The Carnegie Maya III: Carnegie Institution of Washington Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology, 1940-1957

121. Snares and Traps in Codex Madrid (1954)

521 N o t e s o f M i d d l e A m e r i c a n A r c h a e o l o g y a n d E t h n o l o g y Carnegie Institution of Washington Division of Historical Research No. 121 December 1954 Snares and Traps in Codex Madrid Jose Luis Franco instrumentos de caza y pesca, recoleccion y armas” contained the data for which I had been searching, although subsequently I discovered similar material in Blom and La Farge (1926–1927:352), Wisdom (1940:74–77), and Thompson (1930:87). There is nothing very special about the traps under discussion, they are very common ones, but in order to reduce to a minimum the imaginative factor of the analysis I needed what I now have: a precise, comparable, and well-illustrated documentation containing material analogous to the codex, and coming from an ethnic group known to be more or less directly related to the makers of the manuscript. There are four types of traps in Codex Madrid: snares (using as a motor agent a sapling), deadfall traps, pitfalls, and nets. Snares. Most of the snares in the codex have caught a deer (Fig. 121.1, nos. 1, 3). In two instances the captured animal is a peccary (Fig. 121.1, no. 2 and Madrid 93a1) and in the remaining one a turkey (Fig. 121.1, no. 4). These traps, as well as all others, picture only the most indispensable elements sufficient for their ready identification by people who knew them in their daily experience. Another factor contributing to the oversimplification is the very small space allotted to the illustrations in several of the almanacs. For this reason, the smallest and most complicated component, the trigger mechanism, had to be eliminated. Among the Tzutujils, Rosales found in use the snare illustrated in Fig. 121.1, no. 8. As in the case of Codex Madrid contains several divinatory almanacs (pp. 42c, 44–49, 90a–92a2, 92a3–93a2), with illustrations of animals in traps. Of the 76 animals pictured, 20 are deer, two are peccaries, two are turkeys, and two are armadillos. I follow the usual identification of the animals, a topic extensively discussed and, I believe, settled by now. The matter of traps, though, has hardly been considered, the only detailed discussion , to my knowledge, being that by Cyrus Thomas (1882:97). Thomas correctly identified the snares (Fig. 121.1, nos. 1–4), but only suggests the necessity of some kind of triggering device. Contradicting Brasseur de Bourbourg, he thinks the trigger might be the curved element in the lower part of 121.1, no. 3. He explains 121.1, no. 10 as a pitfall “lined around the sides with upright pieces of wood.” We shall see that this is not correct. In the belief that such knowledge could perhaps be helpful in the interpretation of some glyphic matters , I have had a special interest in the functioning of these traps, but the high conventionalization of the drawings in the codex was a very great obstacle to successful analysis. Some years ago I was fortunate enough to meet Juan de Dios Rosales, who was then completing a very exhaustive ethnological investigation of his native region in the Tzutujil country of Guatemala. This study, “La cultura material de un pueblo Tzutujil: San Pedro de la Laguna,” will be published by the government of Guatemala. Rosales asked me to draw the illustrations for his book. On accepting, I found that his “trampas, JoSe LuiS FrAnco 522 Fig. 121.1, no. 4, this was for catching fowl. We may then, at least for this particular case, safely infer that the ancient Maya traps worked similarly. Fig. 121.1, no. 8a, is a little flat stone, in the direction of which the bird is lured by a row of corn grains. The trigger proper is a short stick c, maintained in 121.1. Snares and traps: (1–6) snares; Madrid 45b, 49a, 49b, 91a3, 44a, 49c; (7) the god of hunting supports the sapling on his head; Madrid 45c; (8) snare used by present-day Tzutujil; (9) Deadfall trap used by present-day Tzutujil; (10, 11) deadfall traps; Madrid 48a, 91a1; (12) pitfall trap; Madrid 92a1; (13) net trap; Madrid 93a2. Snares and Traps in Codex Madrid 523 position by the downward pressure exerted by d, which is tied...