Deer

Deer meat was not only staple fare at a feast, it was a most esteemed food offering, for gods and ancestors. The hunt itself involved stalking by hunters who crept up, camouflaged in skins, luring deer by mimicking their mating cry, driving the animals into a net, catching them with nooses or snares, and spearing or shooting them with arrows. Speared deer are depicted in both Maya and Central Mexican codices. Successful hunts were celebrated with special rites. However, there were strict limits on the number of deer (and other large mammals) that could be killed: ‘When on a hunt, it was necessary to ask the gods for permission to kill an animal, and the number of “victims” had to be commensurate with the hunter’s needs, otherwise he would be punished’ (Pecci, 2007: 50). Even today, notes Benson, ‘modern hunters ask the underworld earth lords for permission to hunt’ (2001: 320).

Pic 1: A traditional bone deer imitator; a membrane covers one end

Capes themselves were often made of deerskin, the hide - and the fur of rabbits - being important animal by-products, ending in the hands of crafts people who turned them into sandals and luxury capes. The province of Tepe(y)acac was unique in the Aztec empire in only paying tribute to Tenochtitlan in the form of lime, deerskins and certain wood products. Each year some 800 deerskins were sent to the capital (pic 3); this cold, dry province (covering much of central and southern present-day Puebla state) was a key hunting region, where the local people worshipped Camaxtli, god of the hunt.
Sacred bundles, or tlaquimilolli - receptacles of divine power and materialisations of divine presence that served as instruments for communicating with the “gods” - were wrapped in deer hide. They were highly visual symbols of political (and divine) authority, proudly carried by the Mexica on their legendary journey from Aztlán to the basin of central Mexico.

Pic 3: Annual tribute to the Aztecs in the form of 800 deerskins from Tepeacac province; Codex Mendoza, fol. 42r (detail)

A version of a Mexica myth ‘tells how Mixcoatl, a sky and fire god - probably a stellar god - and a legendary hunter, shot with an arrow a two-headed deer who became a woman, was impregnated by Mixcoatl, and gave birth to the culture hero and god Quetzalcoatl. Mexica gods sometimes take deer form - Mixcoatl, for example - and in codices gods may carry a deer-headed sceptre; in the Tonalamatl Aubin, a codex, such a sceptre is shown being used to decapitate a sacrificial victim’ (Benson 2001: 321) (pic 5).
Does (female deer) are known to give birth with relative ease compared with other mammals and an Aztec recipe for aiding childbirth included burnt deerskin, in what de Montellano calls ‘a magical prescription using the principle of “like produces like”’ (1990: 21).

Pic 5: An onyx deer-head sceptre, Templo Mayor Museum, Mexico City (L); a deer-headed sceptre used by a deity in decapitation - Tonalamatl de Aubin pl. 19 (detail)

Finally, we return to the antlers. In many places in the natural world these often grow in the same annual cycle as agricultural crops; they also represent symbols of rebirth, since ‘the deer is thought to become young again when it has dropped its antlers; shortly afterward, the new antlers grow’ (Benson 2001: 320).
However, they were put to practical use too, in more ways than one. According to the Badianus Manuscript, a mid-16th century Aztec Herbal, commonly called ‘America’s Earliest Medical Book’, the Mexica remedy for treating epilepsy included the consumption of a bizarre mixture containing deer’s horns, tapping into the ancient notion that ‘the smell of burnt deer’s horns arrests the attacks of epilepsy’. Moreover, the ash from burnt stag hide was believed to help stem menstrual blood flow (de Montellano 1990: 21).

Pic 7: Deers’ antlers have medicinal properties...

Both Central Mexican and Maya codices and murals contain images of the ayotl, accompanied by deers’ antlers as beaters (e.g., pic 9). And as if the poor creature hadn’t already provided humans with enough resources, we also know that leg bones of deer were used as rasps (scrapers) - learn more from the link below. NOTHING went to waste!

Pic 9: A woman plays an ‘ayotl’ and a man a hand drum; Codex Laud, pl. 34 (detail)

Picture sources:-
• Main (traditional Huichol yarn painting, private collection), and pix 1, 5L, 7 & 8: photos by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• pic 2: image scanned from Codex Borgia: A Full-Color Restoration of the Ancient Mexican Manuscript by Gisele Díaz and Alan Rodgers, Dover Publications, New York, 1993
• Pic 3: image from the Codex Mendoza (original in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark facsimile edition, London, 1938
• Pic 4: image scanned from our copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, Graz, Austria, 1971
• Pic 5R: image downloaded from the INAH 75th anniversary exhibition website https://codices.inah.gob.mx/pc/index.php
• Pic 6: Image from the Codex Borgia scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1976
• Pic 9: image scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of the Codex Laud, Graz, Austria, 1966
• Pic 10: drawing (anonymous) scanned from The Rabbit on the Face of the Moon (see above)
• Pic 11: illustration by and © Felipe Dávalos/Mexicolore.

Pic 11: The Aztec calendar or day sign for Deer, no. 7 in the cycle of 20