Today, Mexico is covered with murals and littered with galleries of contemporary and historic art, which are a highlight of the country for many visitors. Mexican creativity is also expressed through the country's vibrant folk-art tradition. Pre-Hispanic art consists mainly of stone carvings, frescoes and murals, and ceramics. Frida Kahlo, who married Rivera, painted anguished self-portraits and grotesque, surreal images which became hugely popular in the 1980s, decades after her death. In Mexico, Juan Rulfo is generally regarded as the country's supreme novelist.
Tortillas are thin round patties of pressed corn or wheat-flour dough cooked on griddles.
Pulque is a mildly alcoholic drink derived directly from the sap of the maguey. The first people to inhabit this land may have arrived as many as 20,000 years before Columbus. Of these, the Mayan and Aztec cultures are the best known. The Spaniards were well received in towns which resented Aztec domination and thus gained their first Indian allies. With 6000 Indians, they approached the Aztecs' island capital - a city bigger than any in Spain.