Los Mayas – Santa Fe, New Mexico
Diego de Landa Calderón, the former Bishop of Yucatán, is a dichotomous figure in the history of the new world. On one hand, he is recognized as an invaluable source of information on pre-Columbian Mayan civilizations, but on the other, he was directly responsible for destroying much of that civilization’s history, literature and traditions. Given the responsibility of converting the indigenous Maya to Roman Catholicism, he instituted an Inquisition that ultimately ended with the notorious auto de fé, a ritual of public penance for condemned heretics. Mayas who continued to practice “idol worship” after having been “converted” to Catholicism were the recipients of this torturous rite. During one ceremony, he also burned more than 5,000 Maya cult images and a significant number of Maya codices which would have filled…