On a trip to Mexico, I was told by two different tour guides at Mayan ruin sites that the Western world greatly misunderstands Mayan human sacrifice. One guide denied any evidence of human sacrifice among the ancient Mayans, explaining the artistic depictions as symbolic. The other guide acknowledged that it may have happened, but added that it would have been considered an honor for one to give their life in such a manner. For example, he claimed that the winner of the notorious ball game, not the loser, would have likely been the sacrificial victim.
From the perspective of a non-historian, this is confusing. Given how little we know about the ancient Maya, I wonder if anyone here can shed some light on objective evidence we have for Mayan human sacrifice?
Given how little we know about the ancient Maya
Aaah, but we know so much. In fact, the Maya may be one of the most well understood cultures of Mesoamerica with the Aztec at a very close second (sorry /u/400-rabbits). I put the Aztec second because we have to rely on post-Contact produced documents to get insight into Aztec culture. The Maya, however, had their own writing and offered insight into their world using their own words which offers you a fantastic emic rather than etic perspective.
As for what we know about human sacrifice, we know a lot. We know that people were actually sacrificed in a variety of manners and methods befitting a particular ceremony or dedication to a particular god. Human remains have been recovered from archaeological contexts which indicate that the person was killed by another person. And the context of the remains and the kinds of goods the person was buried with further illustrate that it was a sacrifice rather than the internment of an injured person. The ballgame sacrifice is a little bit contentious. There is a lot of imagery related to sacrifice and the ballgame, but nothing explicit. The imagery ties in heavily with the Hero Twin myth and is more of an allusion to the story rather than an actual practice.
Since the topic of sacrifice is so broad and has been debated for so long, I do recommend actually picking up a book and reading about it since the book will do a much better job of explaining sacrifice in the Maya world. There is a fairly new book out which focuses specifically on the topic of Maya sacrifice along with ritual body treatments.