The great Mayan civilizations were the only ones in the Americas that created writing and used it to compose books: books of poetry and ritual, books of astronomical cycles (and associatedastrological events), books of history, and books that told the legends of world creation.

Mayan cultures were extremely diverse in their political and artistic attainments. Between the time of the earliest Olmec civilization in 1200 B.C. and the Spanish conquest in A.D. 1521, the classic Maya city-states flourished (A.D. 250–900) in the southern lowlands, and the great city of Teotihuacán (150 B.C.–A.D. 750) dominated the central highlands. In the tropical valleys and fertile basins of the Sierra Madre that separated these famous Mesoamerican cultures, many other groups, such as the Zapotecs, Mixtecs, and Totonacs, built their own distinctive cities. Such regional diversity continued throughout the final phase of Mesoamerican civilization, which was dominated by the Aztecs (A.D. 1345–1521). Before looking at these regional cultures individually and examining the conditions, and remaining mysteries, surrounding their rise to power and collapse, it’s important to consider what unifies them and makes them distinctively Mayan. The Mesoamerican world was created by sacrifice of the gods, according to native myths. For that world to continue, humans had to reenact the original sacrifice. Nobles sacrificed their own blood, spattered and burned it on paper and sent the smoke as food for the gods. Many well preserved Mayan ruins dot the landscape of southeastern Mexico today. These ruins reveal a great deal about Mayan culture.

In many ceremonies, especially the public rites for cargo holders, the participants are all male. The women remain in the cooking area by the hearth. However, in domestic ceremonies, some of the participants are women, who take their places in appropriate rank order at the table while the rest of the women remain by the hearth.

The meal includes sugarcane liquor, maize tortillas, chicken cooked in a broth with chilli, salt, and epazote (Mexican tea, Chenopodium ambrosioides), coffee, and small round wheat-flour rolls made by Ladinos. The senior man signals the young man designated as the drink pourer to serve the first round of liquor from the bottle at the head of the table. (Here the participants are symbolically drinking with the ancestors, and the liquor is believed to open the circuits of communication with these super naturals.)

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