The Many Ways of Being Human

8.8

Olmecs and Maya

In the market of Chichicastenango in Guatemala, a woman in a woven huipil greets a customer in K'iche', while a tour guide in Yucatán explains why the Maya disappeared. That sentence is wrong: between nine and over eleven million Maya live today. The chapter runs from the Olmecs through the cities, the calendars, and the ninth-century drought to the present.