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Animal Sacrifice in Maya culture
White-tailed deer were perhaps the most popular sacrificial animal, heavily featured in Maya art. After deer, the next most common sacrificial animals were dogs and various birds (whose heads were offered to the idols), followed by a wide range of other creatures, from jaguars to alligators.

Animal sacrifice also seems to have been a common ritual before the commencement of any important task or undertaking.

Examples

The Maya often raised animals for the purposes of sacrificing and eating them at ritual feasts. Spanish colonizers reported that the Maya would kill and consume massive quantities of turkey in an annual ritual sacrifice and feast.

The Dresden Codex, a 11th-12th century illustrated Maya book, depicts birds being used in ritual sacrifice, deer tied up near sacrificial sites, and pieces of deer meat placed into ritualistic containers. Both the Madrid Codex and the Borgia Codex depict a deer ritual in which deer are tied to trees and killed with spears.

At Laguna de On Island, remains of tapir, peccary, deer, crocodile, iguana, and agouti were all found concentrated around a spot believed to have been used for ritual butchering. These animals were found in much smaller proportions or are completely absent in the surrounding areas, indicating elite control over animals used for butchering. Another structure on the island was found to contain evidence of both ritual practice and deer jaw bones.

In a Maya burial chamber in Xunatunich, an upper-class adult male was found buried with both deer and jaguar bones scattered over his body. At Xunatunich and Baking Pot, deer bones and turtle shells were found without the cut marks associated with consumption, pointing towards their use in ritual sacrifice. Postclassical records describe both deer and turtles being sacrificed at these sites.

A grave site discovered at Yaxuná featured the scattered bones of jaguars, rabbits, deer, opossum, birds, lizards, and snakes on and around the body.

Archaeological controversy & misconceptions

In many cases, animals used for sacrifices were also consumed, making the line between animals used for ritual & sacrificial practices and animals relied on for food unclear or absent. Montero-Lopez argues that on the basis of analysis of the distribution of deer parts in Classical Maya sites that the archeological record does not support a clear distinction between the secular and sacred uses of animals. This issue comes further to light when studying the lower classes. Because rituals in Maya society were conducted exclusively by elites, poorer people would get almost all of the meat in their diets from these ritual feasts. Despite this convergence, it remains common in the literature to consider food use of animals and ritual use of animals separately.

Mesoamerica lacked conventional domesticated food animals such as sheep, cows and pigs, and some researchers have taken this to mean animal protein and byproducts could only be obtained by hunting. In reality, evidence points to the Maya having domesticated deer and dogs on a large scale. There is a well-documented practice of Maya households fattening up dogs on maize, either to eat themselves or to ritually offer to elites.

In Seibal, possible remains of animal pens were found with pieces of antler, indicating that deer were kept close at hand for consumption and ritual use. In Cozumel, stone enclosures from the Postclassic period were found to contain droppings from animals and domesticated turkey bones. These turkeys must have been imported from Northern Mexico, as they were not native to Cozumel.