by The Mayans seemed to have had a rich and varied culture across a wide swathe of the Americas, and though there does not appear to have been a single and/or unified religion certain commonalities between regions and ears have been inferred from glyphs and pottery etc. The notion of an afterlife is one of those commonalities.
In Mayan beliefs, the underworld is literally beneath the physical world, and could be reached through holes in the Earth. There is one place in the Guatemala, and another in Belize that are supposed to be entrances to the world of the dead.
Records indicate that the world of the dead in Classical Mayan culture, Xibalba was a dark and horrid place, ruled by the lords of death. The Quichi Maya of the 16th century continued this belief, while the Yucatec Maya believed in a similar realm called Metnal.
A myth from Classic Maya texts involved two twins who go into Xilbalba to rescue their father, and kill the lords of death. It is speculated that there may have been another afterlife, a paradise similar to the Aztec warrior's paradise. The Yucatec Maya certainly believed in such a place, a paradise of plenty, where a tree, yaxche, that stood at the center of the world shaded the souls of the deceased.
http://www.lifepaths360.com/index.php/t ... logy-2970/
In the pre-Spanish past, there may never have existed a unified concept of the afterlife. Among the Pokoman Maya of the Verapaz, Xbalanque was to accompany the dead king, which suggests a descent into the underworld (called xibalba 'place of fright') like that described in the Popol Vuh Twin myth. The Yucatec Maya had a double concept of the afterlife: Evildoers descended into an underworld (metnal) to be tormented there (a view still held by the 20th-century Lacandons), while others, such as those led by the goddess Ixtab, went to a sort of paradise. The ancestors of Maya kings (Palenque tomb of Pakal, Berlin pot) are shown sprouting from the earth like fruit trees which, together, constitute a blissful orchard. The so-called 'Flower Mountain' has more specifically been interpreted as a reference to an aquatic and solar paradise. To judge by the marine faunal remains found in Classic tombs and by the accompanying aquatic imagery, this sea paradise may have been the Maya variant of the rain god's paradise (Tlalocan) in Central Mexican religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_religion
Xibalba is described in the Popol Vuh as a court below the surface of the Earth associated with death and with twelve gods or powerful rulers known as the Lords of Xibalba. The first among the Maya Death Gods ruling Xibalba were Hun-Came (One Death) and Vucub-Came (Seven Death), though Hun-Came is the senior of the two. The remaining ten Lords are often referred to as demons and are given commission and domain over various forms of human suffering: to cause sickness, starvation, fear, destitution, pain, and ultimately death.
These Lords all work in pairs and are Xiquiripat (Flying Scab) and Cuchumaquic (Gathered Blood), who sicken people's blood; Ahalpuh (Pus Demon) and Ahalgana (Jaundice Demon), who cause people's bodies to swell up; Chamiabac (Bone Staff) and Chamiaholom (Skull Staff), who turn dead bodies into skeletons; Ahalmez (Sweepings Demon) and Ahaltocob (Stabbing Demon), who hide in the unswept areas of people houses and stabbed them to death; and Xic (Wing) and Patan (Packstrap), who caused people to die coughing up blood while out walking on a road. The remaining residents of Xibalba are thought to have fallen under the dominion of one of these Lords, going about the face of the Earth to carry out their listed duties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xibalba
