impersonation of deities and animals, a general Mesoamerican practice, also characterized pre-Hispanic Mayan performances and included the wayob (were-animals). Ritual humor (a vehicle for social criticism) could be part of these events, involving such actors as opossums, spider monkeys, and the aged Bacabs, with women sometimes being cast in erotic roles. Often, impersonation meant ritual representation on a state level, particularly as depicted on stelae and ball game panels. On the royal stelae – that is, at five-tun or k'atun celebrations – the king wears the heads of important deities and forces of nature for a headdress or a mask, while carrying a sceptre in the form of the lightning deity. The heads are frequently those of the rain deity (Chaac) and of an aquatic serpent. On the other hand, the reigning queen, or queen consort, usually represents the principal maize goddess, that is, a female Tonsured Maize God. Young men, perhaps princes, can impersonate the four deities carrying the earth (Bacabs) while holding the four associated Year Bearer days in their hands or carrying a throne; they may also substitute for the principal rain deity (Chaac). Hieroglyphic expressions of the concept of impersonation involve many other deities as well. In some cases, impersonation may relate to the individual's identity with, or transformation into, a phenomenon of nature. Ritual domains The only extensive treatment of pre-Hispanic Maya ritual by a near-contemporary concerns Yucatán, particularly the kingdom of Mani, and was written by friar Diego de Landa (ca. 1566). However, major ritual domains, such as those of agriculture and kingship, are hardly touched upon by Landa. Calendar The Maya calendar, connected to networks of sacrificial shrines, is fundamental for ritual life. The rites of the 260-day cycle are treated below ('Sciences of Destiny'). Among the highland Maya, the calendrical rites of the community as a whole relate to the succession of the 365-day years, and to the so-called 'Year Bearers' in particular, that is, the four named days that can serve as new year days. Conceived as divine lords, these Year Bearers were welcomed on the mountain (one of four) which was to be their seat of power, and worshipped at each recurrence of their day in the course of the year. The calendrical rites include the five-day marginal period at the end of the year. In 16th-century Yucatán, a straw puppet called 'grandfather' (mam) was set up and venerated, only