Maya

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Member of a prehistoric American Indian civilization originating in the Yucatán Peninsula in Central America about 2600 BC, with later sites in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Their language belonged to the Totonac-Mayan family. From AD 325 to 925 (Classical Period) the Maya culture dominated the region, after which it declined under pressure from the Toltec and, from the 16th century, the Spanish. The Maya are known for their ceremonial centres, which included stepped pyramids, ball courts, and astronomical observatories. Today Maya live in Yucatán, Guatemala, Belize, and western Honduras, and number 8–9 million (1994 est). Many speak Maya along with Spanish, but they are now Roman Catholic.

The Maya were originally ruled by a theocracy supported by taxation and tribute; they traded with their neighbours to the north and south. Maya beliefs were based on land, which was held in common until the arrival of the Spanish. They celebrated a complex religion with a calendar, many deities, and ceremonies that included a kind of ball game and human sacrifice. They constructed stone buildings and stepped pyramids without metal tools; used hieroglyphic writing in manuscripts, of which only three survive; were skilled potters, weavers, and farmers; and regulated their rituals and warfare by observations of the planet Venus.

At the beginning of the Post-Classic period (AD 900–1521), Toltecs from the Valley of Mexico moved south into the area, building new ceremonial centres and dominating the local people. Nevertheless, Maya sovereignty was maintained, for the most part, until late in the Spanish conquest (1560s) in some areas. In the 1980s more than 100,000 Maya fled from Guatemala to Mexico in response to a Guatemalan military campaign of terrorizing and killing the Mayan people.

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