The Tree of Life is a fundamental symbol in Indigenous iconography, since it concentrates meaning around the origin of existence, the unity between different levels of the universe, and local ecological knowledge. This motif, which has deep historical roots, guides ritual and narrative practices, as it sustains systems of ecological and scenic knowledge. Currently, the cultures recognize it as an essential device to preserve collective memory and affirm cultural identity within a global context.
Representations of the Tree of Life are found in ritual ceremonies as well as in everyday life, and express a constant interdependence among human beings, nature and what is sacred. This is made visible, for example, in agricultural rituals, where songs, stories, dances and offerings made to the tree work as a power source to propitiate life, fertility and renewal, reinforcing its role, setting in motion time and the origin of food.
Among the Teenek, as well as in many other Mesoamerican cultures, the tree is seen as a metaphor of human life. Therefore, women represent it in their textiles, embroidering trees in reverence of the earth, which gives food and sustenance. The Tree of Life is sacred and shares features with people: it has feet, arms, veins, a head and a heart. Its trunk comes out of the earth and its roots sink into it; it is, in the words of the cultures themselves, the “beginning of life.” Humans “bloom” like plants, grow and put down roots at the end of their existence. Within this continuity, death is symbolized in the roots of the trees, which remain buried, decompose and, after completing their cycle, return to earth. Life and death, therefore, are integrated into a single process set in motion through this vegetal figure.