As mentioned in the previous chapter, the geography of earth and sky, and of the forces of nature is generally personified as graphic toponyms in the Mixtec codices. This nomenclature has persisted among Mixtec people to this day, and frequently a place in their landscape—whether natural or man-made in ancient times—is recalled by a name descriptive of its corresponding toponym mentioned in one codex or another.
The power or force of this custom reflects the way Mixtecs—or at least their elite—saw themselves. Since the kings and queens, princes and princesses among the pre-Columbian and post-Columbian Mixtec peoples of Oaxaca were descended from divine or semidivine ancestors originally born from the earth, then it is fair to say that these families were the landscape that gave them birth and the right to rule (Pohl and Byland 1990:116). Other progenitors were born from the trees at Apoala or Achiutla, or came down via cloud-ropes from cave openings in the sky. Some were born twice: first in the earth from a cave (Lords Eight Wind and Nine Wind Quetzalcoatl) and then from the trees (Eight Wind) or from a stone knife in the sky (Nine Wind). It is then also fair to say that for some royal Mixtec families, caves and things associated with them were an inherent part of their genesis.
This chapter examines some of the earliest cave iconography (ca. 700 BC) at the Olmec outlier Chalcatzingo and analyzes it in relationship to elite empowerment. The discussion then turns to similar iconography as represented in the Postclassic Mixtec documents. The purpose is to demonstrate similitude of such iconographies in Mesoamerica for approximately 1,400 years between two cultures separated not merely by time but also by distance. Inasmuch as developed writing is unavailable in regard to early monumental iconography, the later Mixtec codices can be insightful aids in understanding the precise employment of cave ideology by royalty of any era, at least as it had been received and developed by the Postclassic Mixtecs themselves.
The methodology for this study—at least for Olmec cultural representations—was established by Kent Reilly (1996:29c) in what he terms “the Middle Formative Ceremonial Complex Model.” This is an analysis of “artifacts, symbols, motifs, and architectural groupings” to ascertain the rituals, ideology, and political organization of various, diverse societies “forming the demographic and cultural landscape of Middle Formative period Mesoamerica.” Therefore, the contention that this paradigm can be used insightfully to some extent for understanding the transference of iconographic ideology from culture to culture in Mesoamerica through time is relevant.
The importance of caves and caverns (whether entirely natural, modified, or artificially constructed) cannot be overstated when considering Mesoamerican iconography. They appear in the earliest recorded monumental art and persist as viable components in contemporary life there today (Freidel, Schele, and Parker 1993:205; Manzanilla 2000:105). Relative to the three levels of Mesoamerican cosmos—underworld, terrestrial, and celestial—caves are underworld portals and form part of a paradigm that maintains the world in a complex of associations; specifically, rain, fertility, supernatural beings, birth, death, mountains, the establishment of sacred space, temples, and, as we shall see, the empowerment of the elite who manipulate these important things and qualities.
Regarding the Mesoamerican cosmos, Carrasco (1990:51) remarks: “The Mesoamerican universe, in its various formulations, had a geometry consisting of three general levels: an over world or celestial space, the middle world or earthly level, and the underworld.” He states further that each realm was subdivided into smaller, powerful “units,” each saturated with supernatural power. This power moved through all cosmic levels. The lower levels, the terrestrial and aquatic underworlds, included mountains and were abundant with seeds, water, and precious stones upon which human life depended.
Caves are represented in diverse ways in Mesoamerican iconography: either by direct depiction of a cavern portal as a reptilian earth monster’s maw, gaping jaguar mouth, or as a serpent’s mouth, vividly represented in Postclassic Codex ZN page 36. These representations will be amplified later. Caves are also places of origins, genesis, and creation. The Aztec people said they came from a complex of seven caves at Chicomoztoc (Brundage 1979:131). The womb itself has cave associations, and there are graphic similarities in the codices. In this regard, Hayden (2000:175) cites Sahagún, who repeats what he heard from Mexica (Aztec) women: “in us is a cave, a gorge . . . whose function is to receive.” Hayden then continues: “When a woman was about to give birth, the midwife took her to the temazcalli, the steambath, which represents an artificial cave, a place of birth.”
With such powerful and evocative associations it is not surprising to learn that Mesoamerican peoples, even from the beginnings of civilization in the Olmec heartland on the northern part of the Gulf of Tehuantepec nearly 2000 years BC, constructed their sacred space in the terrestrial realm by creating watery underworld portals and, as we assume from the archaeological remains at Olmec La Venta, the prototypal ballcourt also, with its strong underworld, cavernous associations. Such mysterious places would naturally empower those who could partake of or be generated by their transcendent qualities. The Pyramid of the Sun at great Teotihuacan was itself constructed over an artificial cave (Schele 1996:111), and this pattern seems universal and repeated wherever people designed to partake of and manipulate those powers, allowing them to function in all planes of existence.
Chalcatzingo is located about 100 kilometers southeast of Mexico City near the eastern border of the state of Morelos. Middle Formative period burials and ceramics have been identified there, as well as Late Classic to Middle Postclassic artifacts from the Tetla area, chiefly by David C. Grove and associates, who initiated and completed an intensive excavation and analysis of the site from 1972 to 1974. Today Chalcatzingo is occupied chiefly by rural agriculturalists. The Middle Formative archaeological remains consist of terraces. The later Tetla occupation consists of a ceremonial zone with large mounds and a ballcourt. Collectors have removed many of the ancient monuments from this zone, and today the site is a stone mine (Grove 1987:13b). Only monuments with iconography relevant to this study are considered here.
This bas-relief monument (called El Rey) is incised on the vertical surface of a large boulder and faces north. Its dimensions are 2.7 × 3.2 m. The site is near the El Rey drainage runoff ditch, and locals associate it with a “rain serpent” and stormy weather—this from a local informant who witnessed the discovery of the monument after a violent storm in 1932 (Grove 1987:1a).
El Rey iconography is a unified tableau presented in three registers. In the upper or celestial register there are three rain clouds, each represented by three cloud units (a total of nine clouds) grouped together and shown as three distinct clouds per unit, with slashed lines representing rain falling from them (figure 5.1).
Beneath these clouds are thirteen objects in the shape of exclamation points, identified by Grove as raindrops. If we number the sets of clouds from one to three moving from the viewer’s left, then there are five drops beneath cloud group 1, one drop between cloud groups 1 and 2, three beneath the central group (cloud group 2), and four beneath the cloud group 3. The number 13 is evocative of elemental calendrics, and a similar observation has been made by Angulo V. in another place regarding this monument (1987:137a).
Two pieces of vegetation—which I take to be stalks of maize (and not bromeliads, as noted in the edited volume by David Grove)—are also seen falling from the sky, one to either side of cloud group 2. Because stylized rain is closely associated with each cloud directly, and these exclamation-point objects are located in the same register as the falling maize stalks, I am inclined to identify them as raindrops and as maize seeds because of their unusual form and maize association. This identification is consistent with the concept of agricultural fertility and also with later maize god iconography identified at La Venta, where sprouting maize seeds are represented as the “trefoil motif” in association with elite regalia (Reilly, pers. comm., 2004). Reilly (1996:38b) also identifies the trefoil motif as associated with the “world tree.” In each interpretation, vegetation is represented, and elite associations reinforced.
It is also important to mention that this celestial register displays at its lower level three round, target-shaped objects. Although it is tempting to identify them with “the three-stone place,” a fourth occurs elsewhere in the iconography. The Codex Vienna identifies at least twelve stone qualities in the sky.
Figure 5.1. Chalcatzingo Monument 1. (Photograph by Linda Schele, used by permission of the Linda Schele Archive)
The terrestrial register shows a personified cave represented as a doubly indented bracket (one-half of a quatrefoil shape), open-mouthed to the viewer’s right. Jorge Angulo V. (1987:135b) identifies this zoomorph as having both feline and reptilian features, and remarks that the creature’s eye not only contains a St. Andrew’s Cross but is topped by a design similar to the eye-crest of a harpy eagle—both celestial symbols. It has three maize plants sprouting from it, an eye located at its upper surface, and a double merlon at the central point of the bracket’s left exterior side. He also notes vegetation and zoomorphic images on other monuments in the Monument 1-A grouping, specifically monuments 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, and 15. The open mouth of the personified cave image in Monument 1 also displays double merlons at the edge of upper and lower jaws outside the mouth opening, thereby giving the impression that they are extruded teeth. Taube (1996:89) identifies double merlons with the vegetal color green, and in the same volume Schele notes their association with sacred precincts (1996:121a).
The underworld is the interior of the personified cave itself, and this is indeed a dynamic image. An elaborately attired person is seated on a rectangular throne within it, facing toward the cave mouth to the viewer’s right. The throne-rectangle is designed in a scroll or lazy-S motif, used in Olmec art to represent clouds or rain (Chalcatzingo, Monument 9, pictured in Reilly 1996:101c).
The seated figure holds a lazy-S bar in his arms, and at the back of his head is a large headdress. The headdress also contains two raindrop/maize seed symbols and two quetzal birds at the back interspersed with two concentric circle motifs topped by eyebrow-like brackets. Another circle and eyebrow is located at the top of this crown. A plant sprouts from the front central part of the headdress, and another from the figure’s forehead (which appears to be covered by a turban). A combination circular and triangular earplug is in place, the figure’s shoulders are covered by a short cape, and he wears a knee-length kilt and sandals. The skirt has raindrop/maize seed symbols, but the front-hanging belt (rather like a loincloth) is eroded beyond symbol identification. Everything about these accoutrements indicates an intimate association with rain and agricultural fertility.
Power is further shown by the great scrolls emanating from the zoomorphic cave mouth. While this can be surely associated with wind, later representations of scrolls and people indicate speech or singing. It is unclear whether this anthropomorphic figure is a human elite or a supernatural, but considering the power claimed by rulers, it is likely that this confusion for us was not present in those who saw it originally; namely, the ruler had these supernatural abilities and connected with all three planes of existence. This connection, and implied transcendence, is reinforced by ideological associations between ruler and the axis mundi, or world tree, which can be demonstrated not only among the Olmecs but also among earlier and subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations (Reilly 1996:27c, 31a).
Implicit in the exercise of elite power is shamanism, noted by Reilly (1996:30a) as an “ancient, worldwide religious tradition . . . based on the belief that the spirits of ancestors and the controlling forces of the natural world, or gods, can be contacted by religious specialists in altered states of consciousness.” Shamanism appears different in different cultures, depending on the level of cultural organization; therefore, it cannot be confined to an individual, a collection of individuals, or an institutional organization. Shamans are believed to have the ability to transform into powerful animals that can function in one or more levels of the universe. Often this transformation involves an alteration of consciousness achieved through the use of plant-derived hallucinogens and changes of reality undertaken in caves.
Let us now turn our attention to another Chalcatzingo monument, the striking and dramatic Monument 9 (figure 5.2).
Monument 9 is an arresting image of the zoomorphic earth monster with an open, quatrefoil-shaped mouth. This is a frontal view of the same zoomorphic cave opening seen in side view on Monument 1-A. It is surrounded or outlined by three tiers or rows of “lips” following the quatrefoil pattern, which may represent a pyramid as seen from above (Michael McCarthy, pers. comm., 2004). Its dimensions are 1.8 × 1.5 meters, and the opening is large enough for a small, barely or completely undressed person to pass through.
This monument was looted from Plaza Central Structure 4 at Chalcatzingo (originally built in the Cantera phase, 700–500 BC) sometime in the 1960s. It was originally situated above a tomb. Reilly (1996:165a, b) notes that this monument relates directly to La Venta Monument 6 (the Sandstone Sarcophagus), which was carved to represent the Olmec earth dragon. In La Venta Monument 6 the deceased person rode on the back of, or within, the dragon to the underworld. Reilly notes that with Chalcatzingo Monument 9, the deceased in the tomb below passed through the open maw, thus passing from life to death. It is also likely that the open portal, placed strategically above a tomb, was a mode of access to or communication with the deceased, a common practice in many Mesoamerican cultures (Steele 1997).
Figure 5.2. Chalcatzingo Monument 9. (Image © Justin Kerr and used by permission)
It is important to note that this monument was broken, and that its upper left portion above the nose and left eye was reconstructed with concrete and subsequently stained with tea to make the newer reconstruction’s color compatible with the remaining image (Reilly, pers. comm., 2004). Thus the two bars above the monster’s nose may actually be three, but it is impossible to tell. Otherwise, the symbolism of this monument relates directly to that found in Monument 1-A, excluding wind elements and, perhaps, rain. The creature’s nose is formed of a lazy-S, and vegetation images are seen at the trefoil corners of its gaping maw.
Although associated with a tomb, this device was also a functional portal; after all, it was above the tomb, not in it. As with Monument 1, it is possible that it is more than a portal—namely, a place-identifier, or a kind of toponym of the cave itself. In any event, the individual buried below it was imbued in life with those qualities displayed on Monument 1: the elite whose ability to command authority in all three levels of creation while alive is now in the underworld. In effect, Monument 9 suffers nothing by lacking some of the iconographic symbolism of Monument 1, because it is a pars pro toto (a part represents the whole) example of the earlier work, although a large one. Through such a portable cave, the power resident in one supernatural place is therefore transferable to another useful location.
This broken monument (known as “The Governor”) measures 2.5 × 1.5 meters and is incised on a “thick, flat slab of stone” (Grove 1987:122b) that was originally rectangular (figure 5.3). The surviving fragment displays a “cleft-headed, baby-faced person seated within the full-face mouth of an earth-monster.” Grove notes further that the earth monster figure is executed in the same manner, or style, as monuments 1 and 9—that is to say, the surviving portion shows part of the original trefoil design. Vegetation images sprout from the monster-mouth’s exterior, and the remaining portion of one eye is elongated instead of oval. It is topped by a large flame eyebrow. Grove implies that it is identical with the earth monster/cave shown on Monument
Figure 5.3. Chalcatzingo Monument 13. (Photograph by F. Kent Reilly III, used by permission of the Linda Schele Archive) 9. It is therefore likely a representation of that same cave.
The individual seated within the cave is in profile and faces left with both arms extended down toward the knees. The person is clothed. Angulo V. (1987:141a, b) notes such similarity between monuments 13, 9, and 16 (a decapitated statue) that he feels they might have formed a visual unit or tableau when originally carved and displayed. He also remarks that the individual shown on Monument 9 has, according to his seated position, great similarity to the Gulf Coast La Venta monuments 8, 10, and 73. Chalcatzingo monuments 9 and 13 show the earth monster/cave full-face, and since associated humans are shown within a cave, we note also the similarity to the La Venta throne monuments, which display the royal personage seated within or emerging from a cave niche. In all cases the cave niches display iconographic symbolism indicative of the exercise of elite power, whether to control the natural environment or, by extension, to control polities within that environment. The human or human-like figures displayed on the Chalcatzingo monuments cannot be parsed into either human or supernatural, yet it is clear from their implications that the individuals partake of both identities. Chalcatzingo iconography contains archetypal images that can be seen in later Mesoamerican cultures as clearly divine or supernatural. Although examples abound, one appears in this context: Monument 5 (figure 5.4).
This bas-relief clearly depicts a serpentine monster either devouring or regurgitating a human. However, closer examination shows that only the human’s left leg is inserted into the creature’s mouth, evoking the later story of the god Tezcatlipoca, who lost his left foot when he dangled it into the water and had it bitten off by Cipactli, the crocodilian personification of the underworld waters. Iconographic associations between rain, wind (as in Monument 1), and human figures can be seen as prototypal images of various rain gods, such as Chaac, or gods of the wind, such as Lord Nine Wind (Mixtec) and Ehecatl (Aztec). The point here is simply that all of these elements, which we have briefly catalogued in a limited choice of Chalcatzingo monumental art, are cultural images transmitted as viable icons in later Mesoamerican civilizations. The concept that Mesoamerican art is thematically conservative but stylistically diverse or creative according to culture is well established. We propose now to demonstrate this by moving forward in time more than one thousand years and examining the same iconographic concepts inherited and employed by the Postclassic Mixtec elites of Oaxaca in their painted picture books.
Figure 5.4. Chalcatzingo Monument 5. (Photograph by F. Kent Reilly III, used by permission of the Linda Schele Archive)
In the Classic period the dynamic Mixtec people were, at first, vassals of the Zapotec Confederacy centralized at Monte Alban. John Pohl writes,
By AD 400, what had been rival villages for centuries during the Preclassic had now become regional administrative centers ruled by lesser ranking families who were incorporated into a system of power sharing through exclusive inter-marriages, gifts and rewards. Monte Alban’s kings were thereby able to transform distant regions into rich tribute paying provinces ultimately controlling much of the state of Oaxaca and beyond. (FAMSI Web site, 2001)
When powerful Monte Alban collapsed in the Middle Classic period, the Mixtec people had marriage alliances with Zapotec royalty, chiefly at Zaachila, and emerged on their own, very likely by revolt and warfare (Pohl 1991:23a). They had a political system based on principles inherited from the Zapotec-dominated era. This influence is seen especially in their retention of a system of oracles, including the Zapotec’s Lord Seven Flower (called Bezelao), as well as Zapotec supernaturals such as Lord Seven Rain, a Xipe-Totec archetype who was the patron of Zachilla (ZN page 33b). As we shall see, they inherited the iconography of elite interaction with the natural and supernatural world via caves, and closely identified their elite with the world tree and, by implication, shamanism.
Mixtecs attribute various forces, qualities, and functions to caves; namely, spirits, supernatural beings, weather, religious ceremonies (some associated with the assumption of status), ancestor burial cults, and, in modern Oaxaca, blood-letting rituals (Steele 1997).
This section elucidates representations of caves and associated empowerment rituals as they appear in codices Zouche-Nuttall (ca. AD 1430 for the obverse) and Bodley (parts of which are perhaps as late as AD 1521). Though separated from the princely authors/scribes of Codex Zouche-Nuttall by perhaps 230 years, Codex Bodley is painted in the original native format and style. Both documents, however, are retrospectives of the events they portray. Supportive examples from other Mixtec codices—especially the Colonial era Codex Selden—will be employed as well. In this way it may be possible to demonstrate how iconography displayed in Middle Formative period Chalcatzingo came to be employed in the Mixtec culture more than a thousand years later.
Codex Zouche-Nuttall obverse (museum numbered pages 1–41) begins (pages 1–8) with the narrative saga of lineage founder Lord Eight Wind Eagle Flints. He is born from the earth, and the narrative tells that he is lineage founder in at least three places where he emerges from caves (pages 1 and 2): Cerro Jasmine, Apoala, and Yucuñudahui (Rain God Hill). The second dynasty of Jaltepec (Codex Selden page 5) claims him as well. These first eight pages display no fewer than twelve cave openings in association with Lord Eight Wind’s history. The narrative scenes themselves are discussed in detail in chapter 6.
This historical narrative of Lord Eight Wind’s life displays many of the characteristics demonstrated in the Middle Formative period monuments at Chalcatzingo; namely, those associated with elites and the power that goes with their status. In the case of the Mixtec narrative tableaux, however, we have more to follow because the narratives are more complete and uninterrupted; excepting partial erosion by time, they are unmutilated (except for the Codex Alfonso Caso [Codex Colombino-Becker I]). The vegetative associations are present, and Lord Eight Wind is clearly identified as being venerated at the cave on Rain God Hill, as we would expect. ZN page 5c even shows him receiving water directly from the rain god (Pohl and Byland 1990:121).
Although the historical saga of Lord Eight Wind is not told completely at this point, I have demonstrated that he, as an earth-born noble, functioned in the three realms of creation: the underworld (from which he was born and with which he continually interacts), the terrestrial world, and by virtue of his association with the rain god, the celestial as well. Another feature of his life is that he used caves as transportation. A Mixtec gentleman, Ruben Luengas, told me in 1998 that old folks in the Mixteca still mention caves as “roads” from one place to another, but that the danger of getting lost in them is great. I must also restate at this point that Lord Eight Wind is revered in the Mixtec books as a lineage founder. As mentioned previously, the post-Conquest era Mixtecs at Jaltepec recorded in Codex Selden that he founded their second dynasty, which was still viable at the time of the Spanish entrada. Codex Zouche-Nuttall (5c) mentions his marriage and his offspring’s connections with the first dynasty of Tilantongo, and Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I (Codex Vienna, 35-II) mentions him as among the great lords who were present when the lineage nobles were born from the world tree (axis mundi), and as one of those tree-born nobles himself. Codex Selden associates him with the toponym tree at Suchixtlan.
In this regard, I do not overlook a relationship of transcendence between caves and axis mundi. Powerful shamanic rulers of the Mixteca (such as Lord Eight Deer) make close associations between their dynamic persons, caves, trees, and mountains (which are frequently personified). Lord Eight Deer himself (of whom we will learn more later) was the Mixtecs’ great culture hero, and every major codex mentions him. He was attentive to associations with caves and supernatural trees. He was not only a conqueror, but a priest, politician, and lineage founder.
Another important ideological feature of the Mixtec codices is that all bodies of water have established otherworldly/underworld symbolism and are usually shown as contained in upturned devices resembling U-brackets. Visually, these are literally upended caves. Often, as in ZN page 44, these underwater/underworld areas contain the residences of the gods, represented as temples, masonry platforms, and enclosures. The cave at Apoala has a name: “the Serpent’s Mouth” (ZN page 36). Apoala was also the place where nobles were born from the great tree or trees (this also happened at Achiutla) that had been carved by the gods with both male and female symbols (Codex Vienna 37b).
As interesting as the foregoing narrative tableaux are in that they associate caves, a prominent lineage founder who acts in the three planes of the cosmos, and royal authority, yet another fascinating scene occurs on the reverse (side 2) of Codex Zouche-Nuttall (pages 42–84) concerning the initial political career of the great culture hero Lord Eight Deer of Tilantongo. At age twenty, in Year 1 Reed on Day 7 Vulture (AD 1083), Lord Eight Deer conquers his way to Tututepec and is empowered in a complex, three-part ceremony beginning in a cave. The identifier for the first part of this ceremonial emapowerment complex occurs in the cave itself. Lord Eight Deer sits on a blue stone in the cave; a non-Mixtec person sits cross-legged before him and speaks. Two deer hoofs and an animal (perhaps a coyote) followed by two more deer hoofs are ascending toward Lord Eight Deer and are connected to his feet by a black line. Eight Deer wears his jaguar suit and helmet, an earplug, a blue collar with gold bells, and a quiver from which displays of colored feathers can be seen to protrude. The ascending deer hoofs and coyote, besides being a qualifier for this ceremony, connect visually via the black line to the second ceremonial qualifier seen directly below them: a ballcourt/bird sacrifice. The ballcourt itself is four-colored (the green section has faded to golden-brown), and the event therein is qualified by the presence of a circular, woven grass mat and knot (both faded from green to brown). The white-painted individual seated before Lord Eight Deer in the first part of this ceremony is seen now in part 2 at the lower right drinking from a cup. Lord Eight Deer—now in different attire and wearing a beard—stands to the viewer’s right and receives a ballplayer’s collar and gold bell/bangle from an individual identified as Lord Six (or Seven) Snake.
The third part of this Tututepec empowerment ceremony closely follows the second. Lord Eight Deer (still wearing a beard, but attired in yet another costume) and Lord Six (or Seven) Snake stand above Star Temple on Tututepec Hill. The aforementioned ballcourt is at the base of Tututepec Hill. A blood-stained altar is glimpsed through the temple’s door. Not shown on this page (45) but occurring immediately on page 46, therefore appearing just behind Lord Eight Deer, is a priest attired as the supernatural Lord Nine Wind—all indicators of human sacrifice. This assumption of authority at Tututepec is preceded and followed by Lord Eight Deer’s conquest events.
Perhaps this sequence can be better understood if we realize that the first dynasty of Tilantongo (Eight Deer’s home) was unstable (Byland and Pohl 1994:121–127). Its last ruler (Lord Two Rain) dies heirless thirteen years later (Byland and Pohl [1994:242] call his death “mysterious”), and Eight Deer himself was not of direct royal bloodline. This is why the codex scribes painted this historical retrospective. They indicate by this narrative that Lord Two Rain of Tilantongo had been refused the traditional marriage alliance with the royalty at Jaltepec (ZN page 44) and that Eight Deer’s father (Lord Five Alligator), who was high priest and head of the Council of Four at Tilantongo, had died the previous year (Codex Bodley 8). The reverse of Codex Zouche-Nuttall shows Eight Deer’s political biography (none of his marriages are shown) and begins with his parentage statement and conquest events he achieved in his preteen years.
This cave empowerment ceremonial complex (cave, ballcourt, temple) essentially represents the three planes of existence—underworld (cave), terrestrial (ballcourt, implying the underworld manifested in the terrestrial), and celestial (the temple and Lord Nine Wind). The cave-installation ceremony is important because Eight Deer’s later career—of which this is only the beginning—moves him into position to assume rulership at Tilantongo and, subsequently, of the whole of the Mixteca and associated non-Mixtec polities (ZN pages 54–74). By implication, one of Eight Deer’s political motives will include retribution concerning severance of the alliance between his own polity at Tilantongo and neighboring Jaltepec.
Although all major Mixtec codices are retrospectives, Codex Zouche-Nuttall, Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I obverse, and the fragments now called Codex Alfonso Caso (Codex Colombino-Becker I) are pre-Columbian. Codices Selden and perhaps parts of Bodley are post-Conquest documents painted in the original Mixtec style. Codex Zouche-Nuttall, while surely Postclassic, is not securely dated but is separated from Codex Bodley by maybe two hundred years, and between them two distinct traditions are represented. It is reasonable to expect variation and, in some cases, amplification of their narrative cognates. This is the case in both codices’ representations of Lord Eight Deer’s biography.
Codex Bodley (9–10) presents us with interesting insights on the history and empowerment of Lord Eight Deer at Tututepec. After the death of his father, Lord Five Alligator (Bodley 8-V), Lord Eight Deer is seen leaving a cave (year 3 Flint, or AD 1080, when he was seventeen years old): this cave has a remarkable resemblance to the half-trefoil caves seen in Middle Formative period Chalcatzingo monuments. It even has the Mixtec equivalents of double merlons, as well as eyes and gaping maw. He travels directly to another personified cave (shown in profile) where he makes offerings. Codex Zouche-Nuttall mentions that prior to this (pages 43–44) he conquered several towns at the age of eight years, and yet another town when he was sixteen years old; both conquests occurred prior to his father’s death.
Continuing in year 3 Flint, Lord Eight Deer visits the elders Lady Four Rabbit and Lord Ten Flower, who are related to the first dynasty of Tilantongo (Caso 1960:38b). The story now continues on page 10-V (bottom of page), where Lord Eight Deer is seen going to yet another cave, shown in cut-away view, associated with the elders. Only Lord Eight Deer’s name-pictogram is shown within it. It also contains a temple. Continuing with the text on Bodley 10-V, Lord Eight Deer visits Lord One Death, Oracle of the Sun, at Achiutla. This oracle will always be prominent in Eight Deer’s political career.
The year is now 4 House—one year later, or AD 1081—and Lord Eight Deer journeys to a town where he is seen in a ballcourt activity (Bodley 10-IV) with Lord One Motion, the god or oracle of the planet Venus. Two oracles (One Death Sun God and One Motion Venus God) are shown acting together in lineage activity on Codex Selden page 1, where they propel an atlatl dart (male element) into a cave (female element), which then gives birth to Lord Eleven Water, founder of the first dynasty at Jaltepec. However, in the Bodley narrative, Lord Eight Deer and Lord One Motion, having formed an alliance in the ballcourt ceremony, conquer a town together.
The narrative continues on Bodley 9-IV. The year is 6 Reed (AD 1083), two years later, and Eight Deer is twenty years old. He attacks another town, offers gifts to Lady Nine Grass (the oracle of Chalcatongo), seated in a temple, visits the rulers of Apoala (according to Caso 1960:39a), then travels to Tututepec, where he sits atop its toponym. The empowerment ceremony shown in Codex Zouche-Nuttall as happening in a cave/ballcourt/temple ceremony is represented in a pars pro toto image of the animal and deer hoofs ascending toward the seated figure of Lord Eight Deer.
No fewer than three caves are associated with ceremonies in this expansive Bodley cognate, and all are associated with the central figure of Lord Eight Deer, oracles of power, and the assumption of rulership. For the scribes of Codex Bodley, who were writing in a different tradition from those who recorded Codex Zouche-Nuttall, the events prior to Eight Deer at Tututepec, especially those associated with the powerful elders and oracles, were their important historical events. Both traditions emphasize Eight Deer’s prowess as a warrior from childhood to early adulthood. In the Bodley cognate Lord Eight Deer is always shown wearing his full jaguar attire, indicating that he is the jaguar’s power. This is a vivid reminder that Lord Eight Deer’s personal name is “Jaguar Claw.” When Codex Bodley displays him seated in power at Tututepec, Eight Deer wears a different garment but retains his jaguar helmet.
At the end of Lord Eight Deer’s career, he conquers a place called Huachino and, for lineage reasons, spares one of its princes, a youth named Lord Four Wind (ZN page 83), the son of Lady Six Monkey of Jaltepec, and thus a descendant of Lord Eight Wind Eagle Flints. The Bodley cognate narrative (page 34 of the codex) reveals different details of the events.
The narrative begins in the lower band, reading from right to left, starting with year 11 House (AD 1101). This is the sequence of events beginning on page 34: (1) Lord Eight Deer attacks Huachino; (2) the scions (Lords Ten Dog and Six House) of the ruler of that place (Lord Eleven Wind) by a former wife become captives. The narrative continues on page 35 at the page fold: (3) Lord Four Wind (the captives’ younger half-brother and the son of Huachino’s ruler and Lady Six Monkey of Jaltepec) is shown seated in a cave looking out or down on his bound half-brothers; (4) a fire-serpent priest holding an excised heart descends from the cave mouth directly between seated Lord Four Wind and the bound captives. The Zouche-Nuttall cognate scene (83–84) shows the two captives being executed by Lord Eight Deer: Ten Dog is bound to a round rock, given ineffective weapons, and clawed to death by two men wearing jaguar gloves; Six House is bound to a scaffold and bled to death by being shot with atlatl darts.
In this cave empowerment ceremony, the animal sacrifice is omitted, and the narrative tableaux proceeds directly to human sacrifice; however, the point is that Lord Eight Deer of Tilantongo makes an alliance with the young Lord Four Wind of Huachino and empowers him seated in a cave. The outstanding feature about this empowerment/sacrifice ceremony is the presence of a yaha yahui (fire serpent) priest descending from the cave mouth directly before the bound captives and holding an excised human heart. These priests could fly through sky and earth, and they performed human sacrifice. Pohl (1994) remarks that the title was also associated with persons who later became lineage founders, as did Eight Deer, so we can assume without impediment that this figure is Eight Deer himself as pictogram metaphor. Eight Deer literally empowers the boy Four Wind by the sacrifice of his two half-brothers.
Lord Four Wind was barely more than a boy when Eight Deer captured Hua Chino and ritually sacrificed his parents—Lady Six Monkey of Jaltepec and Lord Eleven Wind of Huachino and his half-brothers. It is possible to assume that Four Wind (his surviving younger brother was One Alligator, who later ruled at their mother’s town of Jaltepec) was an important link to the Jaltepec dynasty. Eight Deer himself was very likely refused marriage with Lady Six Monkey because of his non-elite lineage. An alliance with the old, distinguished lineage of Lord Eight Wind Eagle Flints and Eight Deer’s town of Tilantongo had been custom, so this present alliance was the next best thing—a child of that dynasty who could be controlled by Eight Deer.
This cave presentation/human sacrifice ceremony was not only a bestowal of authority, but also the creation of a desired confederacy between the two polities. The two sacrificed half-brothers were also recognized as an important dynastic link, but to the lineage of Huachino and Wasp Hill. Their elimination completed the lineage extermination of that rival dynasty and divorced the two descendants of Jaltepec (Four Wind and One Alligator) from Huachino forever.
Both of these historical narratives—Eight Deer’s empowerment at Tututepec at the beginning of his political career, and Four Wind’s subsequent empowerment by and alliance with Eight Deer eighteen years later—speak of a special kind of power. They illustrate not only the use of important geographical features—specifically, caves—to impart authority by virtue of the transcendent qualities they possess innately, but also by this very ability to bestow alliance status upon recipients by sharing it in ceremonial confederation.
These scenes also have another kind of power because they demonstrate the qualities attributed to caves as sacred spaces influencing Mixtec history through individuals who claimed to partake of potent, mysterious, underground, underworld attributes, whether by birthright or by association. Apparently, although he lacked royal descent, Eight Deer’s status as the first son of a high priest of the Council of Five at Tilantongo was sufficient for him to receive specific elevations in position (ZN page 52) subsequent to his assumption of rule at Tututepec. After that, his insightful and aggressive abilities would enable him to engineer a way to successfully fill the power vacuum at Tilantongo and repair the rift in alliance between his hometown and neighboring Jaltepec.
The historical saga of Lord Eight Deer is fulsome even in so few tableaux; therefore, our search for outstanding symbolism should conclude with a restatement of the Mixtec cosmos. It follows an ancient Mesoamerican pattern of celestial, terrestrial, underworld that is discernable among the Olmec of antiquity, the Classic period Maya, and beyond. In this scheme, caves are more than entrances to another realm beneath the earth. Sometimes caves can be an entrance from sky to earth, with a sky-cave opening represented in a distinctive way similar to that illustrating cave mouths in sacred mountains. Caves transcend the planes of existence. Page 18 of Zouche- Nuttall shows an underwater/underworld cave—and it actually contains the sky or an opening to it—an evocative image suggestive of the sky reflected in a lake.
The codices depict ceremonies for those who are able to tap into these powerful features. Caves connect all three levels of existence and are occupied by otherworldly beings. We have also mentioned information from a local informant that caves are underground highways used to travel from one place to another. Page 36 of Zouche-Nuttall shows the Apoala cave named the Serpent’s Mouth. Four men are entering it. Page 37 shows them exiting in another place. The oracle Lady Nine Grass of Chalcatongo had access to the underworld via a cave. Within it were mummy bundles of ancestors available for consultation regarding important decisions. It may be implied by association that Monument 9 of Chalcatzingo could have served a similar function for that Middle Formative to Classic period people.
Caves, then, are gateways between worlds, and mysterious, powerful things happen in them. They are the loci for transactions that happen in all spheres of creation. Jaguars were great, even mighty creatures to the Mixtecs—Lord Eight Deer is proof of that. According to their surviving iconography, the Olmecs before them had observed that jaguars hunted both land and water, and lived in caves. Our Mixtec hero Lord Eight Deer was always associated with jaguar attributes and was even named for the animal’s claw, an instrument he used in human sacrifice. His representation on Codex Bodley almost always has him attired in jaguar accoutrements, suggesting a complete identification between this sacred animal and the great culture hero. Codex Selden, on the other hand, only mentions Eight Deer as the father of two Tilantongo princesses who marry the royal sons of Jaltepec (Four Wind and One Alligator); even with such slight shrift, Eight Deer is shown in jaguar attire lest the implication of his power be diminished.
The ideological cave iconography displayed on earlier Olmec monuments at Chalcatzingo and elsewhere in Olmec civilization is a tantalizing indicator of how such graphic ideology was actually employed by elite rulers to achieve their goals. Inasmuch as caves form an important part of these ideograms, their symbolism becomes diverse in association and content, according to the purposes desired by those who employ them. Agricultural fertility involving control of the elements, the creation of supernatural mythologies, the relationship to and actions of these supernatural elements in the everyday world, and the empowerment of elite rulers imply there was no distinct dividing line between the physical and what we would call the “metaphysical.” This is true for many ancient cultures (such as the Maya) that survive in today’s world. In effect, these iconographies were a kind of religious and political technology employed to serve the goals of those who shaped and directed society. Although such symbol systems have been deeply and effectively analyzed by modern scholars, much about them and their use must perforce remain mysterious to us.
The Mixtec historical documents, on the other hand, provide a more expansive look at the societal use of iconography (specifically, cave iconography) in a later Mesoamerican culture which appears to have been as forceful and dynamic as the Olmecs who preceded them. This is indicative of an Epiclassic/Postclassic Ceremonial Complex, at least among the Mixtecs. This study of the Mixtec pictogram books is useful and insightful because narrative tableaux represented on their pages are neither interrupted, disordered, nor destroyed. This is said even in light of the fact that many of the tonindeye—or “lineage histories,” as the Mixtecs call them—have been lost to time and circumstance, and even though one of the five precious, major Mixtec documents remaining (Codex Alfonso Caso) has been almost eradicated by an unknown hand.
The earlier Olmec monuments are truly imaginative, superb works of art—the equal of any art from any culture. We can see in them the beginnings of writing, calendrics, and perhaps astronomy as well. The Mixtec pictogram books, however, name historical figures, record their deeds, and depict events that can be advanced and regressed according to an accurate calendric system. We know their family histories; in fact, the Mixtecs have the longest written royal histories in the world. The Maya, whose gods live in the sky, proved that Mesoamerican cultures had a more than passing interest in astronomy. I am certain the Mixtecs did, too, because we have the One Motion (Venus)/Sun (One Death) association on page 1 of Codex Selden—and, of course, many codex pages display icons of the celestial realm and the descents of elite personages from them. Temples are named for the celestial realm: Temple of Heaven, Temple of the Star, Stars Temple, and so on.
Cultural “back streaming” is a difficult and often misleading undertaking. However, it is not treacherous to observe the progress of artistic, cultural themes through time and remember that an idea which began as a seed could, and very likely did, grow not only into a cultural tree, but into cultural forests of societies. Those who followed the great Olmecs partook of their seminal greatness—Maya, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, and Aztecs. They did it by iconographically transforming their perceived levels of the cosmos into terrestrial reality and then used it to maintain stability in a world that was often hostile and chaotic.
The very transformation of chaos into order was the business of those born to power and rule. They were the scions of underworld, earth, and sky, and it was their particular ability to use their positions to translate supernatural paradigms into the structured progress of everyday life—whether agricultural or political. The unknown person shown on Chalcatzingo Monument 1 may not have been so very far removed in purpose from mighty Lord Eight Deer the Jaguar Claw of Tilantongo.
We can now turn our attention to Codex ZN pages 1–8 and its story of the protagonist of this text: Lord Eight Wind of Suchixtlan.
