structural:scholar_edition
Ancestor worship

During the Classic period, Tikal's North Acropolis consisted of nucleated royal burial temples and is even referred to as a 'necropolis'. In Classic-period royal courts, tombs are generally found integrated in the residences of the nobility. Apart from the ancestral remains themselves, sacred bundles left by the ancestors were also an object of veneration. Reliefs from the Classic-period kingdom of Yaxchilan also show that royal ancestors were sometimes approached during bloodletting rituals and then appeared to their descendants, emerging from the mouth of a terrestrial serpent (which has been nicknamed ' Vision Serpent ').

The monthly feast cycle of the Postclassic kingdom of Maní included a commemorative festival for an ancestral hero viewed as the founder of Yucatec kingship, Kukulcan (a name corresponding to Quichean Gucumatz and Aztec Quetzalcoatl). Around 1500, the incinerated remains of the (male) members of notable Yucatec families were enclosed in wooden images which, together with the 'idols', were placed on the house altar, and ritually fed on all festive occasions; alternatively, they were placed in an urn, and a temple was built over it (Landa). In the Verapaz, a statue of the dead king was placed on his burial mound, which then became a place of worship.