Throughout the Maya Empire,  every 20th day, there was a religious festival.  Festivals: The most important event in the cities were the religious festivals. People who lived near a major city would travel to the city to attend the festivals, see the ball games and shop in the market.   Every 20th day, there was a religious festival. Priests would climb the pyramid steps, dressed in fierce masks, to please the gods. Wearing huge headdresses, Maya dancers performed in front of the Pyramid or the Temple or both. The Mayas are famous for their dances and their headdresses. The movement of the dance would make their headdresses jingle and rattle. It was quite a site. Bloodletting:  During the festivals, there were human and animal sacrifices. Not all sacrifices ended in death.  The Mayas communicated with their gods by bloodletting, tribute, and worship. Occasionally, they used human sacrifice.  More often, bloodletting was a personal sacrifice. People would stab or prick themselves. It was their own blood that was offered as a tribute to their gods during worship. When nobles offered blood, a drop was smeared on a bit of bark. The bark was burned and the smoke floated to heaven where it could be consumed by the gods. Stelas: A stela is a very large stone  inscribed with hieroglyphics that told a story about a major event.  Stelas often had drawings added to the Maya glyphs (hieroglyphics) so that people could better understand the story the stela was recording.  K'atun: K'atun was a ceremony that was conducted once every 20 years.  Each K'atun had a stela created for it, to share what had happened for the past 20 years.  The rulers were an important part of the story told through the stelas. A different royal family ruled each Maya city. So each Maya city erected its own stela during the K'atun to honor its own ruling family.   Maya Religion Maya Priests    All Rights Reserved    Clip Art Credit: Phillip Martin Have a great year!