Creation of the Earth-Sky is the central motif of Maya myth and religion. 

The creation of the present world, the world of humankind,  was only one act in an eternal cycle of birth, death, and renewal.  The cycles of the seasons and the stars in their courses are  reflections of this cosmic dance.  The events of  Creation are writ in the sky. 

I realized that every major image from Maya cosmic symbolism was probably a map of the sky. . . .  [The] patterns in the Milky Way and the constellations were directly related to the Maya vision of Creation.  (Linda Schele in Freidel, Schele and Parker, Maya Cosmos)

Linda Schele discovered that the World Tree is a literal depiction of the heavens as well as an abstract symbol. Her investigations, vividly recounted in  Maya Cosmos, led her to the conclusion that the Milky Way is the World Tree.  The Maya long count was initiated on or about August 13 in 3114 BC, the date of Creation. At dawn in mid-August, the Milky Way stands erect, running through the zenith from north to south. It becomes the axis of the heavens, the raised up sky. 

But the connection between Creation and the Milky Way does not end here. Schele discovered that the changing aspect of the Milky Way on the night of August 13 every year reflects the events recorded in Maya accounts of Creation.

To view the changing aspects of the sky in order, click here or on any Milky Way image

Maya Creation mythology: The sources.  The fullest surviving account of Creation is found in the post-Conquest Popol Vuh of the Quiche people of Guatemala. The oldest evidence is from monuments at Izapa and other pre-Classical sites (400 BC- 200 AD).  Many of the incidents recounted in the Popol Vuh  parallel scenes on painted ceramics of the Classical period (200-900 AD).  The Temple of the Cross at Palenque and other Classical inscriptions report the events of Creation, though in a condensed, sometimes cryptic manner. These sources do not always agree in detail.  Nevertheless, they show a remarkable continuity in the Maya conception of the cosmos over two millennia of history.  Right: Izapa World Tree (Stela 25). The crocodile  represents the Earth, its hills symbolized by the rough skin of the reptile, a characteristic shared with the bark of the ceiba tree.

The Popol Vuh preserved this tradition of successive creations or world orders. According to the Popol Vuh,  the gods created humans to honour them: There would be "no high days and no bright praise for our work, our design, until the rise of the human work, the human design".  But their first three efforts were failures. The third failed race, people fashioned from wood, were destroyed in a universal flood. 

The antediluvian world was lorded over by Vukub-Cakix, "Seven Macaw," who took the place of the sun. To prepare for the creation of the true humans,  the rule of Seven Macaw had to be ended. This was achieved by the Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh, who shot Seven Macaw from his tree. 

The Quiche still  identify the seven stars of the Big Dipper with Seven Macaw. At sunset on August 13, the Milky Way is nearly erect, and the Dipper is visible in the the northern sky in the Maya area. But as the heavens rotate, the Milky Way turns away from its upright position, and the Dipper dives toward the horizon. About two hours after sunset, the Dipper sets: Seven Macaw is knocked from his perch atop the World Tree. Dennis Tedlock reports that among the Quiche, the mid-summer descent of the Dipper just after sunset marks the beginning of the hurricane season, the time of flooding.  

The Hero Twins.  In the Classic age, Hunaphu and Xbalanque, the Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh, were known as Hun Ahaw and Yax Balam. They frequently figure in mythic scenes on Classical ceramics. But the tales told of the Twins in the Popol Vuh  are only  hinted at on  paintings and inscriptions.  The Twins may also correspond to GI and GIII, two of the gods of the "Palenque triad" named in the temples of the Cross Group at Palenque. Right: Hun Ahaw shoots 7 Macaw from the World Tree  (After Classical pot K1226)

Although Maya creation accounts differ in detail, most tell of the defeat and sacrifice of one or more gods by the lords of the Underworld. In the Books of Chilam Balam, the gods of the thirteen heavens are captured and sacrificed by the nine gods of the Underworld.  In the Popol Vuh, the maize god, Hun Hunaphu, the father of the hero twins, journeys to the Underworld, where he is defeated by its rulers in a ritual ball game and sacrificed. In the Dresden Codex, sacrifice of the maize god appears to be the very act that raises the sky of the new world. In the Popol Vuh, he is rescued by his sons, and it is his resurrection that  renews of the world. 

The Milky Way/World Tree is the route between the heavens, earth, and Underworld. On the sarcophagus of Pakal at Palenque, the dead king is shown falling along the World Tree, named here sak be, "white road."  The Quiche still call the Milky Way  Xibalba be "road to the Underworld;"  The Chorti Maya call it Camino de Santiago.

By midnight on August 13, the Milky Way runs across the sky from east to west. It now represents the fallen sky. A great dark bite is visible in the Milky Way, which Schele sees as the maw of the crocodile at the foot of the Izapa World tree, a gateway to the Underworld. This is the "cross-roads" at which Hun Hunaphu disappeared when he took the "Black Road" to Xibalba. 

These roads are sometimes imagined as canoe routes. About three hours after midnight, Schele identifies the visible portion of the Milky Way with the cosmic canoe, illustrated in Classic Maya art, that conveys the maize god through the Underworld to the place where he will be resurrected, the hearth of Creation in Orion. Here the sky of the new era will be raised. Later, as the Milky Way begins to turns upright again, the canoe appears to sink.

Carved bone from Tikal depicts the Maize God (or a dead ruler dressed as the God) conveyed through the Underworld in the cosmic canoe.  The paddlers are s called, from the adornments they wear,  "Jaguar paddler" and "Stingray Paddler."   Another carving depicts he canoe as it sinks.

Toward dawn on the night of Aug 13,  the constellation Orion moves toward the zenith. The Quiche people still refer to a triad of three bright stars in Orion as "the hearth stones", and the hazy nebula below Orion's belt is called "the smoke from the hearth". Orion is also called the turtle stars (ak' ek), depicted in the Madrid Codex as a turtle with three tun ("stone") glyphs on its back.  Because the sky has not yet been raised, the hearth is a location in both earth and sky. The turtle shell is an earth symbol, like the back of the crocodile at the foot of the World Tree. Here is the place of  Creation, where the sky will rise again. 
 

Maya Constellations.  Although Orion is clearly associated with the hearth and turtle,  the Paris Codex Zodiac appears to equate the turtle stars with Gemini. Elsewhere, both Gemini and Orion appear to  be identified with a pair of peccaries.  Both the turtle and the peccary are earth symbols, and both are named ak  in some Mayan languages.  Schele assigns the turtle to Orion, and the peccaries to Gemini, but it may be that the Maya identified Orion and Gemini, which together straddle both the ecliptic and Milky Way, as a single region of the sky.  Right: Turtle (ak) constellation and the three stones (ox tun) of creation hang from a skyband representing the ecliptic (Madrid Codex p. 71)

The Temple of the Cross at Palenque tells more about the final act of Creation, the raising of the World Tree. To set the scene, the Palenque  scribes counted forward 542 days, to Febuary 5 a year and a half later. At sunset on Febuary 5, the sky has the same configuration as at dawn on the night of August 13. 

About 2 hours after sunset on Febuary 5,  the hearth in Orion is very near the zenith. For the Palenque scribes, this may mark the setting of the three hearth stones at the foot of the World Tree.  Just after midnight, Orion sets, and two hours later, the Milky Way lies prone along the south eastern horizon.  At the zenith lies a particularly dark region of the sky that Schele identifies as the Ek'-Way, the "black dream place", a portal to the Underworld. This is literally the darkness before the dawn. 

As the night progresses, the Milky Way slowly turns erect once more. At dawn, the World Tree has been raised over the world inhabited by the true humans. It now occupies the same place in the sky as it did at sun set on Aug 13, before the destruction of the old world. 

This is likely the image of the sky the Palenque scribes had in mind when they carved the glyphs that tell us that Hun- Nal-Ye "entered the sky" and "made proper the Raised-up-Sky Place" on Feb 5 in 3112 BC.

The god who raises the sky in the Palenque Creation story is the Maize God, Hun- Nal-Ye, "one sprout revealed".  In the Popol Vuh, the gods created true humans out of corn meal.  It is the stuff of life. In one of its guises the World Tree is a corn plant. At Palenque, the cosmic World Tree is paired with another,  the "Foliated Cross", with images of the Maize God's head in its branches, like cobs of corn. 

Right: Classical offering plate (K1892). The Maize God, attended by the Twins, bursts from  a turtle shell, like a sprout from a kernal of corn.  He becomes the World Tree. Images of the resurrected maize god appear as early as the recently discovered pre-classical mural at San Bartolo (100 AD).