Mixtec culture


The Mixtec culture was a pre-Columbian archaeological culture, corresponding to the ancestors of the Mixtec people; they called themselves Ñuu savi, which means "people or nation of the rain". It had its first manifestations in the Mesoamerican Middle Preclassic period and ended with the Spanish conquest in the first decades of the 16th century. The historical territory of this people is the area known as La Mixteca, a mountainous region located between the current Mexican states of Puebla, Oaxaca, and Guerrero.
The chronology of the Mixtec culture is one of the longest in Mesoamerica, due to its continuity and antiquity. It began as a result of the cultural diversification of the Otomanguean language speaking people in the area of Oaxaca. The Mixtecs shared numerous cultural traits with their Zapotec neighbors. In fact, both populations call themselves "people of the rain or of the cloud". The divergent evolution of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, favored by the ecological environment, encouraged urban concentration in the cities of San José Mogote and Monte Albán, while in the valleys of the Sierra Mixteca the urbanization followed a pattern of smaller human concentrations in numerous towns. Relations between Mixtecs and Zapotecs were constant during the Preclassic, when the Mixtecs were also definitively incorporated into the network of Pan-Mesoamerican relations. Some Mixtec products are among the luxury objects found in the Olmec heartland.
During the Preclassic Mesoamerican period, the prime of Teotihuacán and Monte Albán stimulated the flourishing of the ñuiñe region. In cities such as Cerro de las Minas, stelae have been found that show a style of writing that combines elements of Monte Albán and Teotihuacán writing. The Zapotec influence can be seen in the numerous urns found in the sites of the Lowland Mixteca, which almost always represent the Old God of Fire. In the same context, the Highland Mixteca witnessed the collapse of Yucunundahua and the balkanization of the area. The concentration of power in Ñuiñe was the cause of conflicts between the cities of the region and the states of the Highland Mixteca, which explains the fortification of the Ñuiñe cities. The decline of the Ñuiñe culture coincided with that of Teotihuacan and Monte Albán. At the end of the Mesoamerican Classic many elements of the classic culture of the Lowland Mixteca became obsolete and were forgotten.
The conditions that allowed the flourishing of the Mixtec culture took place from the 13th century onwards. Eight Deer Jaguar Claw's political temperament led him to consolidate the Mixtec presence in La Costa. There he founded the kingdom of Tututepec and later undertook a military campaign to unify numerous states under his power, including important sites as Tilantongo. This would not have been possible without the alliance with Four Jaguar, a lord of Nahua-Toltec affiliation who ruled Ñuu Cohyo. The reign of Eight Deer ended with his assassination at the hands of the son of a noblewoman who in turn had been assassinated earlier by Eight Deer himself.
Throughout the Postclassic period, the network of dynastic alliances between the Mixtec and Zapotec states intensified, although paradoxically the rivalry between the two populations increased. However, they acted together to defend themselves from Mexica incursions. Mexico-Tenochtitlan and its allies would win over powerful states such as Coixtlahuaca, which was incorporated as a tributary province of the Aztec Empire. However, Yucudzáa maintained its independence and helped the Zapotecs resist in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. When the Spaniards arrived in La Mixteca, many lords voluntarily submitted as vassals of Spain and retained some privileges. Other lordships tried to resist but were militarily defeated.

La Mixteca

The historical territory of the Mixtecs is located in southern Mexico. With an area of more than 40,000 km2, La Mixteca, as it is known today, occupies the south of Puebla, the east of Guerrero, and the west of Oaxaca. La Mixteca was called Mixtecapan by the Mexica, which in Nahuatl means Country of the Mixtecs. In the ancient Mixtec language, the country was called Ñuu Dzahui, which Janssen and Pérez Jiménez translate as Country of the caneliata.
The Mixtecs never formed a political unit that integrated all the villages occupied by members of that people, although the largest political unit known to that pre-Columbian nation was formed under the government of Eight Deer Jaguar Claw in Tilantongo. From a geographical point of view, the Mixtec territory is very diverse, although it is unified by the presence of large mountain ranges such as the Sierra Mixteca or the Neovolcanic Axis. However, as Dahlgren observes, its boundaries are not precise, since their definition varies according to the approach adopted. From the cultural point of view, La Mixteca is the territory inhabited by all the populations that have been called Mixtec in different sources, although this delimitation is still ambiguous since the Mixtec people could coexist with communities of other ethnic origins that were otherwise linguistically and culturally related. The tentative delimitation proposed by González Leyva indicates that...
The western border of La Mixteca begins on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, in Coahuitlán. From there, in a straight line, it goes to the towns of Ometepec and Igualapa, continues, and reaches the Atoyac river of Puebla. It continues along it as far as Tuzantlán - northwest of Acatlán, Puebla. From here, in an easterly direction, the borders touch the hills Largo, Palos Blancos, Pila and Gordo. In this one the Gavilán river is born, whose channel passes by the locality of Zapotitlán, advances along the slopes of the Miahuatepec hill, meets the Zapotitlán river and, near Coxcatlán, joins the Salado river. Its banks reach Quiotepec, extends to Cuicatlán, discharges into the Grande river and goes through the Tomellín canyon. The river adopts this name, restarts its journey in a southerly direction, then changes its name to San Antonio, and ends at the Camote hill. From here, the border, again in a straight line, runs to San Francisco Telixtlahuaca and Huitzio ; it moves through the rugged ravines of La Culebra and Las Lomas de Alas, and skims the towns of Huitepec, Totomachapa and Teojomulco. It heads towards the Chinche and La Rana hills, passes them, goes through Mixtepec; turns west towards Manialtepec, collides with that town, resumes its march and ends in the Pacific.
According to its characteristics it is usually divided into several regions whose boundaries are equally imprecise. In spite of this, the internal subdivision of the region is a popular topic among specialists. Since colonial times, a distinction was made between the different zones that made up La Mixteca. The simplest was divided into Highland Mixteca, corresponding to the Sierra Mixteca, and Lowland Mixteca, which included the lands located in the piedmont of the Sierra Madre del Sur. Antonio de los Reyes indicates in his Arte en lengua mixteca that La Mixteca is divided into six regions: the one inhabited by the Chochos, the eastern one bordering Los Valles, the Highland Mixteca or Ñudzavuiñuhu, the Lowland Mixteca or Ñuiñe, the region of the Putla mountains or Ñuñuma, and Nuñdaa, Ñundevi or Ñuñama in the Pacific coastal plain.
The Highland Mixteca is the area occupied by the intermontane valleys of Tlaxiaco, Nochixtlán, Putla and Coixtlahuaca, nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Mixteca, an extremely mountainous area that is the point where the Sierra Madre del Sur and the Neovolcanic Axis meet. The climate in this region ranges from temperate to cold, and is relatively more humid than in the rest of the Mixtecs. Several rivers originate in the Highland Mixteca and are tributaries of important watersheds such as the Balsas and Atoyac rivers.
To the north of the Highland Mixteca is the Lowland Mixteca, which includes several municipalities in northwestern Oaxaca and southern Puebla. The Lowland Mixteca is located at a lower altitude than the Lowland Mixteca, since the altitude of the terrain hardly exceeds 2000 masl. Because of this characteristic, the Lowland Mixteca is hotter and drier than the rest of the Mixtec territory, which is why it was called ñuiñe. Most of the Lowland Mixteca is part of the Balsas River basin, which receives the waters of the Atoyac, Acatlán, Mixteco, and other rivers. The climate is typically that of a dry broadleaf forest, an ecosystem characterized by a combination of xerophytic vegetation with other species that grow periodically during the rainy season.

Geographic location

The region where the Mixtec civilization settled is known as the Mixtec region. There are three zones that form the Mixtec region:
  • Lowland Mixteca: northwestern part of the state of Oaxaca and southeastern part of the state of Puebla.
  • Highland Mixteca: northwest of the state of Guerrero and west of Oaxaca.
  • Coastal Mixteca: corresponds to the Costa Chica, which is divided between the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero.

    Mythology

Mixtec mythology shares many elements with the rest of Mesoamerican traditions. As in the case of the Mexica or the Maya, the Mixtecs also believed that they lived in the "era" of a Fifth Sun and that, before their time, the world had gone through a series of creations and destructions. In the beginning, the earth was a chaos, in which everything was confused. The spirits of the creative forces were flying in the air. They are known by their calendrical names, recorded in the codex produced by this people. These spirits were One Deer-Jaguar Serpent and One Deer-Puma Serpent. They are the Mixtec correspondents of Ometecuhtli and Omecíhuatl, the "Two Gods", who represent the dual principle of the whole universe. In the Mixtec myth, these two divinities separate light from darkness, earth from water, above from below, and create the four creator gods who would give birth to the others and to humanity, which was created from corn.
Legend has it that one of the four sons of the primordial couple made a hole in a tree that was in the clouds and copulated with it. This character is identified with the calendrical name Nine Wind, one of the names of the Feathered Serpent. In this way, the tree gave birth soon after. From it was born a man who would challenge the sun, lord of La Mixteca, in a duel to death. The myth of the Arrowman of the Sun relates that this character shot his arrows against the star, while the sun fought him with its rays. They did this until sunset, when the sun fell mortally wounded and hid behind the mountains. As the Arrower of the Sun feared that the star would be reborn and reclaim his ancient lands, he brought the people and made them settle on the land he had won, and hastened them to cultivate the corn milpas that very night. So, when the Sun was reborn the next day, nothing could be done thus the Mixtecs became owners of the region by divine and military right.
According to their mythology, the Mixtecs were descendants of the sons of the Apoala tree. One of these sons defeated the Sun and won the land for the Mixtec people. The main deity of the Mixtecs in pre-Hispanic times was Dzahui, god of rain and patron of the Mixtec nation. Another divinity of great importance was Nine Wind-Coo Dzahui, civilizing hero who gave them the knowledge of agriculture and civilization.