Mesoamerican Religions

Mesoamerica, the area of Mexico and northern Central America, encompasses a diverse region that developed complex societies. The civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica include Olmec, Teotihuacan, Tula, Mixtec and Zapotec, Maya, and Aztec. While these civilizations differed from one another, they shared similar polytheistic belief systems that focused on veneration of the natural world. All Mesoamerican cultures recognized the vitality of the world around them and were animistic, believing that the earth and all of the elements of the natural world had spiritual power. They understood the world as having two important components: (1) the material world that humans live in and (2) the spiritual world. Unlike Western ways of [Page 779]thought, however, the two worlds were not separated; rather, they worked together symbiotically and were completely interchangeable. The Mesoamericans also venerated their ancestors and believed that they had the capacity to communicate with their ancestors and supernaturals by journeying between the worlds. Unlike the character of religion in Europe and the Old World, Mesoamerican civilizations did not have religious institutions, because the belief systems, ceremonies, and rituals were intrinsically linked with politics, economics, and kingship. Since there is no direct textual written record that reveals Mesoamerican religious beliefs, scholars use pictorial codices, alphabetic ethnohistories, and material culture to interpret ancient Mesoamerican thought.