Berry Gordy , Brooke Shields , and Smokey Robinson gave Giving eulogies , while Queen Latifah read `` We Had Him '' , a poem written for the occasion by Maya Angelou .

Nearly four decades of civil war followed , as leftist guerrillas fought Hostile_encounter the series of U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes whose brutalities include a genocide of the Maya peoples .

Particularly important to the Spanish success was a multilingual ( Nahuatl , a Maya dialect , and Spanish ) indigenous slave woman , known Know to the Spanish conquistadors as Doña Marina , and generally as La Malinche .

Before the Spanish conquest , Chiapas was inhabited Placing by a variety of indigenous peoples , including the Zoques , various Maya peoples , such as the Lakandon Chʼol and the Tzotzil , and an unidentified group referred Name_conferral to as the Chiapanecas .

Sizeable Maya populations existed Presence in Petén before the conquest Conquering , particularly around the central lakes and along the rivers .

Petén was divided into different Maya polities engaged Participation in a complex web of alliances and enmities .