Maya Harvest Festivals and the Book of Mormon: Annual FARMS Lecture

Christenson, in the annual FARMS lecture delivered on 27 February 1991, examined the Maya New Year’s harvest festival, perhaps the most important public festival of the year. The festival coincided with the main corn harvest in mid-November and served as the New Year’s Day of the solar calendar, when kingship was renewed. Christenson gave particular attention to the symbolic treatments of the evil god Mam; the ritual descent of the king, as representative of the god of life and resurrection, into the underworld; the king’s ritual conflict with and defeat of the lords of the underworld (and of death); and the king’s triumphant return or resurrection. The Maya used the image of the tree of life in connection with the atonement and resurrection.