ABSTRACT
Myths and rituals, integrated experiences for the participant believers, betray to the outside observer their Spanish and Indian antecedents. This chapter explores Spanish invasion and colonisation was very differently experienced by different native American groups. The chiefs and lords were hastily rounded up, to be kept close in Merida, the Spanish capital; they could be interrogated at proper length. The Spanish intruders the Maya identified with the Itza. Like the Itza, they were lascivious and unmannerly, but also like the Itza, they had brought new and useful knowledge. The history of the dominant lineage was transformed into a statement and account of the identity of the local community, while the story of the Itza rendered intelligible and unthreatening the presence and behaviour of the Spanish overlords. A series of Spanish observers tells us of the Maya practice of reading, at secret gatherings, their 'fabulous stories and injurious histories' through the first century after conquest and beyond.
