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As the Gods Kill
Morality and Social Violence Among the Precolonial Maya
Andrew K. Scherer (Author)
9781477331941, University of Texas Press
Hardback, published 9 December 2025
280 pages, 96 color and 9 b&w photos, 16 color and 73 b&w illustrations, 2 color maps
27.9 x 21.6 x 1.5 cm, 1.42 kg
"In this tour de force, Andrew Scherer breaks new ground in the study of war, violence, and sacrifice in precolonial Maya society. Drawing on diverse lines of evidence—from bioarchaeology and archaeology to epigraphy, iconography, and ethnohistory—he offers fresh insights into how the Maya understood and experienced violence. Informed by sensitivity to, and respect for, Maya senses of morality and ontologies, this work challenges us to reflect on our own notions of violence. The book will be of interest to scholars of Maya culture and those more broadly concerned with the intersections of violence and society." - Takeshi Inomata, University of Arizona, coeditor of Mesoamerican Plazas: Arenas of Community and Power
An exploration of war, violence, and sacrifice in precolonial Maya culture and its importance in religious practices. As the Gods Kill delivers new insights into warfare, weaponry, violence, and human sacrifice among the ancient Maya. While attending to the particularity of a singular historical context, anthropologist and archaeologist Andrew Scherer also suggests that Maya practices have something to tell us about human propensities toward violence more broadly. Focusing on moral frameworks surrounding deliberate injury and killing, Scherer examines Maya justifications of violence-in particular the obligations to one another, to ancestors, and to the gods that made violence not only permissible but necessary. The analysis isolates key themes underpinning the morality of violence-including justice, vengeance, payment, and costumbre (ritual)-and explores the ethics of violent agents, including warriors, ritual specialists, and the gods. Finally, Scherer addresses motivations for warfare, including the acquisition of spoils, tribute, captives, and slaves. An interdisciplinary case study of morality in an ancient society, As the Gods Kill synthesizes scholarship on an important dimension of precolonial American culture while taking stock of its implications for the social sciences at large.