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Dogs have occupied a powerful place in Mesoamerican folklore and myth since at least the Classic Period right through to modern times.〔Burchell 2007, p.10.〕 A common belief across the Mesoamerican region is that a dog carries the newly deceased across a body of water in the afterlife. Dogs appear in underworld scenes painted on Maya pottery dating to the Classic Period and even earlier than this, in the Preclassic, the Chupicaro buried dogs with the dead.〔Read & Gonzalez 2000, p.172.〕 In the great Classic Period metropolis of Teotihuacan, 14 human bodies were deposited in a cave, most of them children, together with the bodies of three dogs to guide them on their path to the underworld.〔Heyden 1998, p.26.〕 In many versions of the 20-day cycle of the Mesoamerican calendar, the tenth day bears the name dog.〔Read & Gonzalez 2000, p.170.〕 This is ''itzcuintli'' in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, ''tz'i in the K'iche' Maya language and ''oc'' in Yucatec Maya. Among the Mixtecs, the tenth day was taken by the coyote, ''ua''.〔Burchell 2007, p.25.〕 ==The Maya== Maya burials from the Classic Period are frequently found with associated animal remains, often dogs.〔Garza 1999, p.133.〕 For example, in the ruins of the Classic Maya city of Kaminaljuyu in Guatemala, a dog was found interred with a sitting skeleton, along with grave goods offered to the deceased.〔Braswell 2003, p.94.〕 The frequent finds of dog skeletons in Classic Maya burials confirms that the belief that dogs guided the souls of the departed on their journey into the underworld already existed at this time.〔Garza 1999, p.135.〕 The dog is sometimes depicted carrying a torch in the surviving Maya codices, which may be a reference to the Maya tradition that the dog brought fire to mankind.〔Neumann 1975, p.19.〕 In the Postclassic Popul Vuh of the K'iche' Maya of highland Guatemala, dogs and turkeys killed the people of the second age in retaliation for the people beating them. The people who escaped this fate were transformed into monkeys.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dogs in Mesoamerican folklore and myth」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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