Primal and Archaic Religions
Ancient civilizations formed what Latin America is today. Their original pagan beliefs were combined with the new ideas that came with the Spanish conquest, creating a unique form of Christianity. The merging of rites, values and customs is what made of Native Americans a unique phenomenon that has been widely studied by anthropologists, historians and archeologists. Prehistoric and tribal people believed that the universe was composed of the heavens, the earth~{!/~}s surface and the underworld. Because the boundaries between the worlds of nature, human society, and the supernatural were not clearly defined, religious leaders were considered shamans, people who were believed to be capable of moving back and forth between the earthly and supernatural realms through hallucinatory trances. They also believed that the universe was animated by a variety of spirits, some friendly and some not, who came from the departed and from animated natural objects. Many prehistoric deities were derived from astronomical observations. The people of the tribes did not only ident
For the Mayas, the ruler~{!/~}s principal duties was to communicate with their ancestors and gods through visionary trances in able to determine proper courses of action. The loss of blood through self-mutilation helped bring hallucinations and the shed of blood was offered as a sacrifice to the gods. The primary determinant of a person~{!/~}s fate after death was his or her position in life. Rulers, who were divine or semi-divine, enjoyed a more glorious afterlife than their subjects. Sometimes different souls had different destinies. Sometimes they went to an alternative world or remained as ghosts haunting their families. Others reincarnated and came back to life in other bodies than the one~{!/~}s they had before. ify them with particular planets and stars, but also with the recurring movements of the heavens as a whole such as natural phenomena. The various divine powers were seen as multiple facets of a single supernatural force and they had opposing qualities such as male/female, day/night, and life/death. For pre-Columbian civilizations there was no cle
Some common words found in the essay are:
Native Americans, Mayans Incas, Tical Guatemala, Latin America, Christian Genesis, Copan Honduras, , believed universe, Vuh Mayan, people believed, life rulers, divine semi-divine, native americans, sacrifice gods, spanish conquest,
Approximate Word count = 723
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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