The sacrifice of quail was a common practice in the religious rituals of the ancient Nahua cultures. The offering of these small birds played a fundamental role as a symbolic substitute for the human body in favor of the renewal of deities and temples. Various colonial and archaeological sources attest to the frequent use of quail in sacrifices dedicated to the consecration of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlán.
Because of their association with the night and the underworld, these birds were offered daily to the Sun to revitalize it and encourage its rising. Likewise, in the Florentine Codex, Frair Bernardino de Sahagún describes the immolation of these birds during the festivals of Tóxcatl, Tlacaxipehualiztli, and Ochpaniztli in honor of gods associated with war, the earth, maize, and water. These ritual deaths were conducted by decapitation so that the blood might nourish the gods, while the bird’s body was cast upon the earth and the head thrown before the deity.
The decapitation and immolation of birds is a ritual act that persists in contemporary communities. Although various birds are used, including turkeys, chickens, and doves, they retain their significance as propitiatory offerings, sacred food, and means of purification. The latter can be observed in healing rituals, or limpias, in which a bird is used as a “ritual body” to which illness and afflictions are transferred. The death of the bird constitutes an act of expulsion that promotes health. In regions such as the southern Huasteca, small chickens are decapitated for therapeutic purposes, and their heads are thrown into rivers or far from the sick person.