Marian Walshe Prideaux

Dr. Marian Walshe Prideaux was born to a middle class fishing family in the Sea Islands of Georgia in 1905. She received her PhD in Mesoamerican history at Nantahala University under Dr. David Blackwood. After graduating in 1929, she took a position at Robicheaux Women's College in Louisiana, which prompted a falling out with her old mentor, Dr. Blackwood.

In 1930, Walshe Prideaux published her first and most successful book, Simple Sigils: A New Framework for Understanding the Axsaraña Codices of Alto Madidi. The book challenged earlier interpretations of the controversial Codices, which alleged that they had some kind of connection to a theoretical lost mystery cult of the Aymara people. Dr. Walshe Prideaux's work re-examined the so-called "alphabet of fear" and proposed it instead as a clerical language for a local judiciary. Her much-quoted epilogue condemned what she saw as a baseless, sensationalist trend towards the occult in the field of Mesoamerican History.

Dr. Walshe Prideaux's tenure at Robicheaux was marked by a notable expansion of the History Department, somewhat against the wishes of the school's Board. In 1931, following the retirement of Dr. Lillian Crane, Walshe Prideaux became the Director of Studies in the History Department, and its unofficial head.

In 1935 she was one of the leaders of the doomed Robicheaux Expedition into the heart of the Rio Negro basin in the Amazon. She has not been seen since.