ME OH-MAYA!

The Maya are groups of people who live in parts of Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. Their ancestors created a great society. At its peak, from 600-900 C.E., the Maya civilization was more advanced than its neighbors in the Americas.

- Pat Betteley

Maya Society Then

The Maya people were divided into city-states (kingdoms) that were each run by separate rulers. In the center of the kingdom were palaces, pyramid temples, and squares where religious ceremonies were held. Most Maya lived in the country outside the city gates.

There were many classes in Maya society: rulers, nobles and priests, freemen, craftsmen, farmers, and slaves. If you were a noble, you would be carried from place to place in a litter (chair) by your slaves. Your colorful clothing would be made from animal skins, your headdresses from the feathers of macaws and parrots, and your fancy jewelry from jade. You would live in a beautiful stone palace with many rooms.

In contrast, a Maya farmer worked from morning until night. Women spent their days cooking, grinding corn, raising children, tending gardens, checking beehives, weaving cloth, and making pottery. The family lived outside the city in one-room mud or stone huts with thatched roofs. Men wore loincloths, (pieces of cloth wrapped around the hips), and women cotton dresses. Both used a blanket called a manta to wrap around their shoulders in the cold.