This Lesson's logo is a Maya pyramid

We begin our attempts to use literature to illustrate history by considering pre-Columbian literature, although it is somewhat misleading to speak of the few transcribed and translated fragments that remain as "literature". None of the pre-Columbian civilizations had an advanced system of writing which would permit the recording of texts. Although the Spaniards found many records and even "books" on bark, papyrus and stone, these records usually consisted of ideograms and symbols which simply chronicled major events or quantified certain information pertaining to dates or items of value. Only the Maya had apparently begun the transition from ideograms to phonetic symbols, and even here there is much confusion since few Maya ideograms have been deciphered, and it is difficult to separate the decorative ornaments and chronologies from what might be considered literature. Research in this area has been greatly hampered because the Spaniards deliberately destroyed anything they felt might serve to sustain the religious and political framework of the civilizations they conquered. In doing so the Spaniards were tacitly recognizing what conquerors have known throughout history: that it is easier to control a civilization you have defeated militarily if you can also defeat and destroy its culture, language and religion, and then impose your own.