Originally posted by Liberator
What happened to the Mayans? I was reading online and they told me that the Mayans disappeared without a trace - another suggestion was that they blended into other cultures.
technically, it was only the major southern cities that "collapsed" during the 7-9th century. Northern cities remained culturally and politically Mayan, though there was less unity. By the time the Spanish arrived in the following centuries, many of these cities were either their own Empires with Mayan origins, or decentralized Maya "city-states"
as **** like as it might be, nobody here will give you a better run-down of the collapse than:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_collapse
EDIT: twats, ****. Interesting, the singular is censored....
Originally posted by Liberator
Were the Mayans a monotheistic nation? I read somewhere online when I searched that said this was true.
It appears very difficult to tell, because traditional Mayan beliefs have been interpreted through, and modified by, the Roman Catholicism of the Spanish. I could paraphrase, but this paragraph from Wiki seemed most illustrative:
The ancient Maya concept of 'deity', or 'divinity' (k'u in Yucatec, qabuvil in ancient Quiché) is poorly understood, but can by no means be reduced to a mere personification of natural phenomena. The life-cycle of the maize, for instance, lies at the heart of Maya belief, but the role of the Maya maize god transcends the sphere of agriculture to embrace basic aspects of civilized life in general (such as writing). Deities have all sorts of social functions, related to such human activities as agriculture, midwifery, trade, and warfare, and can be the patrons of large kin-based or ethnic segments of society, as shown by the Popol Vuh Triad (including Tohil), and possibly also by the Palenque Triad (G[ods] I, II, and III).
to me, at least, it seems much more like the Gods of East Asia/Korea especially, and the rest of the Wiki on "Mayan religion" seems to talk more extensively about anscestor worship than diety worship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_religion
best I can come up with
EDIT: actually, maybe it is more like the African Loa.... (I know Loa is the Carribian version, I totally forget what they are called in Africa though)