Vail Honored By Universidad Mesoamericana

Dr. Gabrielle Vail, visiting assistant professor of international and area studies, recently presented a keynote address at the 14th anniversary of Universidad Mesoamericana in Guatemala City. The address was in conjunction with the publication of her commentary, “Códice de Madrid,” which she was asked to write by the university’s rector.
The Madrid Codex, the subject of Vail’s book and presentation, is a pre-hispanic manuscript, likely dating to the late 15th or early 16th century, composed by eight or nine separate Maya scribes. Its 112 pages, made from the inner bark of a species of Ficus (fig), include over 250 almanacs concerned with scheduling events in the seasonal year (including the planting and harvesting of maize and the celebration of ceremonies to call forth the rains), tracking celestial events such as eclipses and the cycles of the planets Mars and Venus, rituals and ceremonies relating to the inauguration of the new year, the hunting and trapping of deer and other animals, and the care of the stingless bees that the Maya raised for their honey.
Vail also gave a presentation at a Universidad Mesoamericana workshop Oct 2-3 on the Maya calendar system and how it was used by the scribes who composed the Maya codices. Workshop participants included members of the academic and museum community in Guatemala City, as well as students from several different universities. Vail’s work also was highlighted in a recent article in La Prensa Libre.
She has been invited to return to Guatemala next July to give a series of workshops for teachers who work in indigenous communities so that they can in turn discuss the Maya codices with their students. Dr. Vail and her husband, William Giltinan, both New College alumni (’83), have made her research on the codices available in an online database, found at www.mayacodices.org.
Vail will be presenting New College’s Jane Bancroft Cook library with a copy of her new commentary of the Madrid Codex so that it is available for the New College community and members of the state library system.