ITZA  , an

American-Indian people of Mayan stock, inhabiting the country around Lake Peten in northern Guatemala . Chichen-Itza, among the most wonderful of the ruined cities.of Yucatan, was the capital of the Itzas . Thence, according to their traditions they removed, on the breaking up of the Mayan kingdom in 1420, to an island in the lake where another city was built . Cortes met them in 1525, but they preserved their independence till 1697, when the Spaniards destroyed the city and temples, and a library of sacred books, written in hieroglyphics on bark fibre . The Itzas were one of the eighteen semi-independent Maya states, whose incessant internecine wars at length brought about the dismemberment of the empire of Xibalba and the destruction of Mayan civilization .