Tierra Maya - Yaxchilan Vision Serpent

Yaxchilán Vision Serpent
March 28, 755 A.D. Lintel 15 Yaxchilan

Yaxchilán is unique in its multitude of images of Maya royalty engaged in ceremonial rituals invoking their ancestors in the form of what is called the “Vision Serpent”. This is an isolated Vision Serpent from the lintel dubbed “The Vision Rite of Lady 6 Tun”. Many monuments at Yaxchilán depict kings and queens engaged in the ritual of bloodletting. If this was a city of seers, as many believe it was, then the bloodletting ceremony was undoubtedly the ritual magic used to start the seer on their journey. To quote Linda Schele and David Friedel in A Forest of Kings, ¨The aim of these great cathartic rituals was the vision quest, the opening of a portal into the Otherworld through which gods and the ancestors could be enticed so that the beings of this world could commune with them.¨