The Sacred Tree

In my travels to Guatemala, a wonderful and favorite sight of mine is the ceiba tree. To the Mayans, the ceiba is a sacred tree. It incorporates the whole cosmos for the Maya. The underworld represented by the roots, the trunk being this world, and the branches are the heavens. Its low hanging branchs are a path through which a persons soul can ascend to the heavens. So to the Maya these marvelous trees are sacred, and to this day when land is cleared, a ceiba tree is often left standing. You can often see these magnificent trees standing alone in open fields.

We have been chatting about the Milky Way, and the many things the Mayans saw in it. But in addition to a ball court or a crocodile, the Milky Way is also the World Tree.

In the Popul Vuh, the World Tree is mentioned as the origin of all life, with the 4 cardinal directions spreading out from it's center.(Many other ancient cultures have a World Tree as a part of their creation tradition). We can think of the great tree as soaring above us, the Milky Way being it's branches. In some legends, there is a great monster in the tree, it's mouth being the Dark Rift. In other versions, the trunk of the ceiba is actually a crocodile, (like a croc, the cieba has rough skin, with thorns found along it's trunk), and its mouth is the Drak rift high in the sky. With a bit of imagination, it is easy to see how the Mayans view the great Milky Way as the collective branches of the tree.

A major element of the World Tree includes the Kawak Monster, a giant head with a kin (symbol) in its forehead.  A bowl on its head contains a flint blade representing sacrifice, and  death.On top of the World Tree we find a bird that has been called, the Principal Bird deity, or Itzam Ye. During the months of winter, when the so-called "Winter" Milky Way dominates the sky, it was called the "White Boned Serpent."  

Soon I will start to pull this symbology together with the Mayan calendar, time and the doomsday. But first I will be spending the next few blogs talking about a new exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum, which is about the Mayans, and their connection to the sea.

J.T. Turner
Mayanist