Return to Ixil

“Fascinating and compelling . . . Return to Ixil demonstrates that the methods of New Philology and its emphasis on native-language documents are vibrant and set the way for locating additional native-language texts.” —Mark W. Lentz, Utah Valley University “The authors weave the past into the present in a way that honors a living Ixil community, and in so doing gives critical meaning to a rigorous, scholarly philological enterprise. This is a major contribution to Maya studies from leaders in the New Philological school of Ethnohistory. . . . Return to Ixil will change Mesoamerican ethnohistory.” —Miriam Melton-Villanueva, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
"This work presents the Mayan transcriptions of the wills and their translation into English, making it an excellent linguistic, ethnohistorical and anthropological tool."  (Translated from original review in Spanish) —Latin American Antiquity
"Not only does Return to Ixil offer a comprehensive documentation and translation of a source inventory that is important for the colonial history of Mesoamerica. It also is a meticulously researched social history of a smaller Mayan town that encourages further research and comparison."  —Hispanic American Historical Review
"The authors’ style is rich and animated, their painstaking translations and analysis of the data are subtle, and their enthusiasm concerning the materials sparkles from each and every page." —The Americas
"This work will be an invaluable resource both for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of colonial period Maya history and for specialists in the field." —Journal of Anthropological Research
“By combining detailed ethnohistorical analysis with an invaluable corpus of primary sources, Return to Ixil thus appeals to a broad readership that encompasses not only specialists in Mayan language and culture, but also scholars of colonial-period Mesoamerica and of comparative economic or social history more broadly.” —Journal of Latin American Studies