IMS Monographs

 

IMS Monograph No. 15
Utatlán: The Constituted Community of The K'iche' Maya of Q'umarkaj
By Thomas F. Babcock

One of the most important Postclassic cities, Utatlán, in highland Guatemala, was excavated more than three decades ago. However, the data amassed by archaeologists have not been published until now. Details on architecture, pottery, burials, and artifacts, along with a focus on residential archaeology, make Utatlán: The Constituted Community of the K'iche' Maya of Q'umarkaj a significant contribution to Maya archaeology. Most information available on Utatlán focuses on the ceremonial center and ignores the city of the commoners. Using the archaeological data, Utatlán attempts to determine the boundaries of the community and to characterize subdivisions within it. Evidence of indigenous nonelite houses, rich burials, and grave goods unlike those found in contemporary sites reveals information about the supporting residence zone. In addition, Babcock applies the concept of "constituted community," interpreting the archaeological data from a prehistoric context, and proposes a theoretical framework for interpreting prehistoric sites with respect to urbanism and political complexity. Utatlán: The Constituted Community of the K'iche' Maya of Q'umarkaj will be of interest to students and scholars of Mesoamerican anthropology, archaeology, and ethnohistory.
ISBN 978-1-60732-154-5, $75.00. Please order this book directly through the University Press of Colorado.

IMS Monograph No. 14
Postclassic Soconusco Society: The Late Prehistory of the Coast of Chiapas, Mexico
By Barbara Voorhies and Janine Gasco

This timely report presents new archaeological data on Postclassic sites (11th through 16th centuries, AD) in one of the key regions of Mesoamerica. The Pacific coast of Soconusco was at the forefront of cultural developments from the time of its earliest farmers in the Formative period through the Spanish conquest. Yet until now the Postclassic archaeology of this region has remained poorly known. This book presents the results of archaeological fieldwork at the political center Acapetahua and other key Postclassic sites in Soconusco by two leading Mesoamericanist archaeologists. The authors' analyses of artifacts shed light on subsistence activities, the production of textiles and other craft items, commercial exchange, and the social context of life in this area. A notable feature of this report is the discussion of the place of these sites within the broader setting of Postclassic Mesoamerica. The Late Postclassic period was a dynamic and innovative time when peoples from all parts of Mesoamerica were drawn together by processes of commercial and stylistic interaction. Until recently, however, Postclassic archaeological data has been limited to a few areas. Postclassic Soconusco Society now adds a key region to the overall picture. This work will serve as both a basic reference on the Postclassic archaeology of a key region and a case study in the local impacts and manifestations of ancient empires and world-systems.
ISBN 0-942041-20-8, $39.95. Please order this book directly through the University Press of Colorado.

IMS Monograph No. 13
Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature
By Louise M Burkhart

The introduction of the Virgin Mary to the native peoples of Mexico is often closely associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe, the principal Mexican Marian devotion. According to legend, the devotion originated in 1531 when the Virgin appeared to a Nahua man, Juan Diego, and left her image miraculously imprinted on his cloak. Historical evidence indicates, however, that the Mexican shrine was not established until the 1560s, the legend was virtually unknown until its initial publication in Spanish in 1648 and in Nahuatl the following year; and native people did not participate in the devotion to any extensive degree until after the mid-seventeenth century. How, then, was devotion to the Virgin actually introduced to Nahuas during the first decades of Christian evangelization? This book addresses this question through the presentation of Nahuatl-language devotional texts relating to Mary, texts through which Nahuas learned about the Virgin and expressed their own developing devotion to her. The wide range of Nahuatl literature on the Virgin shows that, far from some early "syncretic" mixing of Mary with native "goddess" cults, Nahuas were introduced to, and to varying degrees participated in, the full-blown medieval and Renaissance devotion to Mary, adapted into their own language. These sources date from the 1540s through the 1620s and represent all of the major religious orders involved in the evangelization of the Nahuas: Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Jesuits. Native scholars participated in the composition of much of this material. Genres include sermons, catechisms, prayers, narratives, drama, hymns, and antiphonal chants. The earliest extant edition of the rosary in Nahuatl is included, as are twelve miracle narratives, a complete Augustinian sermon on the Purification, and a lengthy native-edited account of the Assumption. Nahuatl text and English translation are presented in parallel columns. Each text is preceded by introductory commentary that explicates the European background of the material and its new meanings and uses in the Mexican context.
ISBN 0-942041-21-6, $26.95. Please order this book directly through the University Press of Colorado.

IMS Monograph No 12
Classic Period Mixtequilla, Veracruz, Mexico: Diachronic Inferences from Residential Investigations.
Edited by Barbara L. Stark

This archaeological site report presents new in sights on an important but poorly-studied Mesoamerican culture-the Classic period of the Mexican Gulf Coast. Stark discusses her excavations at several sites in the Mixtequilla region, describes the deposits and artifacts encountered, and provides interpretations of the sites and their significance within a wider context. Her analysis of the ephemeral remains of perishable houses is innovative and contains one of the most sophisticated treatments of site formation processes yet carried out in Latin America. Particularly important is the identification of some of the earliest spindle whorls in Mesoamerica, leading to new views of the importance of cotton textiles in the changing economies of the Late Preclassic and Classic periods. Superb artifact illustrations, detailed descriptions, and an ample use of data tables, make this a valuable reference work. Mesoamericanists will find much of interest in this book, as will readers interested in tropical lowland settlement patterns, household archaeology, and site formation processes.
ISBN 0-942041-17-8, $49.95. Please order this book directly through the University Press of Colorado.

IMS Monograph Number 11
Hach Winik: The Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Southern Mexico
By Didier Boremanse

Hach Winik may be the last comprehensive study of traditional Lacandon Maya society based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork. Long isolated, culturally conservative, and bearing a mystique of Mesoamerican "primitivism," the Lacandon now live on the brink of cultural disintegration. Their habitat is all but destroyed by lumbering and by the large-scale invasion of other Maya peoples in search of land. In the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Didier Boremanse collected cultural data and textual materials from two groups of Lacandon who still remained relatively isolated. Hach Winik describes and compares the cultural traditions of these two groups.

Topics presented in this volume include the history of Lacandon contact with other peoples as well as settlement patterns, life cycle, social control, residence and marriage, the kinship system, and the ritual expression of these social domains. Statistical data are balanced by a wealth of descriptive detail concerning events and individuals. A number of oral narratives are also presented and include many words and utterances in the original language with English glosses.
ISBN 0-942041-16-X, $19.95. Please order this book directly through the University Press of Colorado.

IMS Monograph Number 9
Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing
By John S. Justeson and Lyle Campbell

A classic in the literature on the decipherment of Mayan writing, Phoneticism grew out of the famous Albany conference--a gathering of the leading Mayanists who were working within the modern, linguistically-informed paradigm for the analysis of Mayan hieroglyphic text. The volume contains nine senimal articles and appendixes. Many of the phonetic readings on which current epigraphic work depends are worked out and presented here. Several papers focus on or carefully exemplify rigorous decipherment methodology; others provide primary data on the ancient language forms that lie behind the glyphic reprensentations.
ISBN 0-942041-08-9, $29.95. Please order this book directly through the University Press of Colorado.

The Institute for Mesoamerican Studies also has several publications available upon demand. These can be purchased for download as PDFs or can be printed, bound, and sent. For ordering any of the following books, please contact us. Please note that prices do not include shipping charges. You will need to include an additional $4.00 to cover shipping and handling fees.

IMS Publication No. 1
Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Central Quiche
Edited by Dwight T. Wallace and Robert M. Carmack . $13.00

IMS Publication No. 2
Basic Quiche Grammar
By James L. Mondloch. $18.00

IMS Publication No. 3
Bibliography of Mayan Languages and Linguistics
By Lyle Campbell with Pierre Ventur, Russell Stewart, and Brant Gardner. $15.00

IMS Publication No. 4
Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I: A Commentary
By Jill Leslie Furst (with a preface by Mary Elizabeth Smith). $20.00

IMS Publication No. 5
Migration Across Frontiers: Mexico and the United States, Vol III
Edited by Fernando Camara and Robert Van Kemper. $14.00

IMS Publication No. 6
The Historical Demography of Highland Guatemala
Edited by Robert Carmack, John Early, and Christopher Lutz. $15.00

IMS Publication No. 7
Aztec Sorcerers in Seventeenth Century Mexico: The Treatise on Superstitions by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón
Edited and translated by Michael D. Coe and Gordon Whittaker. $20.00

IMS Publication No. 8
Maya Hieroglyphic Codices
By Yuri Knorosov, translated by Sophie Coe. $24.00

IMS Publication No. 10
A Consideration of the Early Classic Period in the Maya Lowlands
Edited by Gordon R. Willey and Peter Mathews. $15.00