WHAT IS WITH ALL THIS CRAZY
MAYAN SHIT?
You know, I really don't understand the Mayan obsession either. But
Persona 2: Tsumi is just full of Mayan mythological references. I'll do
my best to list them all, but if there's one I didn't catch, let me
know, okay? This page doesn't have the mythology for Mayan personae;
that's on the
persona mythology page. My understanding of Mesoamerican mythology is rudimentary, so if I'm saying something completely incorrect, feel free to drop me a line and correct me.
First of all:
MAYA VS. MAYA VS. MAYA VS.
MAIYA VS. MAIA
It's kind of confusing in English, but all of the "Mayas" are written
differently in Japanese.
MAYA
OKAMURA: 岡村 真夜
MAYA AMANO: 天野 舞耶
MAYANS (from South America): マヤ
MAIYANS (aliens from the Pleiades):
マイヤ人
MAIA (persona, goddess): マイア
The Mayans were descendents of the Maiyans. Now, the Oracle is the
Oracle of Maiya - it's the oracle from
the aliens. In it, a Maiyan
maiden - someone who is descended from the bloodline of the Maiyan
aliens - has to be a human sacrifice. The two Mayas - Okamura and Amano
- are presumed to be Maiyan maidens. Why? I don't know, because of
their names? And Maya Amano uses the persona Maia.
All of these different groups are interwoven in the game, simply based
on how similar their name sounds the same when said out loud: Maya. I
can't explain it any better than that.
Clear as mud now, right?
IXQUIC
Everyone's favorite(?) cosplay girl Akari Hoshi became known as Ixquic
when she joined the Masquerade.
Ixquic
(or Xquic, or Xquiq, depending on how
unpronounceable you like your names- the name means "blood moon" or
"blood maiden") was a
princess of Xibalba and may represent a moon goddess. Earlier on, a
pair of heroic twins had entered Xibalba
while playing ball, and after several trials, they had been sacrified
and had their skulls hung from a tree. Underneath this tree, some
skull-shaped gourds were growing, and the rule in Xibalba was that it
was forbidden to eat these gourds. But Ixquic walked under the hanging
skull of one of the
heroes to get at the gourds. When she passed under him, either blood or
saliva or...
something...dripped
down from the hanging head into her hands, and Ixquic
became pregnant. Ixquic eventually gave birth to the Mayan Hero Twins,
Hunahpu and Xbalanque, and these two boys had many adventures which
aren't really relevant to this story anymore.
So, in short, Ixquic was
a princess of Xibalba who got impregnated by a severed head. Yes,
exactly.
Tzitzimitl
NAHUI OLLIN
King Leo keeps ranting and raving about something called "Nahui Ollin"
that'll occur when Xibalba rises. Nahui Ollin is actually part of Aztec
mythology, but the Aztec and Mayan mythologies sometimes overlapped, it
seems. In the Aztec calendar, there are
five epochs, each with a
different sun, and at the end of each epoch, there's a massive
destruction of the world, and all humanity perishes, mostly due to the weakening of whichever god was the "Sun" at the time. One destruction
was by fire (volcanic eruption), one was by water (flood), one was by
wind (hurricane), etc.
The fifth and last sun is called "Nahui
Ollin," (Four Movements) and it's the Earthquake Sun. That is the current epoch. At the time of
Nahui Ollin, the sun will go black, the Tzitzimimeh star-goddesses will descent and murder all humanity, and the world
will be destroyed permanently by a series of earthquakes...and wasn't
the rising of Xibalba explained away as a giant earthquake? When
Xibalba rises, you see an FMV of a giant carved stone - that's the
famous Aztec
sun stone calendar, with the
symbols of all the suns and
epochs carved on it. As the weakening of the Sun was thought to lead to these cataclysms, it was of utmost importance to keep the current Sun strong and healthy with sacrifices of blood and hearts.
The Lords of Xibalba
XIBALBA
The big one.
Xibalba
("The Place of
Fear") was the Mayan underworld, located in the dark stripe down the
center of the Milky Way. Caves were another important entraceway to Xibalba. There were nine levels in Xibalba, each with
its own deadly traps and guardian deity. The lords of Xibalba were
basically the masters
of all the nasty ways to die; by swelling, starvation, stabbing,
bloodloss, and so on. There were two kings of Xibalba - One Death and
Seven Death. Generally, the wicked went to Xibalba to begin their eternal suffering, and noble people or people who died in
noble ways (childbirth, suicide, sacrifice, battle, etc.) could serve as benevolent guardians of the living until they were reborn.
BOLONTIKU AND OXLAHUNTIKU
These were the two tribes of Maiyan aliens that killed each other in
the great war, right? The Bolontiku were the nine "Lords of the
Dead" who lived in the nine levels of Xibalba, and the Oxlahuntiku were
the 13 benevolent "Lords of Heaven" that lived in the thirteen branches
of the World Tree. (Notice the repetition of the numbers 9 and
13...important numbers in Tsumi...13 was the perfect number in Mayan
culture, apparently.) Each group of gods could also be considered a
single god.
THE MAYAN SUNS
Apparently, there were twenty "suns" - or days of the week, so to speak
- in the Mayan calendar. The event rooms in Xibalba are named after ten
of these suns: Imix, Ik, Akb'al, Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, Lamat,
Muluc, and Oc. If you want to read more
about these suns, and see the glyphs for their names, go
here. [ RETURN ]
