Discovering Ancient Mesoamerican Civilizations by Ann Byers

Discovering Ancient Mesoamerican Civilizations by Ann Byers

Author:Ann Byers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781622758449
Publisher: Britannica Educational Publishing
Published: 2015-01-27T00:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER THREE

MESOAMERICAN RELIGION

The early Mesoamericans tried to understand how their world “worked.” What made the Sun come up each day? Where did wind come from? How did water fall from the sky? They decided that unseen forces, or gods, controlled everything. They developed a worldview—a particular way of looking at the world.

Worldview

To early Mesoamericans, the world had three layers: the earth, thirteen heavens, and nine underworlds. Each of the heavens and the underworlds had a ruling god. The heavens and the underworlds were not like the Christian ideas of heaven and hell. They were not places of good and evil, but of light and dark. The afterlife had nothing to do with how people lived on earth. After death, most people traveled through the nine underworlds. Only a few groups of people went to the heavens, including warriors who died in battle and women who died in childbirth.



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