Alma Belicena marimba band at San Jose Succotz, a Maya village next to Xunantunich.
The Maya nation is almost 10 million strong, alive and not too well throughout Central America where they form a significant part of the population.
Guatemala, where nearly half of its 14.3 million people are indigenous, is the country with the largest descendant population of the Maya civilization, followed by Mexico, while Honduras, Belize and El Salvador have significant communities of that ancient culture.
According to the last official population census conducted in 2002, in Guatemala the indigenous population constitutes 42 percent of the population, although the Maya organizations there claim that this figure actually exceeds 60 percent.
The greater part of Maya descendants is concentrated in the highlands in the west of the country and is divided into 22 linguistic communities.
But the stark reality is that our indigenous peoples live mired in marginalization and poverty, which affects up to 80 percent of its members in some countries.
The United Nations UNDP programme) statess that the 58.6 per cent of Guatemalan indigenous children suffer from chronic malnutrition (30.6 per cent in non-indigenous children), and infant mortality stands at an alarming rate of 40 per thousand live births.
In Mexico, the National Indigenous Institute statistics show that in that country the 1.4 million Maya live five Southern States: Yucatán, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Campeche and part of Tabasco.
In Honduras, 90 per cent of the population (8.4 million inhabitants) is mestizo and the remaining 10 percent seven ethnic groups consists of: Maya Chorti (unique descendants of the Mayans), Lencas, Tawahkas, Tolupanes or Pech, Miskito and Garifuna.
The State General Directorate of statistics and censuses (Digestyc) of El Salvador believes that of 6.1 million Salvadorans, 8 per cent is indigenous or indigenous origin, close to half a million people.
In Belize, the 2010 census shows that with a population of a few thousand 312,698 people, 51 per cent of the inhabitants are mestizos (descendants of Spaniards and Maya) and 10 per cent are indigenous Maya.
The greatest concentration of traditional Maya is in the southern Toledo district, with smaller communities in the west and north of the country. As a group, the Maya in Belize are marginalized with foreign timber and oil companies with support of the government, encroaching and exploiting their ancestral lands.
Like in other countries, the remains of the Maya civilization, magnificent pyramids and royal tombs are exploited for tourism with little going to the Maya nation.
The report also points out that 21 per cent are descendants of Africans and 4.6 per cent Garífunas (Africans and Arawak Carib Indians) and a 7.8 per cent of the population are white people of British and Spanish descent.
In sum, more than 9 million people in Mexico and Central America compose the Maya world, and can be considered an indigenous nation from an ethnic, cultural and historical point of view.
On Friday, at the December Solstice, the Maya ended an era of 5 thousand 200 years and welcome a new Baktun cycle, and with hope look to a new dawn for this Mesoamerican culture.