The People of the Codices
Prior to the arrival of the Toltec people in approximately AD 700, the Mixtecs were culturally complex, their forebears possibly influenced in Middle Formative times (1200–900 BC) by the Olmecs, who imported greenstone from what is now present-day Oaxaca (Tate 1995:49c). The Mixtecs were then dominated by the Zapotecs. As Zapotec control waned after the collapse of Teotihuacan and Zapotec Monte Alban in the seventh and eighth centuries AD, Mixtecs overshadowed them, formed marriage alliances with them, allied with the Tolteca-Chichimeca in the time of Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, and then became subjugated by the Aztecs in the late fifteenth century. Resisting Aztec and Zapotec alliances with ardor, the later Mixtecs also resisted Spanish incursions until conquered by them in AD 1521.
Mixtec polities were small village-states and scattered throughout the landscape (Jansen and Jimenez 2005:42b). They were closely situated to one another, politically connected, and economically stabilized by a complex system of marriage alliances (Spores 1974:298). Kingdoms were socially stratified into castes. The highest caste included hereditary kings and queens; the second, the lesser nobility; third, the plebeians; and fourth, the bonded serfs. Rulership was absolute and continued until death or abdication (Spores 1974:301). Kings and queens were expected to provide for community protection, adjudicate disputes involving nobility, and serve as appellate courts for strife among commoners. They provided accoutrements and instruments for religious ceremonies, and sustenance and accommodation for nobles summoned to ceremonial and political occasions.
In his dissertation, “The Earth Lords: Politics and Symbolism of the Mixtec Codices” (1984), John M. D. Pohl demonstrates a tripartite administrative system for the Mixtec village kingdoms of the Postclassic period. In the codices, he notes, these levels of administration are visually displayed before representative architecture: kings in front of palaces, four governing priests in front of a temple or shrine, and the yaha yahui shaman in front of market areas. These shamans were a special kind of wizard with the ability to fly through the air—among other capabilities. As we will see, the two heroes who are subjects of this study, Lord Eight Wind Eagle Flints and Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, were both yaha yahui. Local names for these wizards in the modern Mixteca and in Zapotec lands are hechizero and negromantico (Urcid, in Pohl 1994:67). In government, these priests were associated with human sacrifice and markets, as well as control of the economy and tribute collection (Pohl 1994:53). Pohl succinctly identifies the prime hero of Codex ZN pages 1–8, Lord Eight Wind Eagle Flints, as yaha yahui, as well as Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw and Lady Six Monkey’s son Lord Four Wind.
The magical abilities attributed to the yaha yahui are extensive, including being able to fly through solid rock and to fly around the canyons of the Mixteca at night while appearing as balls of light (Pohl 1994:44). Of the many meanings for yahui, one is “comet” or “shooting star” (Arana and Swadesh 1965:133, cited in Pohl 1994), and descriptions of their flights sound similar to observed meteorological phenomena recorded in several parts of the world at various times (Huntington 1977 [1900]). Legends of a “devil” flying as a bright light from a mountain cave to another mountain in the Texas Big Bend survive in local folklore (Miles 1976:17–26). This is relevant when we consider the personification of meteorological phenomena—rain, lightning, and thunder—by Zapotecs (mentioned in chapter 8). These personifications appear in Codex Zouche-Nuttall’s representation of the War from Heaven on pages 3 and 4. Such ideas had extensive purchase among peoples in the ancient Americas.
In most cases, given that royal families were focused on local causes and not on extensive extraterritorial politics, there was no conflict between means and goals, as would be expected in larger, unified states. Spores (1974:301) writes that stresses and destabilizing influences typical of unified royal state systems did not develop in the later Mixtec polities. As will be seen in our reading of Codex Zouche-Nuttall’s first saga, this stability was earned by the exercise of great power from associated wars during the lives of lords Eight Wind Eagle Flints and Eight Deer Jaguar Claw. These wars and their resolutions ultimately produced an internally stable society.
Byland and Pohl (1994:198–199) also note the presence of significant numbers of religious oracles in the Mixteca—numbers higher than in any other part of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. These oracles, as sociopolitical functionaries, were held in extreme regard (Dahlgren 1966, cited in Byland and Pohl 1994) and played significant roles in maintaining social order among the Mixtec royalty. Francisco de Burgoa wrote about three of the most important of these oracles (1934 [1674]). First of these is the goddess of the dead, Lady Nine Grass of Chalcatongo. A prominent figure in the codices, she controls, among other things, marriage alliances. She also had the non-exclusive ability to speak with the mummies of deceased ancestors. The Mixtecs also gave significant importance to the oracle of the sun, Lord One Death, and his temple at Achiutla. Lord One Death also figures prominently in the codices and has the same name as the actual solar deity. The third oracle of prominence, “the great seer at Mitla,” was the high priest there (Byland and Pohl 1994:194) and was of Zapotec origin. The Mixtec manuscripts do not appear to mention him, although Mitla is mentioned. A possible exception to this is Codex ZN page 33b, where Lord Seven Rain (attired as Xipe Totec) stands in the temple at Mitla and presides over the marriage between a Zapotec, Lord Five Flower, and a Mixtec, Lady Four Rabbit. This event occurred in the thirteenth century AD. Archaeologists excavated Lord Five Flower’s tomb in recent times.
The modern state of Oaxaca is located on the southwest portion of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec at the southern extremity of Mexico. It borders the states of Guerrero to the west, Puebla to the northwest, Veracruz to the north, and Chiapas to the east. Oaxaca is an area of 95,364 square kilometers, and at the beginning of the twenty-first century its population was estimated at 3,597,700: approximately 300,000 of these are Mixtecs. Geographically Oaxaca is located in the mountains and valleys of the Sierra Madre del Sur.
The Mixteca itself occupies the western third of Oaxaca and has three distinct areas. The Mixteca Alta is mountainous, high, and cool, with moderate rainfall and deep valleys. The Baja is lower in elevation, hot, and semiarid. The Mixteca Costa is a region of hot, humid coastal lowlands bordering the Gulf of Tehuantepec (Spores 1969:557a). From Cholula and its Tolteca-Chichimeca culture to Oaxaca with its dominant Mixtec and Zapotec cultures, marriage alliances helped to establish trade networks (corridors) and political interaction spheres in pre-Columbian times.
The area of cultural focus related in Codex Zouche-Nuttall’s first saga is the Nochixtlan Valley of Oaxaca, specifically the northern part of it. This valley is about 450 kilometers southeast of Mexico City on the Pan-American Highway. Spores writes (1969:558c) that it is the largest stretch of mostly open and level land between the Valley of Oaxaca (100 kilometers to the south) and the Nexapa Valley at Izucar de Matamoros and the Tehuacan Valley, nearly 200 kilometers to the north.
The Nochixtlan Valley is composed of four major cultural areas: Yanhuitlan, situated in the northwestern portion; Yucuita, in the north (near Yucuñudahui); Nochixtlan, in the east; and Jaltepec, in the southeast. All follow river confluences. From north/northwest to southeast the Nochixtlan Valley is about 25 kilometers long, in width varying from 5 to 10 kilometers. Topo-graphically the area consists of numerous narrow valleys interrupted by high mountain ranges and lesser promontories, including buttes and piedmont spurs (Spores 1969:558c). Level areas are located only in the central portions of these smaller valleys, and some have been created by man-made terracing. Spores (1969:558c) considers the Nochixtlan Valley to be the single most important area in the Mixteca during its extensive history of occupation.
Ronald Spores’s detailed archaeological work in the Nochixtlan Valley in the 1960s provides significant insight into settlement patterns there and length of occupation—an observation integral to kinship/marriage patterns described subsequently. These data will be summarized in a later chapter.
Today Oaxaca is known as the area wherein the two great cultures of Zapotec and Mixtec peoples developed and founded enduring communities that persist into modern times. Pre-Hispanic Mixtec culture influenced other cultures outside Oaxaca, and one instrument for this diffusion was the body of manuscript literature (codices) written not in alphabetic script, but in pictogram text.
Currently, the indigenous American people known as Mixtecs still reside in modern Oaxaca. Communities of Mixtecs have been established in recent times in the United States, notably in California, where they have their own Mixtec-language radio programs (KFCF 88.1 FM in Fresno, California [The Sacramento Bee, 10/20/2002]). “Mixtec” is the name of both the people and their language.
Pre-European Mesoamerican cultures developed at least thirteen writing systems, including the Olmec (ambiguous, but some evidence exists on cylinder seals and the Cascajal Block), the Epi-Olmec (also called Isthmian) (Tuxtla Statuette, La Moharra Stela), Zapotec, Teotihuacano, pre-Classic Maya, Nuiñe, Classic period Maya, Mixtec, Xochicalco, Cacaxtla, and Aztec. These systems represent ancient and diverse languages. Mixe-Zoquean is likely Olmec and Isthmian. Mixtec is among the Oto-Manguean languages, and the Uto-Aztecan group of some three thousand languages and dialects includes the Aztec Nahuatl spoken and written at Tenochtitlan. Totonacan language is a likely candidate for the mysterious megacity Teotihuacan.
To date, Mayan hieroglyphic writing is a demonstrable closed writing system; that is, it encodes a specific language and dialects. Nuiñe and Isthmian may be also. The others appear to be open writing—pictogram systems not tied to specific language writing—or, as in the case of Zapotec examples, an admixture of open and closed systems. Aztec and Mixtec writing also may be combinations of open and closed systems.
Open-system pictogram writing is indigenous to Mesoamerica, specifically to cultures in central and southern Mexico. Although Jansen and Jimenez (2005:11) associate its development with Teotihuacan, its origins probably began much earlier, in Middle Formative times, with the Olmec on the Gulf Coast of the northern and north-central parts of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, as did hieroglyphic writing. Very likely, both forms existed together as displays of public art consisting mainly of royal propaganda.
Subsequently, in Zapotec and Mayan cultures, hieroglyphic writing recorded elite histories, but those texts accompanied elaborate iconography: pictograms augmenting hieroglyphic texts and providing information not contained in the hieroglyphs. One example of this is a carved wooden lintel from Tikal, Temple IV (Lintel 3), dated June 26, AD 741 (9.15.10.0.0 3 Ahau 3 Mol) (figure 2.1). The small hieroglyphic texts at the upper right- and left-hand portions of this lintel record (among other things not well deciphered) a ceremony that is augmented in the large, elaborate pictogram icon. The icon includes carrying poles which bore the king of Tikal on a kind of litter or palanquin. Further elaboration of the hieroglyphic text occurs as individual components of the ruler’s costume. This transforms the ruler’s regalia into “a literal text, an extreme version of the particularistic historical character of costume” (Joyce 2000:13).
The Highland Guatemala Maya, specifically the Quiche, did not employ a hieroglyphic writing system. As Pohl (2004a:369–370) states, “Rather, it appears that the highland Guatemala Maya used a pictographic communication system exclusively and that this system was largely derived from that developed by the Eastern Nahuas, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs of southern Mexico.” Evidence now emerging from the northern Peten in Guatemala shows an interesting combination of pictogram and hieroglyphic pre-Classic era Mayan writing; according to Mary Miller, murals at San Bartolo that were painted on stucco display an “incredible complex of early paintings” (“Earliest Mayan Writing Found Beneath Pyramid,” CNN.com, January 2006). Other archaeologists noted that “some of the glyphs are pictorial.” David Stuart is cited in the article as saying that this text (dated at 300 BC) was exemplary of writing and public art as “part of a package.”
Figure 2.1. Tikal, Temple IV, Lintel 3, an example of hieroglyphic texts enhanced by pictograms. (Pen-and-ink drawing by John Montgomery, from the author’s collection)
After the Classic period collapse, even those Maya who employed hieroglyphics relied upon them less and less, more frequently using pictograms. Hieroglyphic writing for Mayan cultures appears to have been a Classic period expression that diminished over time, at least for public monuments. Writing in pictogram tableaux became the lingua franca, so to speak, for many different cultures in Mesoamerica. Pictograms were translingual and so had utility among diverse peoples: an important quality for societies with economies based on trade and marketing systems scattered over territories with sometimes mutually unintelligible languages. Jansen and Jimenez note (2005:11–12) that areas where pictograms developed as writing systems had tonal languages wherein words pronounced in different tones have different meanings, as is the case with Chinese.
The Mixtecs became masters of pictogram writing. Of the eight fan-fold manuscripts that survive, five are considered major codices, although this designation varies between scholars. They are, from latest to earliest, and without dispute as to importance:
Codex Selden, a post-Conquest palimpsest painted over an older pre-Hispanic manuscript
Codex Bodley, from the Late Postclassic period, perhaps Early Colonial period
Codex Zouche-Nuttall (two documents—an older reverse and newer obverse)
Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I (Codex Vienna) (two documents—an older obverse and newer reverse)
Codex Colombino-Becker I, composed of partly destroyed fragments now named Codex Alfonso Caso when assembled according to Caso’s schema (Jansen and Jiménez 2005)
All but Codex Selden are pre-Hispanic.
The content of the codices is mythological (religious), historical/biographical, and genealogical. The codices were composed by royal princes and used not merely for personal reading, but for performance narratives during ceremonial occasions; that is, they were scripts for dramatic presentations sung and danced by costumed and masked individuals. They were opened and hung as fresco-like displays on walls, and their various scenes and characters were used to decorate pottery and clothing.
Except for Codex Vienna, investigated by Lauren Touriens in two articles published in 1983 and 1984, the European history of these artifacts is largely unknown or speculative. Hernán Cortés wrote that he sent two native books to Europe as curiosities (Prescott 1934 [1843]:65), and Touriens established that Codex Vienna was one of these. The other has been long suspected to be Codex Zouche-Nuttall, which surfaced at the Library of San Marco in Florence, Italy, in 1854 (Nuttall 1902:1–5; Troike 1987:17); however, the precise era of its arrival in Europe is still debated. In her introduction to the Peabody Museum edition of the codex named after her, Zelia Nuttall (1902:9–11) provides the clearest rationale accounting for Zouche-Nuttall’s presence in Italy and its discovery at the Florentine library.
She remarks on the similarity of the manuscript discussed here with its “sister codex,” Vienna, because of the similarity of personnel and events in both, and maintains that shortly after the Conquest both manuscripts were in Florence. Thinking the codices Aztec, Zelia Nuttall asserts that Codex Zouche-Nuttall is: (1) one of two books mentioned in the inventory of 1519 as among presents given to Cortés by Montezuma’s envoys; (2) these two manuscripts were received in the spring of 1520 by Charles V of Spain and subsequently distributed to various sovereigns along with other New World curiosities; and (3) finally, Codex Zouche-Nuttall and Vienna were in Florence but separated as gifts, with the former remaining at the Library of San Marco in Florence (1902:10). If this is the case, it is possible that the two Mixtec manuscripts came into Aztec possession when Emperor Montezuma I conquered the Mixteca in the 1400s.
Alfonso Caso thought Zouche-Nuttall had been painted about AD 1438 (1979:18), which fits well for the document’s obverse side. The histories and genealogies painted there are well-designed to reinforce land ownership and rule by Mixtec royals. This objective also explains why the authors of Zouche-Nuttall obverse were pointedly interested in connecting their earlier histories to the life of Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw of Tilantongo (the older codex reverse) and the tree-birth event shown in Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I obverse. The resulting unified history is a legal document stating the right of Mixtec families to territories and would have been of keen interest to Mixtec kings and queens and their descendants, whether resident in the Mixteca or not, as well as to Aztec tribute collectors.
The similarity noted by Nuttall of personnel and content between codices Zouche-Nuttall and Vienna has been subsequently reinforced (Furst 1978a:2). Comparing and contrasting data from the obverse documents of both these manuscripts is necessary for interpretation.
As previously stated, the primary subject of this study is the first eight pages of Codex Zouche-Nuttall obverse. The entire manuscript is painted on both sides of sixteen gesso-coated, fan-folded leather strips glued together and totaling 1,296.95 centimeters in length (12.97 meters). Page width varies from 18.3 centimeters to 25.2 centimeters (Troike 1987:38–39). The codex obverse (museum numbered pages 1–41) displays pictogram text that relates historical and mythological events told in three sagas interspersed with genealogies.
The obverse is complete, but the older reverse is unfinished, the text becoming incomplete on page 84, leaving one and one-half unwritten columns and two unwritten pages. Microscopic examination reveals that paint from the obverse seeped through small cracks and holes, and overlays small portions of the painted figures on the reverse (Furst 1978b:5a; Troike, pers. comm., 1987). Therefore, the obverse is newer than the reverse. Pages 1 and 2 introduce the first saga, page 14 introduces the second, and page 36 the third. Although the texts of both sides of Codex Zouche-Nuttall are pre-Conquest documents, they may be newer versions of still older codices that do not survive (Winter 1989:78).
Among the Spanish who noticed the presence of Mixtec codices and their use was Friar Francisco de Burgoa, who in AD 1674 wrote that the codices were displayed along the length of rooms (see Pohl’s introduction to this volume). This “portable mural” display is depicted in the 1875 painting The Senate of Tlaxcala, by Rodrigo Gutiérrez (Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries, 1990:505). The artist obviously knew of the tradition of codex display and reproduced one as individual murals rather than as a fan-fold book. Perhaps he had seen the Kingsborough reproductions published in a preceding generation.
The codex narratives scrutinized in the following pages illustrate a dramatic fact: royal people alive in Epiclassic Oaxaca’s Nochixtlan Valley played a vital, formative role as agents effecting social change. The protagonist central to this sometimes cataclysmic social drama was a patriarch, politician, and religious leader named Lord Eight Wind Eagle Flints. Zelia Nuttall mentions him in her 1902 introduction to the Peabody Museum reproduction on pages 27–28, but her commentary is descriptive rather than interpretative.
Lord Eight Wind was first born from the earth at Cavua Colorado in AD 935. For fifty-two years he lived as a supernatural wonderworker and participated influentially in altering the existing social paradigm, exercising power from the era of Classic period Zapotec civilization (Pohl 1991:22b). The change in social paradigm involved, in effect, lineage franchise, whereby a new order of lineage nobles, said to be born from the trees at Apoala, constituted the sine qua non of rulership in the Mixteca (figure 2.2). After his elevation to twice-born status as Tree Born noble and Earth Born, Lord Eight Wind completed a cycle of fifty-two calendar years. He lived the remaining forty years of his life at Monkey Hill/Suchixtlan as the founder of an enduring lineage passing through his daughters and persisting until the arrival of the Spanish in AD 1521.
The system against which Eight Wind reacted included not only Classic period rulers at a place called Wasp Hill, but also subjugation of the original peoples of the Mixteca, who are referred to as “Stone Men,” or Tey Ñuu.1 The second part of this sixteen-year war conducted against the nobility of Wasp Hill is narrated on ZN pages 4, 20, and 22. It is also related in Codex Bodley (pages 3 and 4, 34–36) for the southern Nochixtlan Valley. The Stone Men and their involvement with the Epiclassic Mixtecs will be detailed when their narrative is interpreted, and subsequently where necessary.
Lord Eight Wind’s contribution to the new Mixtec cultural and social dynamic had far-reaching implications. We know he founded an enduring lineage, but as lord of Rain God Hill for at least seventeen years, he may have been instrumental in giving the Mixtecs their very name: People of the Rain.
Figure 2.2. The tree birth shown on Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I (Vienna) page 37. (© Akademische Druck- u Verlagsanstalt, Graz, Austria)
The Mixtec historical manuscripts detail actions of politically and personally motivated individuals against a preexisting, overriding social system. As Pohl has written, these “stories were composed to break with the old social order through a miraculous act of renewal, without giving up claims to territory itself” (2003a:64). The Mixtec scribes who wrote Codex ZN pages 1–8 as retrospective events were also careful to record unexpected consequences of Eight Wind’s enduring deeds. In particular they recorded a dynastic conflict in the time of his great-grandson, Lord Two Rain Twenty Jaguars of Tilantongo, against Eight Wind’s granddaughter, Lady Six Monkey of Jaltepec, and the resulting lineage war against the rival polity of Hua Chino (also called Red and White Bundle).
This dynastic political drama is mentioned on Codex ZN obverse page 8 and detailed on Codex ZN reverse pages 80–84. It was to be resolved, as the scribes tell us, by the powerful and charismatic warlord, Eight Deer the Jaguar Claw of Tilantongo, who usurped rule there after Two Rain Twenty Jaguar’s death.
This great warlord, Eight Deer, attempted the most dramatic social changes since the time of Lord Eight Wind himself. In this regard I will elaborate subsequently on material I first demonstrated in a seminar at the University of Texas at Austin in March 2004 concerning the connection between Zouche-Nuttall’s obverse and reverse as the scribes of a later time (obverse) connect earlier events to those told by scribes before them (reverse). This scribal technique produced a unified history of two great heroes, Lord Eight Wind (obverse) and Lord Eight Deer (reverse). Historical hindsight provided by the Mixtec scribes is illuminating regarding the cultural permanence of these two powerful men. First, Lord Eight Wind’s actions and the social changes they provoked survived, and he is displayed as acting beyond the grave. In the second instance, Lord Eight Deer the Usurper’s far-seeing social changes affecting the unification of the families of the Mixteca into what seems to be a paramount chiefdom or protostate, and the suppression of the Oracle of the Dead at Chalcatongo did not; nevertheless, his hard-earned fame and prestige did.
1. The Stone Man War appears on Codex ZN page 3. The subsequent truce between the Stone Men and the new tree-born rulers appears on the last half of page 4 as well as on Codex Vienna page 35a.
