Additional information
by Rogelio Valencia Rivera (Author)
K'awiil: El dios maya del rayo, la abundancia y los gobernantes analyses one of the most important deities of the Maya pantheon, and allows us to approach the religious thought of this people, since it is through the myths, rituals and other religious and cultural activities in which a deity participates, that we can try to understand how the Maya conceived their universe. K'awiil was one of the main deities worshipped by the ancient Maya. The anthropomorphic representation of the axe of the rain god Chaahk, he embodied the powers of lightning, such as its ability to bring wealth, principally food, and its powers of transformation, which enabled him to invoke the beings that inhabit the realms of the sacred. These powers proved especially attractive to Mayan rulers, as they represented their own ability to nourish their people, both physically and spiritually. These characteristics allowed K'awiil to be used to symbolise the power of these lords, materialised in the form of a sceptre in his image, which the lords used mainly during their enthronement ceremonies. The continued presence of K'awiil from the Early Classic to the Postclassic, as well as the spatial distribution of his representations, makes him one of the most stable and universal deities of Maya religion, and his influence is still palpable in the religious traditions of the Maya peoples of the present day, in the form of the lord of lightning and as part of the sphere of action of the deities of sustenance.
