Books: Pre-Columbian Culture

THE CONQUEST OF THE MAYA—J. Leslie Mitchell—Dutton ($3.75).

The Conquest of the Maya is written by an archeologist who is also a novelist, hence an enemy of dry-as-dust procedure. Mr. Mitchell insists, too categorically for such cautious Americanists as Philip Means (Ancient Civilization of the Andes'), that wandering Polynesians or Chinese, in search of "life-givers" such as gold, landed somewhere along the coasts of South or Central America to bring culture to the Aztec, Inca and Maya Indians of the New World. He seeks to clinch his point by comparing Mayan architecture and sculpture...