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"Vail, Gabrielle"
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Re-Creating Primordial Time
Re-Creating Primordial Timeoffers a new perspective on the Maya codices, documenting the extensive use of creation mythology and foundational rituals in the hieroglyphic texts and iconography of these important manuscripts. Focusing on both pre-Columbian codices and early colonial creation accounts, Vail and Hernández show that in spite of significant cultural change during the Postclassic and Colonial periods, the mythological traditions reveal significant continuity, beginning as far back as the Classic period.
Remarkable similarities exist within the Maya tradition, even as new mythologies were introduced through contact with the Gulf Coast region and highland central Mexico. Vail and Hernández analyze the extant Maya codices within the context of later literary sources such as theBooks of Chilam Balam, thePopol Vuh, and theCódice Chimalpopocato present numerous examples highlighting the relationship among creation mythology, rituals, and lore. Compiling and comparing Maya creation mythology with that of the Borgia codices from highland central Mexico,Re-Creating Primordial Timeis a significant contribution to the field of Mesoamerican studies and will be of interest to scholars of archaeology, linguistics, epigraphy, and comparative religions alike.
eBook
VENUS LORE IN THE POSTCLASSIC MAYA CODICES: DEITY MANIFESTATIONS OF THE MORNING AND EVENING STAR
This study explores the mythology surrounding the appearances and disappearances of Venus from the sky and the role the morning and evening star aspects of Venus played in Maya divinatory and astronomical texts. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources link the morning star aspect of Venus with a series of bearded hunting deities. Representations of these figures—armed with the accoutrements of Venus—have recently been identified in the hunting almanacs of the Madrid Codex. Other codical manifestations of Venus include the rain deity Chaak, who appears as both the morning and evening star, and the merchant deity God M, who may have had evening star associations in certain contexts. Significant correspondences exist between the Maya Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh and the War Twins highlighted in creation narratives of Zuni culture, who correspond to the morning and evening star. The celestial roles of both sets of twins will be explored to better understand their function in ceremonial and calendrical contexts.
Journal Article
The Madrid Codex
This volume offers new calendrical models and methodologies for reading, dating, and interpreting the general significance of the Madrid Codex. The longest of the surviving Maya codices, this manuscript includes texts and images painted by scribes conversant in Maya hieroglyphic writing, a written means of communication practiced by Maya elites from the second to the fifteenth centuries A.D. Some scholars have recently argued that the Madrid Codex originated in the Petén region of Guatemala and postdates European contact. The contributors to this volume challenge that view by demonstrating convincingly that it originated in northern Yucatán and was painted in the Pre-Columbian era. In addition, several contributors reveal provocative connections among the Madrid and Borgia group of codices from Central Mexico. Contributors include: Harvey M. Bricker, Victoria R. Bricker, John F. Chuchiak IV, Christine L. Hernández, Bryan R. Just, Merideth Paxton, and John Pohl. Additional support for this publication was generously provided by the Eugene M. Kayden Fund at the University of Colorado.
eBook
The Colonial Encounter
Research in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries first demonstrated structural parallels between descriptions of calendrical ceremonies recorded in the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán attributed to the sixteenthcentury Franciscan friar Diego de Landa and almanacs depicting similar ceremonies in the Postclassic Maya codices. More recently, breakthroughs in the decipherment of the Maya hieroglyphic script have enriched our understandings of Maya conceptions of the supernatural agents that Landa encountered, whereas advances in ethnohistorical methodologies have improved our ability to reconstruct and understand transformations that occurred in indigenous cosmologies during the missionizing efforts of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.
Book Chapter
Reconstruyendo rituales de la elite maya en las Tierras Bajas del norte: una mirada desde los codices mayas y Ek' Balam/Reconstructing Elite Maya Rituals in the Northern Lowlands: A View from the Maya Codices and Ek' Balam
Los textos de los murales y las tapas de b?veda en Ek' Balam brindan una ventana ?nica a algunos de los rituales practicados por el fundador din?stico y la poblaci?n gobernante en el sitio, lo que permite una mayor comprensi?n de la cultura de ?lite del Cl?sico Tard?o en las Tierras Bajas del norte durante este periodo de tiempo. La historia de Ek' Balam difiere de la de otras entidades pol?ticas del Cl?sico del norte, con una fundaci?n tard?a de la dinast?a real y v?nculos aparentes con los sitios del periodo Cl?sico en las Tierras Bajas del sur y el oeste. Los almanaques de los c?dices mayas jerogl?ficos, con antecedentes que datan de los per?odos Cl?sico Tard?o y Terminal, proporcionan una ?til fuente de datos para interpretar referencias iconogr?ficas y textuales de eventos rituales que ocurrieron a finales del siglo VIII y principios del IX en Ek' Balam.
Journal Article
The Maya Codices
Research over the past decade has significantly advanced our understanding of the prehispanic Maya codices, both in terms of their content (i.e., hieroglyphic texts, calendrical structure, and iconography) as well as the physical documents themselves (where and when they were painted, and by whom). Recent avenues of exploration include a new emphasis on linguistic and textual analyses; novel methodologies for interpreting calendrical structure; and comparisons with other manuscript traditions, in particular those from highland central Mexico. As a result of these studies, researchers have found that some codical almanacs functioned as real-time instruments to document important astronomical events; others were used to schedule rituals as part of the 52-year calendar that guided civic and religious life in Mesoamerica during the Late Postclassic period (circa A.D. 1250 to 1520). Evidence of connections with central Mexico, documented in terms of interchange among codical scribes, suggests the need for a more thorough exploration of Maya-highland Mexican interaction during this time period.
Journal Article
Reconstruyendo rituales de la élite maya en las Tierras Bajas del norte. Una mirada desde los códices mayas y Ek’ Balam
Los textos de los murales y las tapas de bóveda en Ek’ Balam brindan una ventana única a algunos de los rituales practicados por el fundador dinástico y la población gobernante en el sitio, lo que permite una mayor comprensión de la cultura de élite del Clásico Tardío en las Tierras Bajas del norte durante este periodo de tiempo. La historia de Ek’ Balam difiere de la de otras entidades políticas del Clásico del norte, con una fundación tardía de la dinastía real y vínculos aparentes con los sitios del periodo Clásico en las Tierras Bajas del sur y el oeste. Los almanaques de los códices mayas jeroglíficos, con antecedentes que datan de los períodos Clásico Tardío y Terminal, proporcionan una útil fuente de datos para interpretar referencias iconográficas y textuales de eventos rituales que ocurrieron a finales del siglo VIII y principios del IX en Ek’ Balam.
Journal Article
Maya Worldviews at Conquest
Maya Worldviews at Conquest examines Maya culture and social life just prior to contact and the effect the subsequent Spanish conquest, as well as contact with other Mesoamerican cultures, had on the Maya worldview. Focusing on the Postclassic and Colonial periods, Maya Worldviews at Conquest provides a regional investigation of archaeological and epigraphic evidence of Maya ideology, landscape, historical consciousness, ritual practices, and religious symbolism before and during the Spanish conquest. Through careful investigation, the volume focuses on the impact of conversion, hybridization, resistance, and revitalization on the Mayans' understanding of their world and their place in it. The volume also addresses the issue of anthropologists unconsciously projecting their modern worldviews on the culture under investigation. Thus, the book critically defines and strengthens the use of worldviews in the scholarly literature regardless of the culture studied, making it of value not only to Maya scholars but also to those interested in the anthropologist's projection of worldview on other cultures in general.
eBook