The autodafé at Maní in 1562, at which the Spanish bishop Diego de Landa ordered the burning of Maya hieroglyphic books (codices) and ritual objects, is the most famous single episode of this suppression.

The destruction of the Maya written tradition — represented in the surviving codices, only four of which are known to have survived — was part of a broader effort to replace Maya spiritual and cultural life with Christianity.

Despite this suppression, Maya cultural and religious practices did not simply disappear.

They were transformed, adapted, partially preserved in disguised forms, and maintained in various ways across the colonial period and into the present.

The K’iche’ community that recorded the Popol Vuh did so in the context of this suppression, using the Latin alphabet to write in their own language, preserving traditional narratives in a form that was less immediately recognizable as the pagan material that colonial authorities sought to eradicate.