language, cultural extinction followed. Of the fiftyseven
indigenous groups still recognized by Instituto Nacional Indigenista (National
Indigenous Institute), the Maya account for ten distinct groups that comprise
Mexico's surviving indigenous peoples; those ten groups include the Tzotzil, Tzeltal,
Lacandón, and Yucatec Maya. Although these Maya comprise an indigenous
population estimated to be 11 million people, their numbers have brought almost
no protection; many have joined the ranks of 30 million other poverty-stricken
Mexicanos. Driven from ancestral lands by fraud, narco colonialism, environmental
destruction, the recent rollback of once protective ejido laws,
and an exploding Mestizo population, more than 1 million desperate Indians reportedly
live in the streets and ramshackle colonias of the country's bustling cities from
Mexico City to Tijuana.
The Maya have not escaped the terrible fate of their paisanos (countrymen)
which has haunted them since first being cursed by Spanish plagues and the ordenanza
of 1552 that forbade aboriginal practices, religious rites, and