Human sacrifice in Maya culture in the context of "Spanish conquest of Petén"

Diego de Landa Calderón, O.F.M. (12 November 1524 – 29 April 1579) was a Spanish Franciscan bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán. He led a campaign against idolatry and human sacrifice. In doing so, he burned Maya manuscripts (codices) which contained knowledge of Maya religion and civilization, and the history of the American continent. Ironically, however, his work in documenting and researching the Maya was indispensable in achieving the current understanding of their culture, to the degree that Mayanist William Gates asserted that "ninety-nine percent of what we today know of the Mayas, we know as the result either of what Landa has told us in the pages that follow, or have learned in the use and study of what he told". He also described that "it is an equally safe statement that... he burned ninety-nine times as much knowledge of Maya history and sciences as he has given us".

Sacrifice was a religious activity in Maya culture, involving the killing of humans or animals, or bloodletting by members of the community, in rituals superintended by priests. Sacrifice has been a feature of almost all pre-modern societies at some stage of their development and for broadly the same reason: to propitiate or fulfill a perceived obligation towards the gods.