Lord Eight Wind’s Family
Figure 9.1. Codex Zouche-Nuttall page 5 (British Museum folio no. 5). (© Trustees of the British Museum, The British Museum Company, Ltd.)
Page 5 (figure 9.1) of Codex Zouche-Nuttall resumes the biography of Lord Eight Wind, now at the beginning of Mixtec Year Cycle 3. There are four tableaux and seven dates, for a span of forty years (table 9.1).
Tableau 1. In Year 1 Reed (the literal date of AD 987, but metaphorically meaning “beginnings” [Furst 1978a:91]) Lord Eight Wind emerges from a cave opening in the temple at a place qualified by a small yellow man seated below and in front of the temple. This occurs in Lord Eight Wind’s fifty- second year of life and is preparatory to his lineage founding and rule at Monkey Hill/Suchixtlan/Cerro Jasmin.
Also pictured are four ceremonial assistants with implements. Lord Six Death pours tobacco and holds a sacrificial bird; Lord Six Water blows a conch shell trumpet; Lord Seven Monkey bears a torch; and Lord Two Dog holds a trilobed wand. When last seen on page 4, tableau 5, Lord Two Dog was conferencing with Dzaui, the rain god. He is also a primary actor and associate with the god Nine Wind Quetzalcoatl in Codex Vienna obverse. This event precedes a Rain God ceremony many years later, depicted in tableau 2 and spanning two columns of pictogram text (4a–b).
Tableau 2. In Year 5(6) Flint (AD 1004) on Day 7 Flower, Lord Eight Wind emerges from a cave opening in a masonry enclosure before an effigy of the rain god. He is sixty-nine years old. A bird-decapitation ceremony is conducted above on a feather carpet surmounted by a half-round, green grass mat and white-bound bundle. Two unnamed males participate: one bears a spear and incense burner, and the other wears a two-faced mask and carries a torch. The second part of this tableau shows the results of the ceremony: the rain god appears from above and pours water over Lord Eight Wind, who subsequently marries and founds his lineage at Monkey Hill.
Although bathing rituals frequently precede marriages (Codex Selden 7-I; Codex ZN page 19) they usually include both marriage partners. This ritual is different because, although it precedes a marriage, no marriage partner is illustrated. Therefore this ceremony is particular to Lord Eight Wind. Byland and Pohl (1994:121) remark that this ceremony transforms Lord Eight Wind into a fully human person, authorized to marry and found lineages. The event clearly marks Eight Wind’s transition from the first part of his life (ZN pages 1 and 2) to the second. From this point on, Lord Eight Wind no longer appears from cave portals to the underworld. This makes sense because in the first part of Lord Eight Wind’s life, he was a great wizard, priest/shaman, or santo, but in the second part (told here) he is a “normal” human being, concerned with marriage and lineage founding.
Tableau 3. Reading from right to left, the first pictogram is the toponym for Monkey Hill. To the left, seated on a yellow mat, are Lord Eight Wind, now seventy-three, and his first wife, Lady Ten Deer. They founded the female line for the second dynasty of Jaltepec (Selden 5-III). A vessel footed with snakeheads and containing frothy liquid and flowers stands between them. Three dates are displayed: Year 9(10) House Day 1 Eagle (AD 1007, the end of the Rain God ceremony), Year 9 Flint Day 6 Flower (AD 1008, the date of this marriage), and Year 2 Reed Day 2 Reed (Eight Wind’s death). This tableau continues on page 6a, which displays Lord Eight Wind’s second and third wives: the Ladies Five Grass and Ten Eagle.
The third part of page 5 tableau 3 shows the children of Lord Eight Wind and Lady Ten Deer displayed in the register above them: Lord Thirteen Grass, born in Year 2 Rabbit (on Day 13 Grass, AD 1014); the twin Lords Three Lizard; Lady Two Snake; and Lady Six Reed. One of the twin Lords Three Lizard will play an important role in the later disastrous attack by Tilantongo (under its boy-king Two Rain) against Jaltepec.
Lord Eight Wind’s death at age ninety-two in Year 2 Reed is implied. The year and day sign appears directly over his head, and the year qualifier “reed” or “dart” points directly to him. Reed date pointers are rare but do occur, as on page 20c of this manuscript, where they indicate the sequence of two day dates and events (specifically the deaths of two chief actors) associated with each day. This scene on page 20c is also an abbreviated, composite reading, or text; however, in this Mixtec notational form, complicated data is reduced to its simplest elements, intended to be understood by the reciting bards. Once one begins to interpret a pars pro toto text, the data unfolds. Further, Lord Eight Wind is not shown as a mummy, as is typical in other codices for death events, because available space demands visual abbreviation. When he does appear again on ZN page 7, he is shown seated in a temple and conversing with his great-great-grandson, the six-year-old king of Tilantongo, Lord Two Rain. If Eight Wind were alive for this conversation, he would be 146 years old. Therefore, his death at age ninety-two is here shown in abbreviated form to save space. I infer from these data that Lord Eight Wind’s chronology fits within the possible span of a human life. Ronald Spores (1974:303) writes that for Mixtec succession, old age is an esteemed factor. Some perhaps think it odd (or impossible) that a man so elderly would or could found a family. In answer to this: (1) the Mixtecs were not us; and (2) in our era the examples of the actors Tony Randall and Anthony Quinn come to mind. Also, for the unimpeachably dubious, paternity is easy to fake.
Table 9.1. Zouche-Nuttall Obverse Page 5 Chronology
As patriarch, Lord Eight Wind founded two (there were more) lines of descent through his daughters, who were ultimately in conflict. The beginning and resolution of this conflict are the subject of pages 7d and 8b. One line of descent founded the first dynasty of Tilantongo, which failed in the time of Lord Two Rain Twenty Jaguars (Eight Wind’s great-great-grandson), and the second founded the dynasty of Jaltepec, which continued through his granddaughter Lady Six Monkey’s son Lord Four Rain until the Spanish entrada in AD 1521 (table 9.2).
In Year 9 Flint (AD 1008), Lord Eight Wind married Lady Ten Deer, as depicted on Codex ZN page 5. Their daughter, Lady Two Snake (page 5c), married Lord Ten Flower of Tilantongo (ZN page 23b; Bodley 5-V). Their son was Lord Twelve Lizard Arrow Legs, who inherited the mat (throne) of Tilantongo. Lady Two Snake’s sister, Lady Nine Wind of Jaltepec, married Lord Ten Eagle, the brother of Lord Ten Lizard Arrow Legs (Selden 5-IV). The following diagram (table 9.2) displays this descent through Eight Wind’s daughters.
The chronologies of these births and marriages are interesting. The births of Lord Eight Wind’s female children are undated. However, Eight Wind and Lady Ten Deer married in Year 9 Flint (AD 1008). Assuming their first daughter’s birth to be one year after their marriage, Lady Two Snake was only five years old when she was betrothed or married to Lord Ten Flower in Year 1 House (AD 1013) (ZN page 23 and Bodley 5-V). Lady Two Snake and Lord Ten Flower’s first son, Twelve Lizard Arrow Legs, was born in Year 5 Reed (AD 1043) (ZN page 23b), which is also the date of his marriage to the Ladies Four Death and Four Alligator (Byland and Pohl 1994:240). On the other hand, if his birthday is one year after his parents’ marriage in AD 1013 (Year 2 Rabbit, or, AD 1014), then he marries the ladies at age twenty-nine in Year 5 Reed (AD 1043). However, this would mean his mother was no more than six years old at the time of his birth. The birth of the second son, Ten Eagle, is undated.
Table 9.2. Lord Eight Wind’s Daughters and the First and Second Dynasties of Tilantongo
Lady Nine Wind (Lady Two Snake’s sister) of Jaltepec married Lord Ten Eagle of Tilantongo in Year 3 House (AD 1040) (Selden 5-III). If she were born the year after her sister, Lady Two Snake, in Year 11 Rabbit (AD 1010), then she would have been thirty-one years old at the time she became regent of Jaltepec by marrying Lord Ten Eagle.
Given these dates, the only understandable part of this sibling chronology is the birth and marriage of Lady Nine Wind of Jaltepec. The other elements involving her sister, Lady Two Snake of Suchixtlan, are irresolvable.
