JGS has adopted a spider-monkey, chuen to the Quiche. The Internet warns that these are Not Pets but maybe that's just for urbanites and Martha's Vineyard residents. They were tolerated among all the Maya, and indeed kept as pets as in Apocalypto. Much like macaques along North Africa, except more so. There exist other monkeys in the region however (and not just us bumbling tourists).
In Chiapas lives also the howler-monkey, no domesticate for anybody. This is called batz among the Quiche / K'iche' today (I assume mantled palliata; black pigra is more peninsular). In their bible the Popol Vuh, Hun Chuen and Hun Batz were the older brothers of the Hero-Twins; those twins finally usurped their brothers' tyranny and drove them into the treetops. The Quiche have reasoned that chuen laughs; batz grieves. But one must always keep in mind that the Popol Vuh is a postapocalyptic foreign text which, like our Bible (and Apocalypto) often reacts against the Choltal culture which, as we all know, ended up in failure.
As for the Choltal, some modern research points more to the capuchin as the brother to chuen. The capuchin was either indigenous to the region at the time or else imported from further south. With the collapse of the Maya oeconomy the capuchin became more scarce this far north and was no longer remembered among the Quiche.
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