In the Título C’oyoi, a Quiché text produced during the Spanish conquest, recorded how a macuahuitl (macana) severed a horse’s head during a battle some time between 1523 and 1527:
Adelantado, Captain Don Pedro Alvarado
the conquistador was taken off; the head of the horse was taken off by captain
Tecum, the lord of the banners of staffs; . . . (Título C'oyoi, page 39,
in Robert M. Carmack, Quichean Civilization [Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1973], 303)