Shamans are specialists in the state of ecstasy, a state of vision that allows them to move freely beyond the ordinary world, beyond death, beyond the real world to deal directly with gods, ancestors, or anything within the spirit world. Shamans will perform ceremonies as a plea for assistance from that supernatural world. To the Mayan, the shamans call for rain for relief from drought that could threaten life itself. They were the do-ers or h-men could communicate the needs of the people. They were blessed with their ability to perform the rituals effectively and bring rain. The ancient Mayan, shamans were not only those individuals who could enter a portal into the other world; they were the kings of cities. We know these Maya kings described themselves as the k'ul ahaw or "divine lord" of their kingdoms. The Mayans believed their "divine lords" of the forests of central America could regenerate the order of the cosmos and unify the human world with that other, mystical world of the supernatural. They could make it rain and they could provide the substance of life - plentiful maize (corn) for the Mayan people.

To the Mayan, the shaman is able to bridge into the other world and bring forth the magic power of that world. A person who opens the portal to that world can reach into it for the itz - the blessed substance of the sky. In the real world, the Mayan saw this itz as the mild of an animal or a human, the sap of a tree, the resin used in incense, the sweat of the human body, tears from a human eye, the melted wax of a burning candle, or the rust on metal. The shaman was the great itz-er who can send the itz through the portal to nourish and sustain humanity. In reality, the shaman could produce the power necessary from that other world to control this world. To the Maya, the most important substance was rain necessary to grow crops, the most important of which was maize or corn. To the Mayan, corn was life itself. The Maize God was the First Father of the Popul Vuh and was the turtle in the sky of creation.
The Mayan world was a reflection of creation, of the two worlds (this world and the other world.) We can see how clearly the world of the ancient Mayan was alive and mystical by looking at the following section from the Mayan Cosmos.
    Just as the gods marked the periphery by placing the four sides and corners around the center, the Maya shaman creates a five-part image to sanctify space and open a portal to the Otherworld. Mayanists have adopted the Latin word quincunx for this five-point-plan concept, although the Maya have many ways of expressing it in their own languages." The discerning of the four sides or the four corners and the establishing of their position relative to the center point is what we mean by "centering." The Yukatek farmers today "center" their fields ritually even before they begin to cut them out of the fallow brushland. They mark off their fields and the units within them with small piles of stones, just as villages mark off their lands from those of neighboring communities with large piles of stones.
    The very act of preparing a plot of land for growing food the clearing and measuring out of rectilinear spaces echoes Creation mythology thousands of years old. Before cutting down the trees and brush, a devout Yukatek farmer will make offerings at the center of his field. His field has four corners and four sides like the original order established at Creation. The farmer centers the field by piling up the stones to mark the center properly a layer of three followed by a fourth and then a fifth one stacked on top. This centering transforms the land from wild forest to cultivated land. Like his wife who starts the day by lighting a fire in the three-stone hearth of the house, the farmer repeats the acts of Creation first enacted by First Father when he set up the first three stones of Creation to establish the cosmic center. He marks the corners and sides of his field, just as First Father lifted up the sky and created a house with four sides and four corners.
    The Maya field and house are analogs of these cosmic structures. William Hanks (1990:349) says, "Altars, yards, cornfields, the earth, the sky, and the highest atmospheres are described in terms of the five-point cardinal frame." According to him, these concepts are built into the very language itself. Thus, the basic work of making the world livable building houses, planting fields is the everyday experience of all Maya; and it is the same work that the gods undertook at the beginning of everything. These ideas are woven together in the quincunx pattern so prevalent in Maya imagery and symbolism. The Classic-period glyph that included this quincunx pattern in its center reads be, the word for "road" or "path." Hanks's shaman informant says that he "opens the path" when he lays out the cardinal locations on his altar…
To be continued on next week.