Sacrifice in Maya culture facts for kids
Sacrifice was a religious activity in Maya culture. Such ceremonies were superintended by priests. Sacrifice has been a feature of almost all pre-modern societies at some stage of their development and for broadly the same reason: to propitiate or fulfill a perceived obligation towards the gods.
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Crisis and sacrifice
What is known of Mayan ritual practices comes from two sources: the extant chronicles and codices of the missionary-ethnographers who arrived with or shortly after the Spanish conquest of Yucatán, and subsequent archaeological data. The historical record is more sparse than that for the Aztecs, and can only be reliable in regards to the Post-Classical period, long after the Classic Maya collapse. The chroniclers have also been accused of colonial bias, but the most comprehensive account of Maya society, by Diego de Landa, has been described by modern experts as an "ethnographic masterpiece”, despite his role in the destruction of Maya codices.
The archaeological data has continued to expand as more excavations are undertaken, confirming much of what the early chroniclers wrote. A major breakthrough was the deciphering of the Maya syllabary in the 1950s, which has allowed the glyphs carved into many temples to be understood. Excavation and forensic examination of remains have also thrown light on the details of sacrificial rites.
Sacrifices in calendar and everyday rituals
Sacrificial practices
The Mayans engaged in a large number of festivals and rituals on fixed days of the year, many of which involved animal sacrifices. The ubiquity of this practice is a unique aspect of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture, and is now believed to have originated with the Olmecs, the region's first civilization.
Sacrifice to the Maya gods was vigorously opposed by the Spanish clergy as the most visible sign of native apostasy.
De Landa, who was later to become the second bishop of the Yucatán, provides the most comprehensive account of calendar festivals and rituals (chapters 34-40).
The city of Chichen Itza, the main focus of Maya regional power from the Late Classical period, appears to have been a major focus of sacrifice. There are two natural sinkholes, or cenotes, at the site of the city, which would have provided a plentiful supply of potable water. The largest of these, Cenote Sagrado (also known as the Well of Sacrifice), was where sacrifices were made as an offering to the rain god Chaac.
Because Maya society was organised as independent city-states, the local political and religious elites could independently initiate sacrifices as they saw fit. De Landa notes that a common cause for temple sacrifices in many cities was the occurrence of "pestilences, dissensions, or droughts or the like ills". (p. 91)
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, followed by a wide range of other creatures, from jaguars to alligators.
Animal sacrifice seems to have been a common ritual before the commencement of any important task or undertaking.
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 and feast.
The Dresden Codex, an 11th-12th century illustrated Maya book, depicts birds being used in the ritual. Both the Madrid Codex and the Borgia Codex depict a deer sacrificial ritual.
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 practices. These animals were found in much smaller proportions or are completely absent in the surrounding areas, indicating elite control over animals used for such rites.
At Xunatunich and Baking Pot, deer bones and turtle shells were found without the cut marks associated with consumption, pointing towards their use in sacrifices. Postclassical records describe both deer and turtles being sacrificed at these sites.
A gravesite discovered at Yaxuná featured the scattered bones of jaguars, rabbits, deer, opossum, birds, lizards, and snakes.
Origins, meaning, and social function
Sacrificial rites were ubiquitous in all cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, but beyond some uncontroversial generalisations there is no scholarly consensus on the broader questions (and specific mysteries) this raises. Most scholars agree that sacrificial practices arose among the Olmecs at least 3,000 years ago, and have been transmitted to subsequent cultures, including the Maya. Why they arose among the Olmecs is unknown, and probably unknowable, given the paucity of data.
Julian Lee's observation that the Maya "drew no sharp distinction between the animate and the inanimate" and the remarks by Pendergast and others that sacrifices "ensouled" buildings and idols indicate a social meaning, as Reilly suggests, most akin to transubstantiation – a literal rather than symbolic transformation on which the fate of the world and its inhabitants depended.
As with all known theocratic societies, it is likely the Maya political and religious elites played mutually reinforcing roles in supporting the position of the other and ensuring the social stability essential for both, with sacrifice rituals functioning as the performative centrepiece of communal integration. But on likely divergences of interests between different social groups in regard to sacrifice rituals, including within these elites, the historical record has so far been silent.
See also
In Spanish: Sacrificio en la cultura maya para niños
