The Maya conception of the universe included multiple layers: the celestial realm above, the terrestrial world of the living, and the underworld — called Xibalba in some traditions — below.

These layers were not sharply separated but were connected through specific kinds of spaces that served as thresholds or portals.

Water, particularly the still, dark water of cenotes and caves, was understood as the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead and supernatural.

Entry into water was, in a cosmological sense, entry into another domain.

Cenotes — the natural sinkholes of the Yucatán — were thus understood as entrances to the underworld, as places where the human world and the supernatural world were in direct contact.