Maya

The Maya peoples of Yucatán, Chiapas and the Guatemalan highlands kept local cults in every kingdom. Rites at sowing and harvest served the maize, and a 260-day count combined with a 365-day year ordered the ritual calendar.

The K'iche' Popol Vuh tells of creation and of the Hero Twins' descent into Xibalba. Around 1500 pilgrims from many kingdoms came to the great cenote of Chichen Itza and to shrines of the goddess Ix Chel on the islands off Yucatán.

The Spanish conquered the Yucatec kingdoms between 1527 and 1546. In 1562 the Franciscan Diego de Landa burned at Maní, by his own count, twenty-seven books and some five thousand cult images. The Itza held out at Nojpetén until 1697, and the Tzeltal rising of 1712 in Chiapas rallied behind the Virgin Mary.