MOLI VIEW™

Since I'd been lounging in the Mayan Riviera and dared to purify myself through temezcal, I started to wonder about the glorious Mayan civilization. Said to be as sophisticated, evolved, and unique as ancient Roman and Greek societies, it was by far the most advanced in the pre-Columbian New World. Even though I had traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula before and visited several ruins, my knowledge of the Mayans was sketchy at best.

I'd seen Mel Gibson's movie, Apocalypto, about one man's struggle to escape his fate as a human sacrifice, so he can save his pregnant wife and son (whom he left hiding in a pit). I know Gibson is troubled and very likely a bigot, but Apocalypto was a guilty pleasure. Still, if I based my impressions of the great Mayan civilization on this movie, I'd have to conclude that they were blood-lusting, corrupt, and perverse, and would still have no idea how they got there.

A more complete source is UCLA professor Jared Diamond's best-selling book, Collapse. I bought it when I was traveling to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and found that there is also a case study of the Mayans in the book. But as Diamond points out, because of the numerous ruin sites, writings, and artifacts that have survived today, more scientists have studied the Mayans and more is known about them than about most collapsed cultures.

Though the grand and elaborate Mayan civilization no longer exists, Mayan people still do, keeping their traditions alive — even though most of them converted to Catholicism, "saved" by the conquering Spanish who first landed on these shores in 1527.

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