such as birth, marriage, death, planting crops, and dedicating buildings — were sanctified with human blood, the most valued and holy substance in the world. Behind this practice lay the Maya belief in the mutual relationship of humans and their gods. Two of the major scholars in this field explain: “The earth and its creatures were created through a sacrificial act of the gods, and human beings, in turn, were required to strengthen and nourish the gods.”2 The means of doing so was blood. The massive loss of blood often triggered a trancelike state that the Maya experienced as mystical union with their gods or ancestors. The lancets used to draw blood — usually from the tongue in women and often from the penis in men — were invested with sacred power.

Kings and their wives were central to this bloodletting ritual, as Source 6.3 so vividly shows. Here we meet again Shield Jaguar and Lady Xok, depicted also in Source 6.1. The date of this carving is October 28, 709 C.E.. The king is holding a large torch, suggesting that the ritual occurs at night, while his kneeling wife draws a thorn-studded rope through her perforated tongue. The rope falls into a basket of bloody paper, which will be burned with the resulting smoke nourishing the gods. Shield Jaguar too will soon let his own blood flow, for the glyphs accompanying this carving declare that “he is letting blood” and “she is letting blood.”

Questions to consider as you examine the source:

A Bloodletting Ritual

Notes