God Impersonation
God Impersonation (Mutli: ఖొ, K'oh) is a ritual form of worship practiced inside the White Path, especially in the Mutul. God Impersonation consist in several thousand-year-old traditions, rituals and customs that have influenced one another until it became an heterogenous set of highly codified theatrical representations of the divine. It blends dance, theatre, music, satire, facial and body painting, masking, all in an highly religious and ritualistic context. It is thought that God Impersonation find its origin in the concept of Wayob and archaic shamanistic rituals associated to it, were practicioners would either summon or transform into their totemic animal through the use of music, dance, and mind-altering drugs. Today, it is fully separated from the concept of Way, only sharing superficial similarities with the dances and rituals practiced by Shamans or "sorcerers".
Impersonation has a special status in White Path countries, where it is both a form of worship but also a vector of social criticisim and satire unaffected by censorship or other form of political control even in authoritarian countries like the Mutul. While Impersonation is traditionally a ritual practiced mainly by the Mutulese aristocracy, it has now become a common form of both artistic expression and religious devotion among commoners, with temples and other religious institutions always scouting for talented dancers to play central roles during ceremonies.
impersonation is viewed by White Pilgrims as an act of literal transformation, an event of supernatural significance in itself. By adorning the attributes of a Divine and ritually replaying a significant feat or performing a dramatic rendition of one of said Divine's myths, the Impersonator truly become this Divinity and the events depicted during the dance become a reality. Thus, Pilgrims often seek blessing from the Impersonators.
Etymology
In Mutli, the word "K'oh" is commonly used to refer to both the mask, the Impersonator, and the act of Impersonation itself. In it's broadest usage, it can also mean representative, substitute, an image or figure that stands in for something else. In other Macro-Chan languages, words sharing the same etymology as "K'oh" also have similar meaning. For example in K'atzijob'al, the word Q'oh can be found incorporated in words like Q'ohlem, meaning "Traditions, Customs".