Gray 1

Jena Gray

12/15/13

Jones

ANTH 350

Food & Religion: A Glimpse of Maya Foodways

AbstractThis paper examines the deep-rooted connection between food and religion specifically within the Maya culture. The Ancient Maya lived throughout Central America in current-day Yucatan Peninsula, Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador as well as the northern reaches of Honduras. Descendants of the Ancient Maya still reside in these areas at the present time and the region they occupy will be the geographic area of focus within this paper. In order to ascertain the importance of food within the spiritual realm, this paper looks at a variety of religious practices and the role that food has within each. Food is an integral yet often overlooked component of religion.

Food within the religious sphere is distinguished and explored with the assumption that food connects one spiritually with some form of a higher power. This spiritual connection can be brought about by avoiding forbidden foods, fasting, feasting, offerings, and sacrifice; among other ritualistic or religious practices. The definition of food, therefore, is not limited simply to food that humans consume. It also includes food offerings to feed deities and food that is consumed in the Otherworld(s). This paper will present the idea that food cannot be separated from religion and likewise, religion cannot be separated from food. Food is an interwoven component of religion which not only connects the consumer to a higher power but is also formative in the religious experience in its entirety.

INTRODUCTION

When people think of religion, many visualize organized sermons, architecturally

beautiful places of worship, or intricate and stringent rules that need to be followed. A scarce few

identify food as a cornerstone of religious behavior. Food saturates religious rituals across the

world and has done so for thousands of years. A religion’s historical and geographical influences

on food transcend time, infusing themselves into what is considered a religion or culture’s

Gray 2

inherent nature. This fundamental aspect of religion is often glazed over or barely glanced at due

to its essential and natural role being incessantly ingrained into the minds of the religious

participants. The spirituality of food is often overlooked but its uses permeate vast arenas of

religious behavior marking food as an integral component of religiosity. Thus, analyzing the

specific food use within Mayan religious rituals will illuminate the inseparable role that food has

within religious practices.

Before a complete understanding of the position of food within religion can be achieved,

‘food’ must first be defined as its definition is varied due to different cultural norms or time

periods. Food will not be defined as something deemed edible by social norms of one area of the

world, but rather food will be defined as anything that is cross-culturally consumed disregarding

any personal or religious taboos. For example, many cultures have a deeply ingrained and

immovable taboo against eating human flesh, yet the Wari’ people of western Brazil dispose of

their dead by eating considerable amounts of the corpses’ bodies (Conklin 1995:75). Beth

Conklin (1995) refers to this practice as mortuary cannibalism. She delves deep into the Wari’

culture to discover that mortuary cannibalism is not a savage practice committed by savage

people but rather an expression of honor and respect for the ones who have passed on (Conklin

1995:75). While consuming the flesh of humans is a personal and cultural taboo for many, under

the premise of this paper it will be considered food. Blood is another example of what will be

considered food as the Maya believe that strength of spirit resides in blood and is the most

significant sustenance for their gods (Ballou 2008:3).

In order to fully delve into the concept of ‘food,’ there are certain classifications to be

made. It is important to note that the Maya believe in ‘otherworlds’ besides the present world

they live in. They believe in an ‘upperworld’ and a ‘lower world.’ Brian Stross (2010:557)

Gray 3

recognizes the complexity which is inherent when approaching food through a religious lens,

“for it must then include food for the deities and food for the soul.” Stross (2010) offers

classifications of food which seek to differentiate secular food from that food which is associated

within religious contexts. He separates the broad umbrella of food consumption into three parts:

Food for People, Food for Otherworld Inhabitants, and Food for the Soul. Food for People

applies to those foods which earth-dwellers consume such as maize or cacao which hold

symbolic reverence or religious implications. Feasts, fasts from certain foods, and avoidance of

impure foods all reflect on food’s role within religion for mortal Maya.

Food for Otherworld Inhabitants encompasses the food practices which are believed to

take place among the upperworld dwellers themselves, as well as food offerings for inhabitants

of the upperworld by earth-dwellers (Stross 2010:557). In the same regard, food consumption

which takes place within the lower world, as well as food offered by people within this world to

dwellers of the lower world, should be included under the banner of Food for Otherworld

Inhabitants (Stross 2010:557). Brian Stross (1977b:4) and Calixta Guiteras-Holmes (1961:260)

highlight an example of food interactions within an ‘otherworld’ can be taken from the Tzeltal

Mayan underworld of K’atinbak (“Burning Bones”), where men and women, who are horses and

mules respectively, eat beans which are actually flies from grave sites and will drink rum which

is actually horse urine at the fiestas of K’atinbak (Stross 2010:566). Brian Stross (2010:557)

further explains that Food for the Soul accounts for food “concerning the soul’s travels to the

otherworld(s),” as well as food practices which are “relevant to the soul’s visit to this world from

the otherworld(s).”

BACKGROUND

Gray 4

The Maya are a modern day culture whose history dates back to 1800 B.C. when the

earliest settlements were discovered in Mesoamerica. By the 6th century A.D., the Mayan empire

hit its peak spreading its influence from modern-day Western Honduras and El Salvador to the

Yucatan peninsula and Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas, with major populations residing

in Guatemala and Belize (The History Channel). While the Maya have migrated across the

Americas, the heaviest populations of modern Maya still live in Guatemala, El Salvador,

Northern Honduras, Belize, and the Yucatan peninsula. There are around 6 million Maya today;

many of whom continue to worship the same indigenous deities of their ancient ancestors.

Mayan Religious Beliefs

In order to understand Maya foodways the symbolic comings and goings of the everyday

must be evaluated. A true understanding of the relationship between Mayan religious practices

and food comes solely from delving into Mayan culture. Only from the Maya perspective can an

understanding of their view of life and their resulting actions be achieved. First, to verify that the

Maya’s way of life is centered on religious practices, the term ‘religion’ must be defined

properly. For decades among anthropologists, there has been widespread difficulty in defining

what religion is. It is indeed dangerous to stick to one concrete definition of religion since

religious and/or spiritual associations within cultures drastically vary but at the same time

necessary to define what religion is so that it can hope to be better understood.

One commonly held definition of religion, cross-culturally, is that religion consists of

“human ideas and practices relating to the supernatural” (Stross 2010:553). While this definition

may seem accurate and harmless at the surface, these thoughts on religion can become

problematic when approaching the Maya. Under this premise, the Maya religious practices

would not necessarily qualify. Viewing religion through this lens assumes that, like western

Gray 5

thought, supernatural beings/occurrences and natural beings/occurrences can be distinctly

separated into two, neat categories. Yet for the Maya, what westerners consider to be

‘supernatural beings’ are entirely natural and are holistically a part of everyday life for the Maya

(Stross 2010:553-554).

It is important to maintain a definition of religion that includes those Mayan groups who

do not differentiate between natural and supernatural entities. Brian Stross (2010:554) offers a

more inclusive definition of religion. He states that any cultural tradition in which there is a

belief that the person or a portion of the person (such as a ‘soul’) will end up in a different world

after death can be said to retain a form of religious beliefs or thought. Belief in the other world(s)

after death is what establishes a culture or society’s religion. The Maya believe in an afterlife

which means that any offering or burial ritual involving food can also be considered a religious

practice.

For the Maya, the living and the dead are not two compartmentalized, separate categories.

Rather they are connected and overlapping spheres which are constantly visited by one another: a

person’s existence does not end after death. Tombs were often re-entered by family members to

place offerings in. Linda Schele and Peter Mathews (1998) indicate some instances in which

psychoducts (open channels from tombs to the temples above them) were constructed to allow

communication with the dead (McNeil 2010:294). Religion is the Maya way of life; therefore,

any actions surrounding food is vital to their religion including any food sacrificed to gods,

‘feeding’ the ancestors, and providing food for “the journey of the souls of the dead to the

otherworld” (Stross 2010:554).

Maize and Cacao

Gray 6

Reflecting on a culture’s creation myths offers important insights into how certain foods

earned their sacred status. Louis Grivetti (2005:287) identifies the connection between

geographic location and religious mythology in determining which foods are sacred in the

Mayan culture. The two most cherished foodstuffs in the Maya culture are maize and cacao.

Judith Green (2010:315) concludes that these crops have ancient origins, according to Maya

mythology, which transcended from the creation of the Maya world by the creation goddess,

Xmucane (meaning She who has borne children; variations are Xmulcane, Xmukane, Ixmucane,

Ixumucané). Allen Christenson (2003:195) emphasizes Xmucane as an important role in creating

the sacredness of maize and corn by way of her creating humankind (Green 2010:315). He notes

(2003:195) that, according to the Popol Vuh (the Mayan holy book), Xmucane sat at the metate,

or grinding stone, grinding up white and yellow maize that she had gotten from the Mountain of

Sustenance (Green 2010:315). She ground the maize nine times and then added water, giving

man strength and health points to (Christenson 2003:195, c.f. Green 2010:315). The Popol Vuh

asserts that maize is the substance from which the Maya themselves were formed. Soon after

‘conception’ of humans, cacao was provided by the gods as the first delights for humankind,

taken from the Tree of Sustenance (Christenson 2003:193-195, c.f. Green 2010:315).

Within the traditions of the Ch’orti’ Maya, Raphael Girard (1995:139; 1979:247)

describes the preparation of a beverage imbibed at ceremonial banquets, boronté (or ‘nine-

drink’, a type of chilate) (Grofe 2007:10). This chilate (or maize gruel) consists of maize, cacao,

and water and can only be prepared by the oldest female elder, having religious implications

which trace back to the creation goddess Xmucane, as the grandmother of the Hero Twins and

mother of Hun Hunahpu (Grofe 2007:10). The chilate drink is produced for divine and elite

human consumption. Raphael Girard (1995:139; 1979:247) expounds on this drink by correlating

Gray 7

the rituals involved in preparing boronté and the Popol Vuh story in which Xmucane makes nine

drinks from the foods found in the Mountain of Sustenance (Grofe 2007:10). From these nine

drinks she forms humankind, represented by maize and cacao substances. Allen Christenson

(2003:195) furthers the spiritual connection of maize and cacao by suggesting that the nine

grindings by Xmucane are representative of the number of months of human gestation (Grofe

2007:10).

The Hero Twins are the grandchildren of Xmucane and sons of Hun Hunahpu, whose

death and resurrection transformed him into the Maize God, and are compared with maize while

alive on earth. According to the Popol Vuh, their simultaneous death and rebirth in the

underworld associates them with cacao which is supported based on other Mayan inscriptions

and beliefs in cacao’s connection with the underworld (not in a negative way) (Grofe 2007:10).

When their father Hun Hunahpu died and was resurrected, he became the Maize God [Figure 1a;

Figure 1b] and yet also resembles a cacao tree which leads Michael Grofe (2007:10) to infer the

possibility of the Hero twins as representations of cacao seeds.

Thus with most of the primary deities in charge of the creation of the world and the

creation of humanity, maize and cacao repeatedly appear and their importance continues to

influence modern Mayan culture. Food has been inextricably linked to Mayan religion since the

creation of their world. Mayan creation myths coupled with the geographic and ecologic

presence of cacao and maize within the Mesoamerican region have led these two food items to

be sacred in the eyes of the Maya for thousands of years. Michael Grofe (2007:10) finds

descriptions of maize in the Popol Vuh holding the crop to be the symbolic as well as literal

substance from which the original humans were formed and proposes that cacao may have been

another vital component which brought life to humanity.

Gray 8

Figure 1a) Mayan Maize God, Hun Figure 1b) Mayan Maize God in statue Hunahpu form.

Maize and cacao have been of the utmost importance in Mayan religion since the

beginning of time and many foods and drinks have been created from them. Some of these foods

are staples to the Maya diet while some are delicacies but either way religious significance

permeates these foods with every bite. Corn tortillas are a major source of nourishment for the

Maya which is understandable after believing the Maya creation myth which asserts that the

Maya themselves were fashioned out of masa (corn dough) (National Geographic). The Maya

were the first to transform the seeds of the cacao fruit, after roasting them, into hot chocolate.

Richard Adams (1999), McNeil et al. (2006), and David Stuart (2006) note that vessels

containing the Mayan glyph for cacao [Figure 2] or have cacao residue within them have been

discovered in elite Maya tombs dating back to the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. (McNeil

2010:294). Ancient Maya offered this thick beverage to gods, high priests, captured enemy

warriors, and elites. The sacred cacao beans were seen as a gift from the gods and were also used

as currency, signifying just how essential the cacao fruit was to this culture (National

Geographic).

Gray 9

Figure 2: Maya glyph for cacao (kakau)

Forbidden Foods

There were, of course, restrictions to the intake of chocolate so that there would be no

excessive use desecrating chocolate as a sacred food. Restrictions against excessive use of a

food, or gluttony, were present in the ancient Maya culture as taboo. Food taboos can be

presented in ways that restrict the amount of food intake, restrict particular foods, or can even

restrict/monitor certain preparation of food items. Many times, the reasons certain foods are

prohibited is because they would corrupt the body, mind, or soul and are considered unclean in

the eyes of whoever or whatever the spiritual head of the religion is.

Yet sometimes within the Maya culture, the consumption of particular dishes or drinks

were constrained only to particular feast days within the annual cycle or in reverence to certain

gods at certain times of the year (Staller, Serra and Lazcano, Ochoa this volume, c.f. Staller and

Carrasco 2010:10). Eugene Hunn (1977:136) refers to an example of a Maya food taboo that can

be seen with the prohibition of several species of birds known to be hlabtawaneh mut (or birds of

evil omen) within the Tenejapa Tzeltal Mayans (Stross 2010:561). Brian Stross (2010) finds that

animals or animated ‘messengers’ who carry messages from the otherworld(s) are also forbidden

or taboo food to refrain from eating. These forbidden foods are laced with religious implications

Gray 10

ranging from refraining from impure foods to only eating certain foods on specific religious

dates to avoiding eating animal messengers from the otherworld.

Fasting

By refraining from eating impure foods, the Maya strive toward a pure being for attempts

at contacting any deity. According to Livelong Learning Programme (2009-2011) fasting, or

self-denial of food, can be considered to be ‘praying with the body.’ Spiritual discipline is

improved by having to overcome physical needs (food) to focus on spiritual petitions as in the

case of the Maya. In regards to religion, Evon Vogt (1976:41) establishes food and drink as ‘the

medium of contact with the gods’ which means every intake of substance for the Maya holds

significant weight (Christenson 2010:584). Tzeltal Mayans among other Mayans fast with the

hopes of attaining a level of ritual purity to facilitate communication between the fasters and the

deities that inhabit a different world (Stross 2010:561).

Many times, fasters will refrain from all foods for a designated amount of days which

leads up to the ritual or ceremony. Fasting is also required in some shaman-healer ritual

treatments. Oftentimes, the healer will require the patient to have some sort of inner cleansing

(fasting) as well as outer cleansing such as induced sweating or vomiting to rid the patient of

hindrances to his/her healing before the treatment process can proceed (Sacred Earth). These

individuals refrain from ingesting all foods with maize being the only exception. Charles

Wisdom (1940:362) observes that Ch’orti’ Maya patients commit to eating only maize until the

treatment (if it for a shaman-healer ritual) or the ceremony (petitioning the gods) because it was

said in Maya history and culture that maize would keep the body in good condition (Stross

2010:561).

Gray 11

Maize not only was, and is, a staple to the Maya diet but their Maize God was (and still

is) the major deity of the Maya religion as well as the major deity for other prominent cultures of

Mesoamerica at the time. Maize was the substance out of which humans were formed so it is

only fitting that maize is the substance that will sustain humans for a period of time leading up to

the ritual. Calixte Guiteras-Holmes (1961:43) highlights an example of a Tzotzil Mayan husband

and wife from San Pedro Chenalhó fasting all but maize for two days prior to planting in petition

to the gods of harvest for a good crop that season (Stross 2010:561). Periods of fasting within an

individual’s life revolve around the planting seasons, the annual cycle, as well as during times of

suffering in the form of petitioning the gods for favor or blessing.

Feasting

Similarly to Maya fasting, Maya feasts and festivals took place as petitions to the gods,

beseeching favor and blessing as well as during times of rejoicing over a good harvest or during

celebratory events such as a new king ascending the throne. The West often approaches feasting

with a celebratory but selfish and gluttonous attitude but the Maya have the opposite manner of

feasting. The Maya share their food with the gods in order to thank them for their good will as

well as to entice their favor and appease their deities’ desires. Pedro Ximénex (1929) notes the

frequency with which great feasts and festivals took place at the K’iche’ capital of Q’umarkaj

wherein idols of the gods would be carried from the temples to join the people in receiving the

same food and drink that the mortal Maya were consuming (Christenson 2010:584).

Jon McGee (1990:96) accentuates this ideal with an example of the Lakantun Maya who

pointedly share their sacred feast with inhabitants of the otherworld(s) (Stross 2010:566). While

imbibing b’a’alche’ (alcoholic beverage) themselves, the Lakantun also sprinkle some to the

four directions with their fingers, abating the thirst of the deities represented (McGee 1990:96,

Gray 12

c.f. Stross 2010:566). Jon McGee (1990:96) explains that the Lakantun then also feed the deities

by depositing branches of the xate’ palm and tortillas in god pots with braziers (open fires) which

send twisting tendrils of copal incense to temporarily satiate the insatiable appetites of the gods

while simultaneously pleasing their senses which casts a favorable light on the mortal Maya

(Stross 2010:566). It is sometimes difficult to discern between a Maya feast and food offerings to

deities because of the considerable overlap between these spheres of religion.

Food Offerings and Sacrifice

One of the names of the priest-shaman, Barbara Tedlock (1992:114) notes, is tzuqunel

(‘feeder’) because through various food offerings and practices, they symbolically ‘feed’ the

world and the ancestors (Christenson 2010:582). Another word Tedlock (1992:114) finds which

is used to describe the priest-shaman, q’o’l, means a provider of sustenance, primarily in the

form of food and drink (Christenson 2010:582). These descriptors suggest the intention for

humans to feed and nurture the gods through their actions of their everyday lives but especially

at their ceremonies. The ceremony should be centered on a ceremonial meal that is shared with

deities and ancestors, followed by a specific offering of food and drink (Christenson 2010:582).

These food offerings can be understood as a kind of language, an avenue in which

communication between the earth and the otherworldly entities can be accessed to bring a

desired outcome in the lives of the living as Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi (1977:507) puts it,

as sort of ‘materialized prayer’ (McNeil 2010:294).

Food is offered to the gods as well as offered to those recently dead to “accompany and

sustain” them on the hard journey toward the otherworld (Stross 2010:554). Food that is offered

to the gods and ancestors includes mixtures and combinations of cacao and maize gruel (chilate)

but there is an overwhelming demand for blood. Blood is the most valuable food that can be

Gray 13

offered to inhabitants of the otherworld(s). Ancient Maya and modern Maya differ on the source

of the blood offered but concur in the belief that the animating spirit that resides in blood is a

vital food to be offered to the gods, particularly earth gods (Stross 2010:566). From the common

perspective of the time (the Spanish), the rituals of human sacrifice by the Maya were brutal yet

in all actuality their intentions were honorable and held religious importance (Ballou 2008:5).

The Spanish, however, failed to reflect on their vicious and barbarous killing of the Maya in the

name of their God to see that they, themselves, were the savages (Ballou 2008:5). They killed

with little honor and little respect.

The Maya would prepare their human sacrifices, who were typically women, children, or

brave enemy captives, with intention and care. First, they would serve the living sacrifice

chocolate then send him or her into a steam room, a bath room with fire burning on the roof to

heat up the room, so that all of the sacrifice’s impurities would sweat out. After all preparations,

the sacrifice would either be decapitated, thrown into a cenote (a sacred sinkhole/well), or his

heart would be cut out with a stone knife [Figure 3a and Figure 3b]. Another frequent practice by

the Maya was bloodletting, where the priest or king would puncture a body part (tongue, penis,

forearm) and offer the blood spilt papers or offering to the gods. An example of a priest offering

blood-stained material to Kukulcan, the feathered serpent, can be shown in Figure 4.

Gray 14

Figure 3a) Maya sacrifice by decapitationhttp://www.mushroomstone.com/laud20.jpg

Figure 3b) Enemy captive getting his heart cut out with an obsidian knifehttp://www.heritagedaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ball3312-1024x730.jpg

Gray 15

Kukulcan is offered blood-stained material as a sacrifice to appease him.http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UAuOzuqh3oQ/THKOK0NzGBI/AAAAAAAAAlk/

6Amv9wFOTNQ/s400/bloodletting.jpg

Modern Maya continue the practice of blood-letting as well as blood sacrifices but their

sacrifices are often turkeys or chickens, never humans. In the Ch’orti’ region of Quetzaltepeque,

as Charles Wisdom (1940:440) asserts, the Maya offer the blood of both a male and female

turkey into a spring and pour chilate (maize gruel) on the ground surrounding the spring asking

for rain from the Chicchans living in and around the spring (Stross 2010:567). Chicchans are the

Ch’orti’ Mayans’ most important deities; they are abstracted as giant serpents. The four

Chicchans of the sky live at the bottom of four lakes, one in each cardinal direction (Wisdom

1940:440, c.f. Stross 2010:566-567). The offering which took place in Quetzaltepeque is now the

common type of blood sacrifice performed. Maize, blood, and cacao were the most valuable

offerings of the Ancient Maya and continue to be held in the highest regard of sacrifices to the

gods and ancestors of the modern Maya.

Gray 16

CONCLUSION

The Maya have a longstanding history of food usage within religious rituals. It is difficult

to draw the line between what is food and what is religion as they are so intertwined that they

become one and the same for the Maya. The historic and religious significance of cacao and

maize dates back to the creation of the Maya world and its influences are global. Cacao was first

transformed into chocolate by the ancient Maya and the beverage was taken back to Europe by

the Spanish invaders in the 1500s (National Geographic) whereby they added sugar and milk to

make the drink more delightful to the taste. Soon after, France took hold of the product, instantly

commercializing it by emphasizing its ‘primitive methods’, its ‘strange spices (such as hot

pepper)’, and ‘curious uses’ it had in the New World (Terrio 1996:75). France took the ‘exotic’

drink that came from ‘savages’ and turned it into a high class, elite beverage. Europe was just the

beginning as chocolate’s popularity continues to increase world-wide with the new fads of ‘72%

cacao’ dark chocolate bars.

Yet cacao has not lost its religious roots in the new age demand for chocolate. Consistent

with Louis Grivetti (2005), the Mayan religious traditions of holding cacao in high esteem

continues to influence Mexican and Central American cultures today, despite the Christianization

of most of these areas. The Day of the Dead (el Día de los Muertos) occurs every year on the

first of November, commemorating those lost in the recent years as well as long since passed

ancestors. All different types of food offerings, including prominent chocolate offerings, are

presented to honor ancestors, syncretizing ancient indigenous rituals along with Christian

practices.

Thus, exemplified heavily within the Maya culture through specific examples of cacao

and maize, religion is inextricably linked to food. Food connects consumers to a deity or higher

Gray 17

power through consumption as well as through food offerings and sacrifices to those same deities

or higher powers. Food has an inseparable relationship to religious beliefs as even among

inhabitants of otherworlds, food is ingested. Mayan creation myths have shaped which foods are

sacred to the culture and have thus influenced religious practices. These religious foods have

exceeded the realm of spirituality and have shaped Maya agricultural practices of growing

extensive amounts of cacao and maize to feed the mortal Maya and the inhabitants of the

otherworlds. These foods have also gone so far as to shape Maya economics as cacao and maize

trade with Europe and various parts of the world has been significant in the modern ages. Food’s

integral and inherent role in religion not only shapes religious beliefs but also transcends them

and, as a result, expands into other, rather unexpected, areas of society.

References

Ballou, Helen2008 Religion and the Maya. Insight: Rivier Academic Journal 4(2):1-7. http://www.rivier.edu/journal/ROAJ-Fall-2008/J146-Ballou-Maya.pdf.

Christenson, Allen J.

2010 Maize Was Their Flesh: Ritual Feasting in the Maya Highlands In Food and Feasting in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Foodways Past & Present. John Staller and Michael Carrasco, ed. Pp. 577-600. New York: Springer.

Conklin, Beth A.1995 “Thus are our bodies, thus was our custom”: Mortuary Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society. American Ethnologist 22(1):75-101.

Green, Judith S. 2010 Feasting with Foam: Ceremonial Drinks of Cacao, Maize, and Pataxte Cacao. In Food and Feasting in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Foodways Past & Present. John Staller and Michael Carrasco, ed. Pp. 315-343. New York: Springer.

Grivetti, Louis E.2005 From Aphrodisiac to Health Food: A Cultural History of Chocolate. Karger Gazette 68: 1-3.

Gray 18

Grofe, Michael J.2007 The Recipe for Rebirth: Cacao as Fish in the Mythology and Symbolism of the Ancient Maya. Davis: Department of Native American Studies, University of California at Davis.

The History ChannelN.d. The Rise and Fall of the Maya Empire. The History Channel. http://www.history.com/topics/maya.

Lifelong Learning Programme2009-2011 Food and Religion. Comenius Partnership. http://lifeisameal.leogems.org/food_and_religion.htm.

McNeil, Cameron L. 2010 Death and Chocolate: The Significance of Cacao Offerings in Ancient Maya Tombs and Caches at Copan, Honduras. In Food and Feasting in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Foodways Past & Present. John Staller and Michael Carrasco, ed. Pp. 293-314. New York: Springer.

Morgenstern, Kat N.d. Ethnomedicine: Shamanism. Sacred Earth: Ethnobotany & Ecotravel. http://www.sacredearth.com/ethnobotany/medicines/shamanism.php.

Shapiro, MichaelN.d. Top 10 Foods of the Maya World. National Geographic. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/top-10/maya-foods/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign=20131016_rw_membership_r1p_us_ot_w#page=1.

Staller, John E., and Carrasco Michael2010 Food and Feasting in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Foodways Past & Present. New York: Springer.

Stross, Brian2010 This World and Beyond: Food Practices and the Social Order in Mayan Religion. In Food and Feasting in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Foodways Past & Present. John Staller and Michael Carrasco, ed. Pp. 553-576. New York: Springer.

Terrio, Susan J. 1996 Crafting Grand Cru Chocolates in Contemporary France. American Anthropologist 98(1):74-76.