Mayan goddess: Ixtab

    The Mayan goddess Ixtab is the god of suicide.  She is represented with a rope around her neck.  In the Mayan culture it is thought that if you committed suicide you would go straight to heaven.  Because of that it was very common for suicide to occur, especially when someone was depressed.
    She mostly appeared during eclipses so some believe she was a variation that the moon goddess took on.  She is associated with the goddess xtabay who appears at night to young men and lures them and then the men would disappear.
      This goddess is interesting to me because unlike most religions, to the Maya suicide was acceptable.  Today suicide is often associated with having a mental illness and depression and is not socially acceptable and thought of as a sin in Christianity.  I think to the Maya suicide was not a horror because they did not perceive time as linear.  So once that persons life ended on Earth it did not mean they were gone forever.