\Ma"yan\, a.
1. Designating, or pertaining to, an American Indian
   linguistic stock occupying the Mexican States of Veracruz,
   Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, and Yucatan, together with a
   part of Guatemala and a part of Salvador. The Mayan
   peoples are dark, short, and brachycephallic, and at the
   time of the discovery had attained a higher grade of
   culture than any other American people. They cultivated a
   variety of crops, were expert in the manufacture and
   dyeing of cotton fabrics, used cacao as a medium of
   exchange, and were workers of gold, silver, and copper.
   Their architecture comprised elaborately carved temples
   and places, and they possessed a superior calendar, and a
   developed system of hieroglyphic writing, with records
   said to go back to about 700 a. d.
2. Of or pertaining to the Mayas.