Demystification of the cultural context regarding suicide among the pre-Hispanic Mayans

Abstract

Studies on suicide as a social phenomenon that affect public health policies and the growing increase in suicide cases in the Yucatecan population (Mayan and non-Mayan) have led different specialists to discuss the phenomenon in search of solutions to the problem. In a review of the specialized medical literature on the subject, we have found, with much repetition, the mention of a Mayan deity called Ixtab, who was associated with death by hanging, and was represented in the Dresden Codex with a rope around her neck. The figure of Ixtab has led to her being associated with the conception of suicide as it is known today, as a cultural causality, which seems to promote death by hanging as part of a pre-Hispanic cult, as a result of which, specialists on the subject of mental health believe, thus creates complications regarding their recommendations.

Through a comparative analysis, including disciplines such as archeology and ethnohistory, the non-existence of Ixtab as a deity of death by hanging (suicide) was verified several years ago, therefore, two of the main sources of information were reviewed: the studies of pre-Hispanic Mayan writing, and the historical antecedents that led to the proposal of the existence of the goddess Ixtab and her connection with the act of suicide; this paper shows that it is an error of interpretation and is thus a distraction with regard to the present-day problems related to mental health and suicide in the Mayan region.