TIME AMONG THE MAYA: Travels in Belize,...

TIME AMONG THE MAYA: Travels in Belize, Guatemala and Mexico by Ronald Wright (Henry Holt: $14.95). Beginning in late 1985, Wright roamed the Mesoamerican homeland of the Maya, exploring archeological sites and investigating conditions among their descendants. Unlike the Aztecs and Incas, the Maya never formed a monolithic empire, but lived in city-states, analogous to ancient Greece. This political diversity enabled them to resist the Spanish conquistadors more effectively: Although the last city-state fell in 1697, some groups continued to fight the invaders, a struggle that climaxed in the Caste War of 1847. The Mayas were obsessed with time and time-keeping, and the most interesting sections of Wright’s book focus on their calendar, which functioned as a combination almanac, horoscope and religious calendar. Based on the Tzolkin, a unit of 260 days, this highly sophisticated system enabled the Maya to calculate millions of years forward and back: Wright discovered that some of the descendants of the Maya still mark the so-called Short Count of the days and years. However, the descriptions of the modern Mayan people aren’t terribly interesting. Wright deplores their exploitation by the Ladinos (people of non-Indian descent) from the Spanish conquest to the present, but he offers few real insights.