Maximon: God of Smoke and Women

A shrine to the god Maximon

“Depending on who you ask, Maximon is a god, a pagan saint, Jesus’s brother, Judas Iscariot or a devilish deity.”

Reading about Maximon, a Guatemalan god of alcohol and tobacco (if you’re trying to quick smoking, why not leave your cigarettes with him), was very interesting. We have seen other instances of indigenous and Catholic religious systems mixing through Latin America before, but there seems to be something special in the acceptance of the contradictions of this little-wooden-man deity. Each year, he is moved around to a new village to be protected, a tradition from when the colonizers used to persecute such pagan saints, swathed in modern clothes (stovepipe hat, cowboy shorts, overcoat, scarf, etc), and prayed to by local villagers and visited by curious tourists. It was also interesting to see the humor associated with this deity.

He is stored in a garden shed, not the most common of temples for a god. As explained by one guide, Maximon smokes and drinks … “because he doesn’t have a job.” Another curious dichotomy evident in the deity is that he is at once a womanizer and yet, in one of his many origin stories, he was created after Mayans slew a Spanish soldier who “had gone on a rape ramage.” The Mayans turned the soldier who had been so violent to them into a saintly figure to appease their conquerors, which is another intriguing melding of Catholic and pagan beliefs. The uniqueness of this god and the people who worship him, along with the descriptions from the articles of people who have traveled to the Guatemalan villages, makes me want to see the figure and its beautiful country for myself.


taked from: http://mlamusings.voices.wooster.edu/maximon-god-of-smoke-and-women/

A God that smokes and drinks – Maximon of Guatemala

Original post in : http://www.thecandytrail.com/maximon-santiago-atitlan/   thanks a lot to Michael Robert Powell for let us use it

A God that smokes and drinks !!!  … This is a god I can relate to: so on my birthday (this Friday) I  visited Santiago Atitlan to pay homage to the mighty Maximon.

Maximon shrine - Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala

Who?

He’s a very cool deity revered through-out the Guatemalan highlands by the Maya. and by many Ladinos (Guatemalans of white / mixed descent  – who know him as San Simon).

Like  ancient death gods this God also smokes and is a wild blend of Maya ancestral-worship twisted with Catholicism and local folklore.

He’s assumed to be mix of many Mayan gods, and strangely, a portion  of Pedro de Alvarado – the cruel: as in burning Mayan chiefs alive – Spanish Conquistador of Guatemala, and then a toxic chunk of biblical traitor Judas … But he is many things to his followers: including Saint Andrew, Saint Michael ( no – not me; the other one! ) and maybe even Saint Peter …  And he was also Lord of Diviners and Day-keepers and all who spoke to Holy Earth. Maximon was Lord of Sexual Matters and could make barren wombs bear. Maximon watched over wives when husbands were away but sometimes he slept with them himself   … *1

[ So he likes to drink, smoke, and -  fuck !  Surely this  is the God for my needs ... ? ]
Anyway, Maximon of Santiago Atitlan is hidden within a private house a few km outside of town, for now, as each year his guardians rotate his abode between themselves.

These guardians are an influential  group known as  the Cofradia (Mayan Catholic Brotherhood) and shape the ceremonies around Maximon.
His big public appearance is during Easter Week.

I went there with a young local guy by rickshaw – Guatemalan ones are Indian auto-rickshaws, except painted red – to visit Maximon at his current residence.
The whole scene was amazing

There he was looking composed, regal, smoking a cigarette, a Mayan family submitting, making offerings, asking blessings …
I  offered -  this my holy day – a bottle of local firewater, to Maximon,  this God of gods, hoping that my blessings will continue …

Maximon's revenge

Hi people, today, we let you the story of Susan Davis, and her experiences with Maximon, enjoy and let us know your comments.

Maximon (aka San Simon, aka Rilaj Maam) is a "deity revered throug hout the Guatemalan Highlands" (Lonely Planet Guatemala). This is bizarre because he is not comprised of the nicest guys: he's assumed to be a combination of Mayan gods, Pedro de Alvarado (the Spanish conquistador / mass killer of Guatemala), and the biblical Judas. One story says that in a small Mayan village, a long time ago, all the men went off to work in the fields / fight a battle, except for Maximón who stayed behind to "watch over the women." When the men returned and found that all the women in the village were pregnant, and they killed Maximón. This upset the women terribly and therefore, to make up for killing Maximón, the men were forced to worship him. 

Other sources say Maximon represents chthonic (of the underworld) male sexual power. He's the god of revenge and vices, the god of gamblers and drunkards, and a chronic smoker (this is starting to sound like a Steve Miller song). He accepts cigars or cigarettes and appreciates fine rum. But if you don't treat him right he will mess with you. One story says that evil witches tried to destroy him but they couldn't. When they got home they had horrible vomit & diarrhea. This should have been a warning.

We get an opportunity to visit Maximon's current home on a day trip to Santiago Atitlan. We walk down an alley piled precariously high with soda bottle crates. I am so busy looking at those that I trip into the small open air "waiting room" for his shrine. I quickly compose myself, noticing that there are several people sitting on benches.

My friend S beckons me to stand inside the shrine. I'm looking around for the saint and then I look down. The great saint is about three feet tall and it looks like he's wearing 20 neckties. I wonder if all this revenge stuff is bit of Napoleon complex-short man's disease. If he didn't have to stay in the village he would drive a big expensive car and pick fights in bars.

I look up - the ceiling is hung with red streamers and what look like giant fake sausages. Subtle symbols of chthonic male power? I remember reading that on holy days, only certain men get to dress him because of the "great secret under his robes." A giggle starts in my tummy. I hold it in, trying to be respectful, until S points out that one of the two Maximon assistants is ashing his cigarette. The giggle bubbles out. A saucer-eyed man next to us says direly "thiss siss not a game" and stalks out. He doesn't seem local; he is wearing a t-shirt and khaki shorts and, since he is barefoot, must be the one who left the Prada sneakers in the waiting room.

Now I don't know all the rules, but I'm pretty sure that an offering to a god/saint isn't supposed to be empty. So when Saucer Eyes stumbles back in and opens up a fifth of Quetzalteca (cheap firewater; wait, is that redundant?) and chugs it, we are appalled that he puts that in the (handily perfect sized) slot in front of Maximon. Our guess is that he is trying to get some help with a vice. We guess that vice is drinking.

Despite the alcohol, he has a good memory. Later outside on the street he flips our group the bird as he passes by in a tuk tuk. (Good to know that is a symbol that transcends boundaries.) And perhaps the Maximon effects kick in slowly - we see him drinking a beer in a bar later on.

Over dinner later we laugh about the stories that Lucas told us. The Spanish didn't like how much power Maximon had so they put him in jail. Yes, they put a wooden statue in jail. The jailer's wife dreamed that Maximon was going to hurt her husband, so she woke him up, but he'd had a stroke. Maximon got out of jail. One of Lucas's friends had a Maximon statue but couldn't handle how high maintenance he was - more cigarettes, more booze. She gave him away but then couldn't sleep.

That night, we all had weird dreams. The next day, two of the women in our group got really ill. Their symptoms? Vomiting and diarrhea. All 15 of us end up getting serious runs. We are not sure whether it was Saucer Eyes who cursed us or just Maximon, god of revenge, and thiss really siss not a game.

Mayan Calendar-Album

Nice pictures of diferents Mayan Calendars, you can see them in our Maximon facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Maximon/265479140198841

Maximon, the history