This Lesson's logo is a Maya pyramid

Further complicating our attempt to study their history through their literature is the fact that the great pre-Columbian civilizations relied on the oral tradition to pass on their history, poetry, and knowledge. Literature passed on by the oral tradition inevitably changes over the years, especially in times of disease, destruction and hardship. Some of these traditions survived the devastating early years of the conquest and were later recorded in Latin or Spanish. While we may question how faithful these accounts are to their pre-Columbian origins, we have no choice but to rely on them as the only forms of pre-Columbian literature we have available to us. The extracts given below in this chapter are typical.