Ixtab

Representation of the Ixtab goddess of the Dresden Codex.

Ixtab, also called Xtab or Ix Tab, "the rope", is the goddess of suicide, and wife of the god of death, Chamer or Ah Puch, in Mayan mythology. Ixtab is the Mayan name of a mythological woman, according to the Dresden Codex.

He was also the divinity of the gallows. She was associated with the future life in paradise and suicides by hanging received her protection. In Mayan tradition, suicide was considered an extremely honorable way of dying, on a par with human sacrificial victims, warriors fallen in battle, women still in childbirth, or priests.

Ixtab was commonly depicted as a partially decomposed corpse with closed eyes, hanging from a tree. Her role as divinity was to protect suicide bombers, accompanying them and guiding them to a special paradise. This role is called psychopomp or guide of souls.

It is also said that she is a goddess of double standards, since, although she is or was seen as a benign goddess, protector of suicides, she is also seen more as an evil spirit that seduces men in the form of a beautiful and attractive woman to later kill them by revealing her demonic appearance. From this seems to arise the legend of the Xtabay.

Suicide field

The interdisciplinary field that studies the various aspects related to suicidal behaviors. Understanding that suicidal behavior has a multi-causal origin and that it requires interdisciplinary and intersectoral interventions. This interdisciplinary field is oriented towards the development of scientific, theoretical, methodological and ethical knowledge in relation to Promotion, Prevention, Care and Assistance, Post-vention, Research, Training, Training and state policies for intervention in the suicide process and/or in Suicidal Behavior Disorder, Described by Páez and Álvarez

From the Suicide Prevention, Attention and Postvention Program, the records of the Mayan culture on Ixtab are considered the first records to consider a perspective of suicide in America with some components related to mental health