26, 27. How did the Aztecs, Incas, and Maya view death?

²⁶ The Aztecs, Incas, and Maya also believed in an immortal soul. Death was as much a mystery to them as it was to other civilizations. They had their ceremonies and beliefs to help them reconcile themselves to it. As the archaeological historian Victor W. von Hagen explains in his book The Ancient Sun Kingdoms of the Americas: “The dead were in reality living: they had merely passed from one phase to another; they were invisible, impalpable, invulnerable. The dead . . . had become the unseen members of the clan.”​—Contrast Judges 16:30; Ezekiel 18:4, 20.

The Maya too believed in a soul and in 13 heavens and 9 hells.