By Jamie Bisher

Among their many fantastic tales of New World wonders, veteran conquistadors spoke of barkless dogs resembling guinea pigs that were castrated, fattened and raised for food. Today, crumbling medieval manuscripts, ancient temple carvings, bone fragments in archaeological debris and a precious handful of Mayan scrolls can only preserve the memory of these strange dogs. By the eighteenth century these ancient canines had vanished. The native dogs of Central America remain shrouded in mystery like their Maya masters.

We do know that these mysterious dogs were much more than infrequent items on the Maya's menu. Not only companions and hunters, they played an important role in human economic and social activities. Perhaps more meaningful, dogs figured prominently in Maya religion and philosophy as well.

Unfortunately, the exact identity of these esteemed animals went up in smoke when fanatical Spanish priests burned almost every written record the Mayas created. But from the remaining Madrid and Dresden Codices (the last existing Maya scrolls), conquistadors' diaries and archaeological evidence, a glimpse of pre-Columbian "pek" (dog, in Yucatec Maya) is possible.

A rising sun, still buried beneath the Yucatan's dark horizon, stabs the sky with premature pink tendrils of daylight. Brisk morning breezes alive with rich smokey aromas of corn tortillas and copal incense stir the penned dogs to semi-consciousness. From the bottom of their wide, shallow pit-home, they fix half-opened eyes above the stone wall encircling it, tails wagging sluggishly in anticipation of the mistress to appear with their breakfast. They hear the master's footsteps plod away from the house, accompanied by the excited rustling and panting of his hunting dogs galloping in circles, jumping happily, urinating every dozen frantic steps.

Hopefully the offering of copal incense will waft up to the morning star, persuading the patron diety of hunting to release wild game from its' pen. Then, like the dog running before the hunter, the morning star will flush out the game in front of the creeping dawn. Dawn is the master's luckiest time for hunting, and he even refers to the morning star itself as a dog.

More footsteps are heard tramping out of the house. Before the mistress ceases her high-pitched call--"Ix p'il kin!"--the pen becomes animated with a scrambled flittering of tails and bobbing heads. "Ix p'il kin--Open your eyes sun!" she cries again before tossing breakfast down amongst the joyfully frenzied pack. Leftover tortillas, tamales and morsels of other corn-based victuals are gratefully scarfed up into chomping muzzles.

The Mayas penned some dogs when the household horde of canines became too unwieldy. They undoubtedly shared their homes with dogs, and could possibly have even pampered a favourite lap dog, an "ix chan-chan pek," in Yucatec Maya.

Whatever breeds trotted through history alongside the Mayas can only be guessed at. Mayan art displays medium-sized dogs, small yellow dogs and spotted ones. Bishop Diego de Landa, witness to the Spanish Conquest, wrote of small, meek dogs that "do not do harm to either people or to the game."

Legends whisper of the Chihuahua's links to one or more of these ancient Maya breeds, via a mute Toltec pooch called the Techichi. Papillons may be able to trace their family tree to a Maya "ix chan-chan pek" if true rumours that their forebears first hopped ashore in Europe from one of Columbus' ships returning from the Caribbean. The Mexican Hairless Dog, the Alco and North American "Indian dog" are more probable direct descendents or distant kin.

Renowned archaeologist Alfred M. Tozzer cited early accounts of mute dogs with "only a few and sharply pointed teeth." Maybe 641 dog teeth found in excavations at Actun Polbiche--all drilled with a single hole as if for stringing on a necklace--could explain some dogs' incomplete smiles. (Whether the subjects of this primeval dog dentistry were grimacing or lifeless during the extractions is not known, but the tooth-pullers had a distinct preference for upper third incisors.) The teeth came from "small Indian dog[s]" of an apparently advanced age, and, from medium-sized dogs of about five months old.

Vocabularies of Mayan languages throw open the doors on a kennel full of ancient American canines. Colonial Yucatec Maya dictionaries point out at least two different varieties of hairless dog, "ah bil pek" and "kiik bil pek." Short-haired dogs with and without "beards" and woolly ones are described.

Whether various words for hunting and tracking dogs (Yucatec Maya: "ah bo-boc nii pek," "ah keh pek," "ah chi-bal pek") differentiate between dissimilar kinds of dog or just between individual hounds' characteristics is unclear. In tropical forests teeming with venomous serpents and fierce felines, man's alert canine companion augmented a meagre arsenal of blowguns, clubs and other simple weapons. Man's reliance on these four-legged allies explains why "pek" appears more conspicuously than any other quadruped figures in documents of Mayan scribes.

Hairless dogs were the unfortunate creatures consumed by the Mayas at special banquets, though Bishop Diego de Landa reported, "I understand they are ashamed of it, and have poor regard for it." On the other hand, they reputedly tasted delicious. White-tailed deer though was the preferred meat of the day. Turtles, turkeys, quail and other wild creatures were much more prone to find themselves on the dinner table than Meso-american man's sole mammal ally.

As the Maya's solitary domestic mammal, "pek" possessed significant economic value (unsubstantiated rumours circulate that Maya women domesticated deer). As instruments of barter and conducting business, and as presents to affirm ties of kinship, dogs' distinguished position in daily affairs constantly asserted their predominance over most other animals in the eyes of the one most powerful--man.

Regrettably, dogs were also important in the eyes of the gods. Sacrifices to ensure rains, profitable crops, success in business and the health of local politicians and priests (and numerous other divine reasons) claimed scores of unfortunate canines. Dogs with spotted coats were especially liable to end up on sacrificial altars. Woe be unto puppies with black-spotted backs (for instance); gods Ek Chuah, Hobnil and evil Yaxcoc-ahmut, among others no doubt, could all be appeased by their ritual deaths. A common procedure in Yucatan entailed being bound and tossed to the death from a cliff. Heart removal and decapitation often followed. The sacrifices continued even after Catholicism took root and mixed with the ancient beliefs.

On the bright side, the vital role of "pek" in Maya religion reinforced his place in human society. Sculpted obsidian and flint figures of Mayan man's best friend were ceremonially placed beneath new buildings and memorial obelisks. One of the all-important chacs--rain gods--was dubiously labeled "Pek," symbolizing drought.

Mythology of the Quiche Maya records a story in which vengeful dogs and turkeys (who were also domesticated) turn upon their abusive human masters, saying "You ate us, now we shall kill you." In creation myths of the Tzotzil and Tzeltal Mayas, zoophilic relationships between women and dogs resulted in the first human offspring of different races.

On man's ultimate, final journey--death, only helpful dogs could assure the deceased's successful passage through three gates and across a Styx-like lake to Metnal, the Yucatec underworld. The ancient union between mankind and dog is affirmed so strongly in few other cultures. To this day, the belief that dogs can aid to cross wide bodies of water survives among some in Central America.

When the violent Spanish conquistadors sloshed ashore, fierce Mastiffs, Greyhounds and Irish Wolfhounds strutted at their boot heels. Suited up in tailor-made canine armor and chainmail, these European beasts fought alongside their warrior-masters in the gruesome hand-to-hand combat that finally subjugated the Maya. The Spanish used their huge dogs to intimidate, torture and hunt the defeated Mayas. Unruly subjects often suffered execution lashed to a stake, torn to pieces by their conquerors' vicious pets.

Naturally some of the newly introduced hounds wandered off, returning to the wild. These cimmarons, as they became known, wreaked havoc throughout the countryside, devastating the wild game, killing the Spaniard's livestock and their Mayan slaves as well. As early as 1532, colonial administrators enacted laws aimed at minimizing the damage of these quadruped savages.

Meanwhile, the Maya's gentle, stalwart dogs faded into the gory tempest of the Conquest. Spanish pigs soon displaced native dogs in the local economy. Three centuries later the noble canis familiaris of Mayan civilization had disappeared altogether. Nevertheless, the peros callajeros--the street dogs--that scavenge parks and alleys of towns in Yucatan and Central America today bear some resemblance to the dogs immortalized in Maya art. They are distinctly different from most North American breeds, short-haired, sharp-eared, alert dogs with expressive serpentine tails. Like the human culture they thrive in, these dogs are an age-old mix of Old and New Worlds, of cimmarons and Maya dogs.

Perhaps at this very moment, in the dense jungle of Guatemala's Peten, a mournful group of Lacandone Indians huddles over the grave of one of their dwindling number. He was buried clutching the bone of a howler monkey, to defend himself against fierce dogs in the underworld. Copal incense rises overhead, threading through sunbeams to mingle with branches of a sacred ceiba tree. In the shadow of a vine-choked Mayan temple of his ancestors, a Lacandone kneels at each corner of his friend's burial mound to place four small palm figures. They represent the helpful dogs that guard one's soul in the afterlife. The Maya's loyal "pek" is gone but not forgotten.

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Related Links
Xoloitzcuintles.com
Contemporary Mayan Art
Xolo Rescue USA