RESOURCE: The Maya, hunting and animal conservation

12th Mar 2024

Maya deer hunting depicted on a polychrome vase

‘Traditional Maya religion and culture reinforced conservation in many ways. The Maya are one of the Native American groups that have an explicit ideology and practice of conservation...’ We have compiled this resource from information in the excellent book Animals and the Maya in Southeast Mexico by E. N. Anderson and Felix Medina Tzuc (details below) (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore.)

‘The Maya deliberately forego opportunities to kill animals, in order to ensure better hunting later... their rules for hunting are the following:-

’1. Do not kill an animal unless you have a good reason. (Maya are strikingly protective toward even insects, and toward pests like rabbits and coatis, not killing them except when a specific individual or group is damaging a particular field.

’2. Do not take for food more than you need for yourself and your immediate family and neighbourhood. Selling some meat is permitted, but only in the close circle of the community.

‘3. Do not take many animals at one time. If a group of animals is encountered, do not kill all of them.

’4. Do not kill more than a small number of animals within a year.

’5. Try to minimise the killing of animals in reproductive condition - subject to the qualification that one can take an animal when need is great, and one cannot, in the forest, easily tell the reproductive condition of the animal.

‘5a. When one accidentally kills a mother with young, try to capture the young and raise them.

’6. Do not leave a wounded animal to die and be wasted. Kill with one shot; if you fail and wound the animal, follow it until you get it. (This is a serious point of honour for traditional Maya hunters, and they wax scathing when talking about violators.)

’These rules, especially the first five, are believed to be enforced by supernatural sanction... The Lords of the Forest enforce these rules... These and other deities guard the forest and its life... they were and are believed to be powerful supernatural beings that wander in the forest, whistling like the wind... They strike with sickness and accidents those humans who use the forests and forest resources wastefully.’

Source:-
• Animals and the Maya in Southeast Mexico by E. N. Anderson and Felix Medina Tzuc, University of Arizona Press, 2005, pp 71-72.

Picture sources:-
• Main: image courtesy of and © Justin Kerr, K5857, from the mayavase.com database
• Pic 1: image courtesy of and © Arte Maya Tz’utujil (artemaya.com)
• Pic 2: image scanned from Design Motifs of Ancient Mexico by Jorge Enciso, Dover Publications, New York, 1953
• Pic 3: image downloaded from http://www.famsi.org/research/graz/madrid/img_page046.html.

Guess...

...what the Maya did to a blowgun after 13 kills?

Find out

Comments (1)

Mila

27th Oct 2024

SOOOOO, can you tell me what animals the Maya hunted and why????

Mexicolore

Armadillos, foxes, deer, rabbits, coatis, possums, turtles, tapirs and plenty more. Why? Try guessing the main reason for hunting an animal, anywhere in the world...

Maya deer hunting depicted on a polychrome vase