UAU!..
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When I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the 1960s, a friend was telling me about her neighbors who had these rock paintings near their backyards and they thought they were from some kids’ work years earlier. Turned out to be Petrographs and quite ancient.
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@_Barry Yes! I spent a few days hiking around there and looking at the petroglyphs 3 years ago. Amazing place!
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Wriitng-On-Stone Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. I visited there a couple summers ago. This is a sacred place for the Blackfeet. It reminded me a lot of the Southwest. . .hard to believe this was Canada. My wife even had a close encounter with a rattlesnake there!
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" Winnemucca Lake is home to several petroglyphs long believed to be very old. In 2013, researchers dated the carvings to between 14,800 and 10,500 years ago . Either date would make them the oldest known petroglyphs found in North America. The carvings lie within the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation."
Have either of you seen this rock art?
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this is not available in Portugal (in youtube there was a link to being able to see it in Portugal, when I clicked it, my Norton Security System detected a virus in it) but found this:
Ancient Metropolis: The True Scale Of Mayan Cities | Treasure Tombs of the Ancient Maya | Odyssey
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" AI Overview
The Maya believed that death was part of a cycle of life and rebirth, and that the soul traveled to an afterlife.
Afterlife
- The Maya believed that the soul went to Xibalba, an underworld ruled by gods like Bloody Claws and Pus Master.
- The underworld was a dark, frightening place with rivers of blood and pus.
- The soul had to navigate many dangerous levels to reach Tamoanchan, the realm of the gods.
- Once there, the soul would descend to a lower level on earth to live in eternal happiness.
Death rituals
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The Maya believed that deceased ancestors could contact their descendants.
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To help loved ones navigate the underworld, they offered food and weapons to the dead.
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Ordinary people were buried under the family home with gifts of jade and maize.
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Royal family members were cremated and believed to enter the afterlife as sky gods.
Other beliefs
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The Maya believed that dreams could be communication with the dead.
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The Maya believed that the brain was the nest of the spirit, and the heart was the throne of the spirit.
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The Maya celebrated the Day of the Dead with food, dances, and skull masks"
" The Maya believe that the soul is bound to the body at birth. Only death or sickness can part the body and soul, with death being the permanent parting . To them, there is an afterlife that the soul reaches after death."
" The Maya were ritualistic people, who paid great respect to the destructive nature of their gods. They had many traditions to commemorate the recently deceased and worship long-departed ancestors.[citation needed]
People who died by suicide, sacrifice, complications of childbirth, perish in the ball game,[1] and in battle were thought to be transported directly into heaven. The reason a violent death led to one souls being able to immediately enter the Maya heaven is because the gods are thankful for their sacrifice to them. People who were to eventually become sacrifices were paraded in litters by citizens before their death.[2]
Before Spanish influence, there may not have been a common idea of the afterlife. The Yucatec Maya believed that there were different routes after death. A pot from a Pacal tomb depicts ancestors of Maya kings sprouting through the earth like fruit trees and together creating an orchard. The Maya had several forms of ancestor worship. They built idols containing ashes of the dead and brought them food on festival days. Alternatively, a temple could be built over an urn. In those that were sacrificed, the most common way was cutting the abdomen, and taking out the heart.[citation needed]
Customs
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The Maya dead were laid to rest with maize placed in their mouth. Maize, highly important in Maya culture, is a symbol of rebirth and also was food for the dead for the journey to the otherworld. Similarly, a jade or stone bead placed in the mouth served as currency for this journey. Due to its green color resembling that of corn stalks, burying the deceased with jade was believed to allow them to follow the path of the Maize God, eventually leading to their rebirth.[3] The practice of wrapping royalty was meant to localize their remains to a finite space. Mortuary bundles would be overlapped with depictions of deity bundles and covered in cinnabar signified rebirth. Marine artifacts in a tomb were meant to create a sense that the body has been set within a cave or upon the underworld. Bloodletting artifacts can be found amongst the dead at the Caracol site. A corpse being buried with these artifacts was to praise God A’. Most royalty were buried along with headdress, bracelets, and necklaces. Once a tomb was closed, burning took place on top of it to signify the soul leaving the royal body and transforming into an ancestral state. The human remains in a temple were believed to have had power to animate buildings.[4]
Often, whistles carved from rocks into the shapes of gods or animals were included in the grave offerings to help the deceased find their way to Xibalba (She-BALba). When a typical Maya citizen died their family and close friends would begin fasting and procuring goods. To which then they would hold an all-night vigil around the corpse and burn incense calling on their ancestors to watch over the new soul in its journey in the underworld. The elders would then wash and clothe the corpse; being buried naked was an insult in Maya culture. Being buried naked meant you were usually a foreign captive. The elders then would carry the corpse to the church. Elders could only handle the corpse rather than the family because there was fear of impotent taken into death by the soul. On the way to the church the chuchjaw would beat the ground so the soul would not linger on Earth. Once at the church, elders would spin the corpse several times so the soul would lose track from its home. Once the corpse was buried the family would hold a feast and abandon the person’s house who has passed. The houses of the dead become abandoned because it was believed that nine days after a successful journey through the underworld by the soul it would return to its home and sleep for nine days. It is during this nine-day period that the Maya believed they could die by the soul who has returned home.[5] The Maya associated the color red with death and rebirth and often covered graves and skeletal remains with cinnabar. The bodies of the dead were wrapped in cotton mantles before being buried. Burial sites were oriented to provide access to the otherworld. Graves faced north or west, in the directions of the Maya heavens, and others were located in caves, entrances to the underworld.
Burial practices of the Maya changed over the course of time. In the late Preclassic period, people were buried in a flexed position, later the dead were laid to rest in an extended position. In the late Classic period, the elite constructed vaulted tombs, and some rulers ordered the construction of large burial complexes. In the Postclassic period, cremation became more common. Other burial practices included bodily humanation with structures, structures directly overhead of the burial site, preferred single interments over multiple interments, the removal of skulls with a bowl or shell over or under the skull, specific skeletal position, prevailing head orientations, jade mosaic masks, and shell figurines. In Maya culture the dead would be steeled like the Hero Twins to have a better chance in their journey.[6] Most of the Maya are mostly found in Dangriga so called “Downsouth” in the southern of Belize country well known called a unique county by the Belizean because Belize is in both Central America and part of the Caribbean.
Beliefs about the afterlife
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Maya death god in the lunar eclipse tables of the Dresden Codex
The Maya believe that the soul is bound to the body at birth. Only death or sickness can part the body and soul, with death being the permanent parting. To them, there is an afterlife that the soul reaches after death.[7] In that, deceased ancestors can still contact their descendants, answering advice when they are asked. This contact can be used at certain times in the season, or when certain family matters pertain to the ancestors. Understanding the perception of what the deceased do in their afterlife can give ideas towards what rituals need to be performed and what types of items one must be buried with in order to successfully navigate the afterlife.[8]
Reincarnation
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The aspect of reincarnation is one strongly mentioned in Maya beliefs and religion. The Popol Vuh gives importance to the Maize deity, and how the Maya people themselves descended from maize people created by this god. In the Popol Vuh that the Kʼicheʼ Maya wrote, one of the few surviving codices, it tells the story of the reincarnation of the Maize god. In the tale, the maize god retreats to the underworld and with two hero twins battling the monsters and lords of the place, makes way back to the earthen world. He is reborn again, dies, and on and on the cycle continues. In this aspect, it is believed by the Maya that the Earth itself is a living being. As they came from corn, consuming corn or having sex then brings one closer to the earth.[citation needed]
Ideas about the afterlife
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The concept of the afterlife, or Xibalba, differs between the Maya ethnic groups. Many have a generalized belief of all souls going to the afterlife, being reincarnated or having another role to participate in after death, but these ideas change dramatically with the rise of Christianity. With that came the idea of Xibalba being a location of punishment. The longer one spent in Xibalba, the worse a life they led while living. With this belief, heaven became a paradise for many to strive for. The Chontal of Tabasco are an example of this.[9]
Ethnic groups
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To the Awakateko and the Chuj, the ancestors remain in contact and have the ability to affect the affairs of the living even in death. The Awakateko believed that the afterlife is a place where all ancestors remain, and that there is nowhere to pass on to.[10] But to the Chuj, any contracts made with the dead are binding. If one does not follow these contracts, the ancestor can plague the one bound to the contract with illness or misfortune. To Them, they can contact their ancestors at altars, caves, or places connected to Maya societies. The association of caves to the underworld is one intertwined with the older Maya civilization and is an aspect continued by the Chuj people.[11]"
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The existence of Mayan mushroom shaped stones is believed by many as evidence that the Mayans once used psilocybin mushrooms in sacred ceremonies. It is generally believed that contemporary Mayan people no longer carry on these ceremonies in the same way that some other Mexican tribes, notably the Mazatec, do. However, several years ago I met a young man who claimed that his Father was spending time among the Mayans in Mexico and that they invited him to a secret mushroom ceremony. He believed that the Mayans were still carrying on these ceremonies and that they had given him permission to reveal this to the world. I was told that he had plans to make a film about this. However, I have not heard anything since and when I google “modern Mayan mushroom ceremonies” nothing comes up. To this day, I don’t know if this guy was bullshitting me, or if his Father never followed through on his plans, or if the Mayans changed their minds about revealing it to the world. Given how the Mazatecs have been flooded with psychedelic tourists, it is probably good that they are keeping it secret . . . if indeed such ceremonies still exist.
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I say they still exist 
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Part 2 of video about Mayan Mysteries
Why Did The Ancient Maya Commit Blood Sacrifice? | Lost Treasure Tombs of the Ancient Maya | Odyssey
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@BlessingsDeers Thus spake the psychic anthropologist!
(Regarding Mayan mushroom ceremonies still existing).
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I think so do. Just became more secret about it.
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How to smudge.
Also smudging sage is different than the common cooking sage that’s in your spice cabinet. Sometimes there is confusion about that.
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