images were burned. Only three pre-Columbian books of Maya hieroglyphics (also known as a codex) and, perhaps, fragments of a fourth are known to have survived. Collectively, the works are known as the Maya codices. Landa's Inquisition involved the use of a level of physical abuse on certain indigenous Maya that many viewed as excessive and was, at the very least, unusual. Scores of Maya nobles were jailed pending interrogation, and large numbers of Maya nobles and commoners were subjected to examination under "hoisting." During hoisting, a victim's hands were bound and looped over an extended line that was then raised until the victim's entire body was suspended in the air. Often, stone weights were added to the ankles or lashes applied to the back during interrogation. During his later trial for his actions, Landa vehemently denied that any deaths or injuries directly resulted from these procedures. Some contemporary observers were troubled by this widespread use of torture. Crown fiat had earlier exempted indigenous peoples from the authority of the Inquisition, on the grounds that their understanding of Christianity was "too childish" for them to be held culpable for heresies. Additionally, Landa dispensed with much of the extensive formal procedure and documentation that accompanied Spanish torture and interrogation. Justifications Scholars have argued that Mexican inquisitions showed little concern to eradicate magic or convict individuals for heterodox beliefs and that witchcraft was treated more as a religious problem capable of being resolved by confession and absolution. Landa, however, perhaps inspired by intolerant fellow Franciscan Cardenal, Cisneros, from the same Toledo convent, was "monomaniacal in his fervor" against it. Landa believed a huge underground network of apostasies, led by displaced indigenous priests, were jealous of the power the Church enjoyed and sought to reclaim it for themselves. The apostates, Landa surmised, had launched a counteroffensive against the Church, and he believed it was his duty to expose the evil before it could revert the population to their old heathen ways. Landa claimed that he had discovered evidence of human sacrifice and other idolatrous practices while rooting out native idolatry. Although one of the alleged victims of said sacrifices, Mani Encomendero Dasbatés, was later found to be alive, and Landa's enemies contested his right to run an inquisition, Landa insisted a papal bull, Exponi nobis, justified his actions. However, Lopez de Cogolludo, Landa's chief Franciscan biographer, wrote of Landa's firsthand experiences with human