In 1942, twenty-three-year-old Julia Supple turned down a proposal of marriage and opted instead to do pioneer linguistic work among the pre-literate Tojolabal (toe-hoe-la-ball) people in the State of Chiapas in southern Mexico.In the forties and fifties, travel in remote parts of Chiapas was uncertain and hazardous. It often required long hours on horseback or sharing space on a second-class bus with chickens and squealing pigs. From the beginning...