Re-Creating Time: Foundation Rituals and Mythology in the Postclassic Maya Codices by Gabrielle Vail and Christine Hernández (review)

This volume takes readers on a long and winding journey through several calendrical sections (almanacs) in the three surviving Maya hieroglyphic codices as well as in a few relevant Aztec manuscripts. The authors begin with a brief overview of Maya and Mexican manuscript traditions, creation mythologies, and pantheons, and then quickly delve into the minute details of New Year rituals, rain making, Venus auguries, and period-ending ceremonies. The chronological frame is mostly the Postclassic (950–1521 c.e.) and Early Colonial (1522–1700 c.e.) periods, but Classic-period (250–950 c.e.) Maya texts and images are also mentioned.

The complexity of the hermeneutic method and the organization of the book rival that of its source material, thereby making reading difficult for the uninitiated. The challenge of following the authors’ sometimes elaborate arguments is exacerbated by their reliance on web links and quick response (QR) codes in addition to conventional illustrations and citations. Anyone attempting to read the volume and simultaneously to view the QR-coded images and publications with a smart phone, for example, would be better advised to type the links directly into a web browser and keep all of the relevant codex pages, tables, and pdf documents on a computer screen.

Through a detailed structural and semiotic analysis of the codices and Colonial Maya manuscripts such as the Popol Vuh and the books of Chilam Balam, Vail and Hernandez painstakingly reconstruct the place-making and world-renewal symbolism of the New Year rituals that, as the authors argue, are referenced in more almanacs than previously thought and provide a unique window into the indigenous cosmovision and mythology. Vail and Hernandez suggest that Maya creation narratives were structured along the opposition between God L/Bolon Yook Te’ K’uh/Bolon Ti’ K’uh/Venus and God G/K’inich Ajaw/Oxlajuun Ti’ K’uh/Sun. Multiple almanacs evoked the same key events of the creation mythology, which were continuously re-enacted by gods as natural phenomena and celestial bodies and re-experienced by humans through ceremonies and auguries.

Even though the discussion clearly centers on the codices and later narratives, the authors explicitly embark on a holistic synthesis of Maya creation mythology. While this approach has its merits because of the fragmentary nature of the available sources, it also reifies the underlying assumption of the cultural unity of all speakers of Mayan languages through space and time and conceals diachronic, regional, and social variation such as, for example, the apparent contrast between the ubiquitous presence of Venus in the contact-period manuscripts and the paucity of epigraphic references to the “Great Star” before the ninth century c.e. The authors gloss Maya hieroglyphic codices in Colonial Yukatek rather than in the Ch’olan language of Classic-period texts.

Despite the broad comparative nature of the project, readers looking for an expanded discussion of connections and allusions to Classic-period Maya mythology may be disappointed. Vail and Hernandez restrict their source base mostly to the monuments from the archaeological sites of Palenque and Quirigua and pottery from the vicinity of Naranjo. Other regional traditions, particularly in the vast corpus of texts and scenes on Classic Maya ceramic vessels, receive less attention than they probably deserve.¹ This emphasis may be explained by the authors’ primary focus on later visual and written narratives. Some discussions would have certainly benefited from a stronger engagement with Classic-period epigraphy. For example, the authors’ identification of God L as Bolon Yook Te’ K’uh contradicts an explicit textual reference to the Sun God, K’inich Ajaw, as Bolon Yook Te’ K’uh, in a scene on one pottery vessel. However, such shortcomings should not overshadow this volume’s success in applying a holistic approach to Maya religion and mythology in the context of the codical studies to reveal parallels between Highland Mexican and...