Chapter One
The MAT and the THRONE
MEXICO TENOCHTITLAN, THE DAY 8 WIND, THE 9TH DAY OF THE MONTH Quecholli of the year 1 Reed in the Mexica (Aztec) calendar, which may correspond to A.D. November 8, 1519. In a dramatic first confrontation, the Mexica ruler Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin greeted Hernán Cortés, the Spanish invader, with a respectful speech. The rendering of his words by Cortés himself, based on the difficult intercultural translation by his female interpreter Malintzin, was not done without particular interest. The conquistador selected and shrewdly highlighted the convenient elements, so that a polite welcome became transformed into nothing less than a recognition of Spanish rule.
In our books our ancestors left notice that I and all who live in this land originally came here as strangers from other places. We also know that our lineage was brought here by a supreme lord (un señor cuyos vasallos todos eran), who afterwards went back to his realm. And we always have believed that his descendants one day would come to subdue this land and us as his vassals. Because of the region where you say you come from, which is towards the East, and because of the things you tell about that great lord or king that sent you to us from there, we conclude that he is our natural ruler. Thus, be sure that we will obey you. (Cortés Hernán 1963: ff. 44v–54r)
Under this tendentiously colored surface, however, we find several authentic references to Motecuhzoma‘s own views on the historical importance of this meeting. There is no reason to doubt that the uneasy encounter with such a strange person—a human being but clearly from another world, coming from overseas, from the East, from “the House of the Sun”—made the Mexica ruler search history for indications of how to interpret and deal with the events. History was written, or rather painted, for reflection and use in critical moments. It was recited during rituals to bolster the collective memory and identity, to provide a frame for political strategies. Motecuhzoma had at his disposal a library of ancient pictorial manuscripts that dated back at least 500 years. In all of his realm there must have been thousands of such manuscripts. Consulting these books, on the threshold of the passage from one historical stage to another, he looked back to the very beginning of the political order of his day.
When talking about his own foreign origins, Motecuhzoma was commemorating not the primordial journey of the Mexica people from Aztlan to Tenochtitlan but the foundation of his own royal house long ago. He remembered that during the inauguration ceremony of a Mexica ruler the honorable priests and leaders of the nation used to emphasize:
From now on, Lord, you remain seated on the throne
that was installed by Ce Acatl Nacxitl Quetzalcoatl. . . .
In his name came Huitzilopochtli and sat down on this same throne,
and in his name came the one that was the first king, Acamapichtli. . . .
Behold, it is not your throne, nor your seat, but it is theirs,
it is only lent to you and it will be returned to its true owner.
(Tezozomoc 1975: 439)
Power came from Quetzalcoatl, the “Serpent with Quetzal Feathers” or “Plumed Serpent,” a mysterious personality from the past associated with an earlier civilization. The Mexica or Aztecs, whose realm had expanded since 1428 over large parts of what is now Mexico, considered themselves the cultural and political heirs of the Toltecs, whose civilization had flourished centuries before. These Toltecs, in turn, continued the tradition of Teotihuacan, the great capital of Central Mexico during a period designated by archaeologists as the Early Classic (± A.D. 200–650). In this succession of empires an emblematic model of civilization was developed, known to the Mexica as Toltecayotl, a term we can translate as “the Toltec legacy.” It characterizes the large cultural area we now call Mesoamerica, which stretches between the deserts of Northern Mexico and the tropical forests of Central America.
The great Lord referred to by Motecuhzoma was a specific Toltec ruler of legendary proportions—the Spaniards later compared him to King Arthur. Also known as Topiltzin, “Our Prince,” Ce Acatl, “1 Reed,” and Nacxitl, “4 Foot,” he reportedly had been a high priest and king in Tollan Xicocotitlan (presently known as Tula in the State of Hidalgo). In an atmosphere of magic and conflict, he had left that capital and established himself as a ruler in Tollan Cholollan (Cholula in the State of Puebla). From there he had undertaken a long journey to lands far away in the East, beyond Xicalango and the Laguna de Términos to the Maya country—precisely the region where Cortés’s first landing had occurred. That coincidence in place, in combination with the year being 1 Reed, which was one of Quetzalcoatl’s names, suggested to the Mexica ruler that Cortés was in some way related to that ancient source of power.
But Quetzalcoatl was more than a mysterious personality from ancient history. The Plumed Serpent is the most powerful image and the most complex symbol Mesoamerica has left to humanity. The amalgamation of the circling snake—chthonic and dangerous—with light and precious attributes of the augural inhabitants of heaven, creates an intriguing metaphor that makes sense in and appeals to many different religions in many different ways. The Plumed Serpent is first and foremost the whirlwind, the road sweeper who announces the coming of the Rains, a source of creative powers. The quetzal feathers stand for nobility and civilized life. The serpent also symbolizes trance and visionary experiences. The Plumed Serpent was an important nahual (“animal companion” or “alter ego in nature”). According to the Mesoamerican worldview, each human being is intimately connected to a nahual, which may be an animal or a natural phenomenon, with which he or she identifies and shares his or her destiny. When the animal dies, the individual dies too. In dreams, one experiences being that animal or phenomenon. Powerful persons, such as traditional healers or authorities, generally have strong and dominant nahuales.1
So the Plumed Serpent came to represent the breath and spiritual essence of unseen Gods and the trance of priests, a marker of the liminal sphere in which humans enter in contact with the Divine. Over time this image of power was appropriated by successive charismatic empire builders and became synonymous with the ideal of civilization and rulership. Sculptures and reliefs representing the Plumed Serpent adorned the Citadel, the main temple in the abode of the rulers of Teotihuacan. Perhaps even then Quetzalcoatl had already become the main title and symbol of the rulers. As a God he was the bringer of civilization; as an exemplary ruler he created a flowering empire throughout much of Mesoamerica.
While considering how to approach this being, which was coming back on its tracks, Motecuhzoma had first sent messengers to the invader to offer him special gifts: the ceremonial dresses of four major deities, each of whom played an important role in the symbolism of rulership. Two sets of gifts were related to Quetzalcoatl: an elaborate feather crown (apanecayotl) of the type Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl used to wear, and the pointed cap of jaguar skin combined with a long beaked mask, an attribute of the Wind God Ehecatl Quetzalcoatl. The other dresses and ornaments were those of the Rain God Tlaloc and of Tezcatlipoca, the “Smoking Mirror,” the supreme deity of rulers and priests.2
In those critical days, Motecuhzoma was pondering his heritage and the spiritual connection to his Ancestors. Power and life are only lent. One rules only for a short time, as in a dream.3 This is the aspect that dominates the other version of the emperor’s speech to Cortés, preserved in the work of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún. It is written in the native language, Nahuatl, and sounds more authentic than the version first described. Just like Cortés’s report, this text is a reconstruction after the fact, but it is likely based on local oral tradition and certainly on a good knowledge of literary conventions. The Nahuatl version shows Motecuhzoma’s recognition of divine power as the true and permanent owner of the throne. He knew about this power through stories, visions, and religious thought, but now he felt he was standing face-to-face with it in common reality.
camo çan nitemiqui amo çan niccochitleoa,
amo çan nicochitta, amo çan nitemiqui,
ca ie onimitznottili. mixtzinco onotlaxich,
ca ononnentlamatticatca in ie macuil in ie matlac,
in umpa nonitztica, in quenamican in otimoquixtico
in mixtlan in aiauhtitlan:
anca iehoatl inin quiteneuhtivi in tlatoque
in ticmomachitiquiuh
in matzin in motepetzin
in ipan timouetzitiquiuh in mopetlatzin, in mocpaltzin
in tioalmouicaz.
Auh in axcan ca oneltic, otioalmouicac.
Because I am not just dreaming, not just imagining it in my sleep,
I do not just see this as in sleep, I am not just dreaming:
I really see thee, look into thy face.
I have been troubled already five, already ten times [for a long time].
I have gazed into the unknown whence thou hast come,
the place of clouds, the place of mist [the place of mystery].
Thus they have foretold it, the (ancient) rulers,
that thou wouldst come back to teach
to your water, your mountain [your community],
that thou wouldst again sit down on your mat, your throne,
that thou wouldst return.
And now it has become true: thou hast returned.
(Sahagún 1950–1978, book XII: ch. 16)
This example of Motecuhzoma‘s speech introduces us to the intricate relationship of history and power in ancient Mesoamerica, as well as to the religious and emotional dimensions of both. We will explore these aspects as we analyze a corpus of ancient pictorial manuscripts, proceeding from a specific region within Mesoamerica. In our story we will come back to Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, several times and learn more about him as inventor of the art of writing and humanity’s guide in the visionary encounter with the past.
LAND of the RAIN GOD
Located in the heart of the Americas, Mesoamerica is a complex mosaic of different peoples and original civilizations. At the arrival of the Spanish conquerors it had already experienced a multifaceted development of at least 2,500 years. Its formation as a specific culture area was based on the development of agriculture: by the first millennium B.C. the native population had passed through a crucial economic and social transformation, from nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers to sedentary rural communities that primarily subsisted on the cultivation of maize, beans, squash, and many other plants. The consequences of this process were demographic growth, a more encompassing social organization, and the construction of towns, which became production centers for impressive works of art as well as the elaboration of hieroglyphic and pictorial writing systems. In archaeology this period is called Preclassic or Formative. The culmination of this development toward full-fledged urban states is generally designated as the Classic period (± A.D. 200 – ± 900).4 The crisis and end of this era occurred at different times and at different places but proceeded between A.D. 650 and 950 throughout the entire culture area. It was the first major and overall break in the cultural development of Mesoamerica, resulting from a complex interaction of different factors that is still poorly understood. Afterward, an even more fascinating process occurred: the “rebirth” of the culture, leading to recovery and new florescence in the Postclassic period (± A.D. 900–1521).
The peoples themselves saw this succession of different cultures, now clearly visible in archaeology, as a series of eras, each with its own dawn and under its own Sun. In the case of Central Mexico the complexity of cultural memory was such that the Mexica situated the earlier civilizations within a cosmogram of four Suns: each era was symbolically associated with one of the four world directions and characterized by a sacred foundation date and specific food; each had been destroyed in a peculiar way by its own cosmic cataclysm. This structure provided the Mexica with the foundation for their own Sun, the fifth, situated in the center of the world.5 Their immediate cultural ancestors, the Toltecs of Tula, had lived during the fourth Sun and perished because of their leader’s failures and the tricks of the Gods.
Today, scores of Mesoamerican peoples live on their ancestral lands. An estimated total of 15 to 20 million residents of Mexico, Guatemala, and neighboring Central American countries are preserving not only their languages but also many elements and structures of this ancient civilization. They are not officially recognized, but like “indigenous peoples” all over the planet, they are still suffering a fundamentally colonial situation, inherited from the past. For them the political independence of Mexico and other American republics after the period of European colonial expansion did not mean decolonization, much less emancipation, but only a shift of the center from the exterior to the interior of the country. This new configuration, therefore, is known as “internal colonialism.” Much more than a simple outcome of the conquest, this internal colonialism is a re-creation and reaffirmation of both economic and cultural dominance within the context of the modern nation-state, reinforced as it is by modern neocolonial and imperialist policies. A characteristic aspect of indigenous peoples’ predicament is that they are generally seen as “others,” as mere “objects” of investigation, embedded in the dominant discourse as “peoples without history”—that is, peoples whose history has been expropriated and obliterated (Wolf 1982). Just as the colonial perspective influenced Spanish sources, internal colonialism underlies and penetrates many modern studies.
Conscious of the need to develop a postcolonial perspective, we focus here on the precolonial history and historiography of Ñuu Dzaui. This name refers to both the land (ñuu) and the people (ñuu) of the Rain God (Dzaui). The land is located in the southwestern part of what is now the Mexican republic, mainly in the State of Oaxaca but also partly in neighboring areas of the States of Puebla and Guerrero. The people is also known as “Mixtec,” after the name given by its Nahuatl-speaking northern neighbors: Mixtecâ, which actually means “inhabitants of the place of the clouds.” From the same word comes the commonly used geographic designation “la Mixteca” for the region.
Based on geographic criteria, the Ñuu Dzaui region is generally subdivided into (1) the Mixteca Alta (mountainous, mostly above 2,000 meters above sea level [m.a.s.l.]), (2) the Mixteca Baja (mountainous, rarely above 2,000 m.a.s.l.), and (3) the Mixteca de la Costa (tropical coastal lowlands along the Pacific Ocean). As for the Baja and the Costa, the native subdivision used other names, often following the toponyms of the most important polities (yuvui tayu), but the Alta was identified as Ñuu Dzaui Ñuhu, “Sacred Land of the Rain” or “Ñuu Dzaui of the Gods.”
Today, hundreds of thousands of people speak the Mixtec language, Dzaha Dzaui. It belongs to a family of languages that occupies a significant part of Mesoamerica and is designated by linguists as “Oto-Mangue.” As are the other members of this family, Dzaha Dzaui is a tonal language, which means that words may have very different meanings when pronounced with different tones. The first Dzaha Dzaui reference works are the grammar and vocabulary written at the end of the sixteenth century by the Spanish Dominican friars Antonio de los Reyes and Francisco de Alvarado, respectively. They recorded the dialect of Yucu Ndaa (Tepozcolula), which at that time was understood widely throughout the region and since then has functioned as a sort of standard in historical studies. In that orthography the region and people are written as Ñuu Dzavui and the language as Dzaha Dzavui. The latter word is also written as Dzahui in colonial texts. In modern dialects it is pronounced saui, sau, daui, or dau.
Ñuu Dzaui today is one of the poorest regions of Mexico, suffering from many ecological and economic problems that affect both the speakers of Dzaha Dzaui and those who live in the same region, sharing the traditional way of living and part of the ancestral culture, but who no longer speak the mother language as a consequence of internal colonial politics. Traditionally, like other indigenous peoples, the Ñuu Dzaui communities practice small-scale subsistence agriculture, generally in mountainous and not very fertile terrain. Harvests are poor, and malnutrition reigns. In general, health services are deficient: there are too few doctors and clinics, so there is much illness and people die unnecessarily. Today, as in the past, criminal enterprises and ambitious individuals—invaders from the outside as well as those with roots in the region—enter and take over the land, clear the forests, look for oil, or engage in the planting and trafficking of marijuana. And it is the poor who, because of their hardship and lack of alternatives, perform the dirty and dangerous jobs for the big bosses. They are used as intermediaries and couriers and often end up in jail.
These and other factors make life in the region very difficult and lead to continual emigration to urban areas, especially Mexico City, the northern part of the republic, and the United States. There again the migrants, because of their deficient preparation, are often forced to perform the most difficult and lowest-paying jobs (laborer, servant, and similar tasks). They are often discriminated against, and they even lapse into criminal behavior, prostitution, and the like. This constant migration gives the Ñuu Dzaui region an aspect of abandonment; it is filled with “ghost towns” inhabited only by the elderly and children.
It is in this time of diaspora, in this desolate and dramatic landscape, that we start to search for the messages of the precolonial Ñuu Dzaui pictorial manuscripts, trying to uncover the history of a “people without history” to recognize and revive the voices that have been silenced.
PRECOLONIAL HISTORY
Precolonial Mesoamerican history is the story of autonomous communities (ñuu), constructed around networks of lineages and connected by exchange and communication. The sovereignty of these communities or nations was designated in the Mesoamerican languages with the poetic hendiadys “mat and throne”: petlatl icpalli in Nahuatl, yuvui tayu in Dzaha Dzaui, pop tz’am in Maya. To distinguish this unit from their own kingdom, Spanish authors refer to it as a cacicazgo, derived from the term cacique for indigenous ruler in the Greater Antilles (cf. Redmond & Spencer 1994). These polities were usually small. Since the early days the varied, abrupt landscape, with its many mountain ranges, had led to a fragmented political panorama of de facto independent communities. Generally, these units are called “city-states” in the literature, although in the case of Ñuu Dzaui, “village-states” is a better term. During early state formation, the polity in many respects conserved the basic characteristics of a chiefdom. Hereditary rulers organized the structure of communal labor, demanding tribute from and redistributing goods among their subjects and forming alliances (e.g., through marriage) or waging wars with one another. As leaders, they became emblematic of their communities, the protagonists of history whose names and deeds were remembered by the people for many generations. The study of their historiography offers unique, in-depth insights into their mentality and worldview, as well as into the dynamics of the ancient power structure.
The mat and throne was located in a specific ceremonial and political center, the seat of the ruling house. The ruler and the ruled were connected in a tributary relationship that had a reciprocal character; the farmers supported with their goods and services those who took care of both the administration and the ceremonial obligations to the gods. The notion of territory did exist, but as a general indication of the hinterland where the tributaries lived. In a nonmonetary economy and a cosmovision dominated by religious sentiments, the land itself was considered not a commodity but a manifestation and dwelling place of the divine powers of Nature. Those who worked the land and reaped the fruits did so as a community bound together by a devotion to the deity that was the “real” (i.e., spiritual) Owner of that land. Among themselves they developed a series of communitarian and egalitarian principles, such as mutual assistance and communal labor. The rulers, supported by the priests, were intermediaries between the human community and the Other World, the domain of the Gods.
Communication over large distances and time periods became possible through the development of writing systems based on shared iconographic codes. As communication is a crucial factor in culture and social cohesion, writing is not just a by-product of the evolution of social complexity but one of its important propelling forces. On one hand, the development of writing systems corresponds to the needs of an expanding society to codify and transmit specific arrangements, laws, and obligations, as well as historical data and religious ideas, while on the other it makes possible further internal differentiation and structures social complexity accordingly. As this communication technique became more advanced and widespread, specializations and institutions increased in scope, as did political hierarchy and the social distance between ruler and people.
The mountainous landscape and the absence of transportation technology, however, seriously limited regional integration and the development of early statehood. Only a few Mesoamerican city-states succeeded in permanently enlarging their territory at the expense of others (through conquests and alliances) and in developing into empire-like realms, which made their influence felt throughout the entire region. At the time of the Spanish conquest, large parts of what is now the Mexican republic were subject to the Mexica agrarian tribute-state, created in a mere hundred years of military and commercial expansion. Actually, this state consisted of a triple alliance among three capitals—Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan—each with its own governing dynasty and specific tribute rights.
The direct antecedent of the Mexican expansion was the Toltec cultural phase (A.D. ± 900 – ±1200), centered on the cities of Tollan Xicocotitlan (i.e., Tula in the State of Hidalgo) and Cholula. This empire, in turn, seems to have been an effort to revive the splendor of the huge city Teotihuacan, which flourished in the so-called Early Classic period (A.D. ± 200 to ± 650).
All three successive realms were based in the central valley (Altiplano) of Mexico, where Lake Texcoco permitted a unique cultural interaction and economic integration through ridged field agriculture and intensive commerce by canoe traffic. In addition, the area supplied obsidian, a crucial strategic resource. The extraordinary concentration of people, the prosperous economic conditions, and the development of large-scale urban life were synthesized in an emblem: Tollan, “Place of Cattail Reeds” or “metropolis,” the ideal capital. Comparable to Rome in European cultural history, this Place of Cattail Reeds developed from a concrete imperial center into a concept of civilization and political order. The term Tollan is used for Teotihuacan in Classic Maya inscriptions and appears as an explicit name or title for several main cities of the Early Postclassic (the phase called “Toltec” by archaeologists): Tula (Hidalgo) but also Cholula (known as Tollan-Cholollan).6 In several Mesoamerican languages Mexico-Tenochtitlan was—and still is—called the Place of Cattail Reeds: Ñuu Cohyo in Dzaha Dzaui (Mixtec).
Imperial expansion was propelled by technical innovations in warfare, a warrior ethos, and a stimulating ideology. The fights between the polities were necessarily small-scale and carried out mainly by the champions on both sides—heroes consecrated to the Gods, invoking the spiritual powers of their Patrons and nahuales. The emphasis was on direct combat, calling for the use of “shock weapons” like clubs and spears. Teotihuacan introduced large-scale warfare, mobilizing numerous armies from the lake surroundings, which called for complex internal organization; standards, conchs, and drums were used to direct the movement of the troops. The earlier “artillery,” based on slings, was improved radically by mass use of the atlatl, the dart thrower, which changed the entire aspect of the fight. In the Early Postclassic, the Toltecs added the use of the short obsidian inlaid “sword.” Later, the Mexica transformed it into the broadsword and integrated it with the Chichimec bow and arrow into an effective arsenal.7
Even the most successful city-states had too few inhabitants for a military occupation of the conquered areas. The enormous distances armies had to cover, without wheeled vehicles or even beasts of burden, ensured that the empires could not exercise complete territorial control. Each small polity was established in a more or less continuous territory, but the empires were hegemonic in character: they only had effective control over their heartland and the routes to faraway regions, but they extracted tributes from local leaders who were kept in submission through alliances or the permanent threat of a devastating surprise attack by the empires’ mobile forces. Thus the few larger pan-regional states essentially incorporated a number of small states without dramatically changing their internal structure.
Consequently, two models of early state formation dominated Mesoamerica’s political arrangement: that of “peer polity interaction,” or rather a “city-state culture”—a landscape of small sovereign communities whose specific local ruling lineages engaged in all kinds of economic and political contacts, influenced each other, and met as allies or rivals—versus that of imperial expansion of the successful “super-cacicazgos.”8
Parallel to these two distinct social formations, we can postulate the continuous presence of two fundamentally different political views and strategies. In the city-state culture, power was distributed among different centers ruled by essentially independent lineages, competing and coexisting with specific functions in a shared geographic-economic network and cosmological matrix. Constructing alliances was the key to success for the leaders. The cultural practice of gift giving made them focus on the long-distance procurement and exchange of precious, high-status goods, which functioned as emblems of those alliances. At the same time, commitments and loyalties had to be made manifest in elaborate ritual celebrations in the ceremonial centers. The rulers’ daily political task was to nourish and balance the alliances by carefully taking into account the viewpoints and interests of the different factions. Rhetoric of diplomacy and codes of court life had to be developed. The rulers had to participate actively and visibly in the rituals, contacting the Gods through their bloodletting (“self-sacrifice”) to obtain charismatic power.
The expansionist, imperial states could not depend on ritualized exchange and reciprocity ethics alone, so the mechanisms of direct and indirect domination became more prominent. A broad, integrated economic base was needed, including the management of long-distance trade routes and access to critical resources such as obsidian, as well as a strong military apparatus and a generally intelligible communication system. This more complex and institutional hierarchy must have produced a centralist ideology, focusing on a supreme authority and ruling over many subdued cacicazgos from a clearly defined regional capital.9 The charismatic power and nahual character of this elevated monarch, already important in the city-state culture, were now completely immersed in divine mystery. The ceremonial centers, stages for the manifestation of elaborate court life as well as for large-scale and complex rituals, expanded accordingly. An ideology of order and civilization flourished, in which Tollan was the emblematic capital and Quetzalcoatl the emblematic ruler.
The LITERARY LEGACY
Writing was a crucial element in the development of Mesoamerican urban societies, as it permitted codification and planning beyond face-to-face contacts and individual memories. This extension of communication across time and space was a necessary correlate of the expanding social format. Writing was intimately connected with the power structure and promoted the notion of a canon. The acts of rulers, especially their conquests, and the resulting tributary obligations could be registered, as well as the complex kinship relations that structured the royal family and formed the base for future marital alliances. Thus history was no longer a matter of oral tradition and personal interpretation but became perceived as normative and verifiable through the creation of authentic, permanent accounts. A dynasty’s divine origin was recorded as the source of power, legitimacy, and moral standards. Spiritual and socio-political stability was provided by a canon of prescriptions on how to interpret the will of the Gods and carry out ritual actions. We can therefore study the ancient manuscripts as an interface between cosmovision and practice, following the fundamental contributions on the role of power in history and discourse by authors such as Michel Foucault.
“Power” thus becomes the name for a complex set of interconnections between the spaces where truth and knowledge are produced and the systems of control and domination. (Braidotti 1994: 74)
[P]ower is founded where it is the least visible: in the infinitely multiplying web of discourse; in the social and material relations it engenders; in the symbolic relations it mediates. Power is the name given to a strategic complex situation in which relations of production and of knowledge are simultaneously organized. Power is language, it is a discursive link; it is conjugated with the verb to be and not with the verb to have. (Braidotti 1994: 212)
Discourse in this sense is a whole field or domain within which language is used in particular ways. This domain is rooted (as is Gramsci’s or Althusser’s notion of ideology) in human practices, institutions and actions. (Loomba 1998: 98)10
The Ñuu Dzaui registered formal discourse in pictorial writing for recording history and for creating and expressing relationships of power.11 Writing itself has a long tradition in Mesoamerica; in the precolonial era, two main forms developed. Both consist of combinations of figurative scenes with hieroglyphic elements, but the proportion is radically different. The Mayas (in Eastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras) used full phonetic writing: hieroglyphs, representing syllables or entire words, register a discourse in a specific language.12 Many peoples in Central and Southwest Mexico preferred pictorial writing, pictography (tlacuilolli in Nahuatl), which registers and transmits information directly in stylized figurative images. Both systems have iconic and phonetic aspects, however, and show a number of significant similarities in contents (themes) and even in the ways in which they render ideas and represent concrete elements.
In terms of form, the pictographic manuscripts can be divided into two main categories: (1) codices, that is, screen-fold books, and rolls, consisting of strips of deerskin or indigenous amate paper whitened with stucco; after the conquest these works were rearranged as European books; and (2) lienzos, large pieces of cloth made of cotton. Generally, both groups contain polychrome paintings or black outline drawings of figurative scenes using a special system of pictographic conventions, registering relatively long and coherent messages about how Mesoamericans saw and understood their world and their history.13 The narrative sequences in a codex are organized in horizontal or vertical bands in a boustrophedon pattern, “as the ox ploughs.” In Dzaha Dzaui a line of writing is yuq, literally “furrow” or “row.” The boustrophedon pattern might be called yuq yuq, “following the furrow.” Generally, a lienzo fits the events and genealogies in a map-like painting, emphasizing spatial relationships in terms of roads, rivers, and boundaries.
The codices and lienzos form part of the archaeological record, and, as such, they are related to a much larger corpus of pictographic scenes on different materials, such as frescoes, reliefs, gold jewelry, or painted ceramics, but the scenes on these latter artifacts are generally much more limited. There is no doubt that in precolonial times the manuscripts were kept in special collections in palaces and temples and frequently accompanied the deceased into the grave. In style and content, they are very similar to other decorated archaeological objects (polychrome ceramics, frescoes, carved stones).14 Because of the climatological circumstances, however, organic materials like deerskin, cloth, and amate paper normally do not survive underground.
We can trace the origins of pictography to earlier phases of Mesoamerican civilization. Codices are depicted in scenes painted on Classic Maya vessels. The frescoes of the ruined city of Teotihuacan bear impressive testimony to the fact that the main conventions of pictography were already in use there. Some elements can be traced even further back, to the Olmec in Preclassic times (1200–600 B.C.).
As a consequence of the Spanish invasion, many artifacts and monuments were destroyed or lost, including an enormous treasure of native painted books. Spanish missionaries persecuted the religious experts and burned their documents. Historical and other secular paintings soon became obsolete and irrelevant, victims of a general lack of interest and the ravages of time. Only a handful of the precolonial (i.e., Late Postclassic) pictorial manuscripts escaped. The tradition did not die immediately after the conquest, however, and native painters continued to produce codices and lienzos in the ancient style—in part with European elements—until the end of the sixteenth century. Most codices and lienzos that have survived to today did so because they were kept for long periods in local archives above the ground, for example, as important land documents, or because they passed into the hands of interested Spaniards or other collectors who preserved them as curiosa or sent them to Europe, where they ended up in libraries and museums. For similar reasons, the extremely delicate feather mosaics and highly sought-after (and subsequently melted) gold jewelry survive mostly in European collections of curiosities that date back to Renaissance and Baroque times. In archaeological terms, these artifacts are out of their primary context. It is colonialism and, as a consequence, the “western” history of ideas that constitute the main factor in the formation of their new, secondary context.15
The manuscripts known today came from different subregions in Mexico. Two areas with significant painting traditions were (1) Central Mexico (with important centers like Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Tlaxcala, and Cholula), mainly Nahuatl speaking, and (2) Oaxaca in southwestern Mexico, where the Ñuu Dzaui (Mixtecs), Ngigua (Chochos), Beni Zaa (Zapotecs), and other peoples created a unique corpus of codices and lienzos. This documentation adds a fascinating dimension to archaeological study, as it provides abundant information about the ancient society and religion. More important, these data are given by Native American authors according to their own vision and in their own terms. Once we understand the basic pictographic conventions, we can identify the main places, times, and actions to which the manuscripts refer and even suggest possible contexts in which they were produced or meant to function.
Often, different pictorial documents are related to and complement one another, thus enabling us to distinguish specific groups. In terms of contents, a distinction can be made between (1) the religious, or “prescriptive,” books, used for divination and rituals, and (2) the historical, narrative, or “descriptive” texts, which deal with the history of the precolonial dynasties, their sacred origins and ritual activities, marriage alliances and genealogies, the geographic extension of the kingdom, conquests, tribute rights, and similar areas.
The BOOKS of WISDOM
The precolonial religious codices are known as the Borgia Group, after the most prominent member, Codex Borgia, named after a cardinal who owned it in the late eighteenth century. Closer to the Mesoamerican worldview is the designation “Books of Wisdom.” The corresponding term in Nahuatl was teoamoxtli, “divine books.”
The internal structuring principle of both the divinatory-ritual and the historical-narrative manuscripts is the Mesoamerican calendar (the “day count,” tonalpohualli in Nahuatl), which is based on a combination of the numbers 1 to 13 with twenty signs in a fixed sequence, listed here with their names in Nahuatl and Dzaha Dzaui:
I. Alligator (cipactli / quevui)
II. Wind (ehecatl / chi)
III. House (calli / cuau or maa)
IV. Lizard (cuetzpallin / que)
V. Serpent (coatl / yo)
VI. Death (miquiztli / mahu or maha)
VII. Deer (mazatl / cuaa)
VIII. Rabbit (tochtli / sayu)
IX. Water (atl / tuta)
X. Dog (itzcuintli / hua)
XI. Monkey (ozomatli / ñuu)
XII. Grass (malinalli / cuañe)
XIII. Reed (acatl / huiyo)
XIV. Jaguar (ocelotl / huidzu)
XV. Eagle (cuauhtli / sa)
XVI. Vulture (cozcacauhtli / cuii)
XVII. Movement (ollin / qhi)
XVIII. Flint (tecpatl / cusi)
XIX. Rain (quiahuitl / co)
XX. Flower (xochitl / huaco)
The Nahuatl names are the regular designations for the creatures and elements referred to; the Dzaha Dzaui day names, however, are part of a special calendrical vocabulary and do not correspond to the terms in the daily language. For example, “deer” is cuaa as a calendrical sign but idzu in normal Dzaha Dzaui. The same holds true for the numbers: whereas Nahuatl uses the same designations for these creatures and elements in both the calendar and daily speech, Dzaha Dzaui employs a unique set of calendrical prefixes, several of which are differentiated only by tones: ca = 1, 2, or 12; co = 1, 2, or 3; qh or qui = 4; q or qhu = 5 or 9; ñu = 6; sa = 7; na = 8; si = 10, 11, or 13.
1.1. The twenty day signs.
The first thirteen-day period (trecena in Spanish) of the tonalpohualli, then, starts with 1 Alligator, 2 Wind, 3 House, and so on, until 13 Reed. The second thirteen-day period follows, which starts with 1 Jaguar and ends with 13 Death. The third trecena runs from 1 Deer to 13 Rain, the fourth from 1 Flower to 13 Grass, and so on, until the twentieth and final trecena, which starts with 1 Rabbit and ends, logically, with 13 Flower. The same sequence then starts all over again.
The day on which somebody was born became his or her “calendar name” (Lord 8 Deer, Lady 6 Monkey, and so on) and had a specific significance, a divinatory or mantic value, because of the connection of the number, the day sign, and the relevant period in which the day fell, with the influences of different deities. In the Borgia Group, or rather the Teoamoxtli Group, many subdivisions of time are associated with different mantic scenes, expressing positive or negative aspects of that period, the divine forces at work, and similar factors. There are mantic symbolic images for the twenty day signs and the twenty thirteen-day periods but also for married couples (according to the sum of the numbers in their calendar names), the four world directions, different manifestations of the Rain God during certain years and segments of years, the first rising of Venus on certain days, and the like. Other scenes prescribe the carrying out of rituals, varying from the ordered laying out of counted bundles of objects (leaves, pine needles, and similar items) on altar tables to the ecstatic worship of the Sacred Bundle.
In this way, the Books of Wisdom refer to various aspects of religious symbolism relevant to the devotion and the daily lives of the rulers and their subjects. The same symbolism is present in the historical narratives and gives them an ideological dimension. The basic conceptual ingredients are similar in the iconography of the Ñuu Dzaui (Mixtec), Mexica, and other Mesoamerican civilizations; they are even found in Classic Maya reliefs and hieroglyphic texts.
Very few examples of these religious books survived the persecution campaigns of the Spanish missionaries. In the process, information about their provenience was lost forever.16 Each has special characteristics but also shares specific themes (“chapters”) with the others. Until now, each book has been named after its European location or first known European owner. More appropriate names could be introduced, referring to special features or diagnostic aspects of the books’ contents. To create uniformity in citation, we can use terms in Nahuatl, not because we think all these codices are from the Nahuatl-speaking region but because Nahuatl is the standard language of reference for the study of Mesoamerican religion and is identified with the Toltec tradition, which codified much of this calendrical symbolism and divinatory-ritual practice.
• Codex Vaticanus 3773 or B, in the Vatican, is clearly a compendium, used as a manual for divination. It could be named “Book of the Diviner” or, using the Nahuatl word for “divining priest, day keeper,” Codex Tonalpouhqui.
• Codex Borgia, now in the Vatican, has similar contents but also contains a distinctive chapter on rituals carried out in a great ceremonial center, dominated by a Temple of Heaven and a Temple of Darkness. The visionary experience of the priests is represented as a transformation of humans into serpents with the masks of the Wind-God and a body consisting of darkness, according to the Nahuatl expression yoalli ehecatl, “night and wind,” which describes the mysterious character of the deities and those who have contact with them. After this metaphor we could call this work the “Book of Night and Wind” or Codex Yoalli Ehecatl.
• Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, now in the Free Public Museum, Liverpool, England, opens with a famous cosmogram, situating the nine deities that rule the nights in a quadripartite division of time and space. On the first and last pages, the God Tezcatlipoca, the Deity of the Smoking Mirror, figures prominently as the Lord of Time. On the first page the blood of his sacrificed body flows to the center to animate the count of 260 days; on the last page he appears as the magic ruler of the 13-day periods. Codex Tezcatlipoca, therefore, would be an adequate name for this document.
• Codex Laud, Misc. 678, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, England, contains a unique section about the influences of the Death Deities, a reason to call it the “Book of Death” or Codex Mictlan.
• Codex Cospi, now in the University Library in Bologna, Italy, contains chapters of the divinatory calendar on the obverse side and instructions for the laying out of bundles of counted leaves or similar elements on altar tables on the reverse. A general theme seems to be protection against bad influences or “attacks” of dart-throwing deities. We might refer to this document as the “Book of Offerings” or, using the Nahuatl term for such offerings, Codex Tlamanalli.
For other members of the group the origin has been defined:
• Codex Porfirio Diaz comes from Yan Yada, in Nahuatl known as Tututepetongo, in the Cuicatec region of the State of Oaxaca. We therefore call it Codex Yada. At present it is preserved in the collection of codices in the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City. A relatively small section has religious (divinatory) contents and is part of the Teoamoxtli (Borgia) Group. The rest of the manuscript deals with the history of the foundation of a Cuicatec city-state.
• Codex Yecu, a single sheet, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris and generally known as Fonds Mexicain 20 (and a copy known as number 21), contains a large scene that situates deities of the Teoamoxtli Group in landscapes, which played an important part in early Ñuu Dzaui history. The four directions of this landscape are connected with a chevron band that stands for “war,” yecu in Dzaha Dzaui. Because of these similarities, its origin is probably the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca.17
• Codex Borbonicus deals with the Patron Deities and symbolism of the twenty thirteen-day periods and the rituals during the eighteen year-feasts. It clearly reflects Mexica religion and seems to be related to the chinampa area around Tenochtitlan. The main sanctuary depicted can be identified as the Tlillan or Temple of Cihuacoatl, the “Woman Serpent” in Xochimilco. The ceremonial cycle is initiated by the high priest, who also carried the title cihuacoatl. We therefore propose to rename this book Codex Cihuacoatl.
• A shorter Mexica work with just the twenty thirteen-day periods and their divinatory images is known as the Tonalamatl Aubin. We would call it Codex Tonalamatl.
There is an arbitrary element to this renaming process. Deities such as Tezcatlipoca or Cihuacoatl are not limited to the manuscripts we propose to name after them; neither are the references to offerings or death. And, in fact, all these codices were in the possession of diviners, or tonalpouhque. We feel it is imperative, however, to start using names that conform more strongly to the character of the documents and bring us closer to crucial aspects of the Mesoamerican worldview.
ÑUU DZAUI HISTORIOGRAPHY
The precise provenance of the historical codices is usually easier to identify, as they contain place signs and other geographic features. Here we will focus on the few spectacular Ñuu Dzaui pictorial manuscripts that survived colonization. In combination with a few early colonial documents, they constitute a specific, coherent corpus that informs us about the history and ideology of those who ruled Ñuu Dzaui, the Mixtec people and their region, in the centuries before the Spanish invasion. Most of these manuscripts are no longer in their region of origin but have been dispersed among different libraries and museums in Europe and the United States. The most important pictorial books in an entirely precolonial style are:
• Codex Yuta Tnoho, originally from Ñuu Tnoo (Tilantongo), now in Vienna and formerly referred to as Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I. The two sides are distinguished as “obverse” and “reverse.”
• Codex Ñuu Tnoo–Ndisi Nuu (Bodley), originally from Ñuu Tnoo, now in Oxford.
• Codex Tonindeye (Zouche-Nuttall), originally from Chiyo Cahnu (Teozacualco), now in London.
• Codex Añute (Selden), originally from Añute (Jaltepec), now in Oxford.
• Codex Iya Nacuaa (Colombino-Becker I), probably from Yucu Dzaa (Tututepec); now one part (Colombino / Nacuaa I) is in Mexico City and another (Becker I / Nacuaa II) is in Vienna.18
This core group is amplified by codices from Ñuu Naha (San Pedro Cántaros), Yodzo Yaha (Tecomaxtlahuaca), Ñuu Ñaña (Cuyotepeji), a roll dealing with the dynasties of Yucu Yusi (Acatlan) and Toavui (Chila) but found in Yucu Nindavua (Huamelulpan), and lienzos from various villages, such as Yucu Nama (Amoltepec) and Yucu Satuta (Zacatepec). An important related corpus is the group of lienzos from towns in the Coixtlahuaca Valley.
Historical events were dated in cycles of 52 “solar years.” Each year (xihuitl in Nahuatl; cuiya in Dzaha Dzaui) consisted of 365 days. This periodization was made within a continuous sequence of cycles of 260 days (tonalpohualli). A specific day, the “year bearer,” gave its name to the year. It is a topic of debate whether this was the first day, the last day, or the 360th day of that year, but the distance between the year bearers was constant (364 days). In Ñuu Dzaui codices the year is marked with a special sign that resembles a bound or chained sunbeam but seems to have developed out of a diadem. Given the combination of 13 numbers with 20 signs, mathematics dictates the structure of the larger periods in the Mesoamerican calendar. When solar years of 365 days are counted, only 4 of the 20 day signs can occupy the position of year bearer. The reason is that when 365 is divided by 20 (the cycle of day signs), there is a remainder of 5; consequently, the next period is initiated by another sign, 5 positions further. The year count in use during the Postclassic in most of Mesoamerica consisted of Reed (XIII), Flint (XVIII), House (III), and Rabbit (VIII), in that sequence. The associated number with each occurrence is different; because the division of 365 by 13 (the cycle of calendrical numbers) yields a remainder of 1, the number associated with the consecutive year bearer signs progresses one unit per year. This results in a “calendar round,” or a cycle of 52 (13 × 4) differently named years, designated with the Nahuatl technical term xiuhmolpilli, “binding of years.” In the Ñuu Dzaui chronology the sequence starts with 1 Reed (year 1) and ends with 13 Rabbit (year 52).
1.2. Sign of the year bearer.
The time on which the native sources focus spans the six centuries before the Spanish conquest, that is, the Postclassic era (± A.D. 900–1521), a period during which Ñuu Dzaui civilization flourished. The pictorial manuscripts are our richest source of information about the ancient culture and history. Archaeology in the region is still very limited; it is expected that future projects will considerably enrich our knowledge.
Very few Spanish authors have written about this region during the colonial period. The most eloquent of these is a seventeenth-century Baroque historian of the Catholic missions in Oaxaca, the Dominican Fray Francisco de Burgoa. His works, the Palestra Historial and especially the Geográfica Descripción, originally printed in 1674, were meant as eulogies of the “servants of Our Lord” but included many valuable references to the indigenous culture and history. From Burgoa’s missionary perspective, the ancient Ñuu Dzaui histories were “barbaric superstitions” and “fantasies taught by Lucifer” (Burgoa 1934a: 210; 1934b I: 288).
Earlier and more neutral in style, but brief and limited in their contents, are the Relaciones Geográficas of 1580, the answers to a questionnaire sent to local authorities to obtain information for the Spanish administration (Acuña 1984, I & II). These documents often include valuable details and maps (Mundy 1996), but several important ones have been lost. Based on these sources, the official chronicler of the Crown, Antonio de Herrera, included a first synthesis of Ñuu Dzaui customs in his magnum opus Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra firme del Mar Océano (1947). A unique text is the synthesis by the Dominican friar Gregorio García (1607) of an ancient sacred book about the beginning of time and history according to the Ñuu Dzaui cosmovision. We can also learn a great deal about the early colonial situation from the legal acts and other notarial documents preserved in the Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico City), the Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla), the Archivo del Juzgado de Tepozcolula (Oaxaca), and some local archives.19
With the introduction of alphabetic writing and the development of colonial society, the pictorial manuscripts and ways to read them were forgotten. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century did scholars start to search for the ancient books and for clues to decipher them. Local historians in Oaxaca, such as Manuel Martínez Gracida, Mariano López Ruiz, and Abraham Castellanos—the latter two belonging to the Ñuu Dzaui people—made important contributions in this respect. Documenting and evoking the past, they tried to strengthen historical consciousness and cultural identity. On the eve of the Mexican revolution, Castellanos’s El Rey Iukano y los Hombres del Oriente (1910) was a poetical and mystical reading of the Codex Iya Nacuaa and an emotional protest against the exploitation of Native American peoples.
At the same time, European and North American scholars, such as Eduard Seler and Zelia Nuttall, were debating where the codices came from and whether they dealt with astral religion or with history. Finally, in the 1940s the Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Caso, using the Map of Chiyo Cahnu (Teozacualco) as a Rosetta Stone, was able to identify the Ñuu Dzaui group of codices and to show that they dealt with the dynasties of Ñuu Tnoo and other states. Caso wrote fundamental commentaries on a number of pictorial manuscripts, such as the Codex Ñuu Tnoo–Ndisi Nuu (Bodley) and the Codex Añute (Selden), also producing a vast synthesis of their contents and an index of all personages (published posthumously in 1977–1979).
1.3. Map of Chiyo Cahnu (Teozacualco); drawing by Frans Schoonens.
From the 1970s onward, several investigators have carried on Caso’s work—clarifying problems, correcting earlier misunderstandings, and proposing new ideas by combining the information in the codices with other data from archaeology, history, and oral traditions. We want to mention the monograph on place signs by Mary Elizabeth Smith (1973a), the commentary on Codex Iya Nacuaa (Colombino-Becker) by Nancy Troike (1974), the revision of Caso’s chronology by Emily Rabin (1979, 2004), and the study of symbolism by Jill Furst (1978). An innovative, often speculative, political-ideological analysis was developed by Bruce Byland and John Pohl (1994), who carried out archaeological surveys in the Ñuu Tnoo area. Several identifications of place signs in the codices as sites in their survey area are questionable, but research should definitely move forward in this interdisciplinary way.
Building on this earlier research, we try to connect the pictorial manuscripts to the cultural tradition that produced them and to the language in which they were conceived. After a series of detailed studies of individual codices, we present here a synthetic reading and overall interpretive vision that inevitably still has many hypothetical aspects but aims to transmit something of the grand narrative that permeates this unique corpus of epic historiography.
DYNASTIC DISCOURSE
The study of Dzaha Dzaui is essential for understanding the literary genre to which the codices belong and its conventions. In trying to “read” the images in the terms of the original language, one finds not only literary forms but also specific concepts. Although pictography is not a register of a spoken text but rather a direct codification of data in images, it frequently expresses itself in the same way the language does, especially in figures of speech. The term “mat and throne” is a good illustration of a common Mesoamerican figure of speech, the hendiadys, called difrasismo in the Mexican literature, that is, the expression of one concept through two parallel elements. We also find it represented in pictography: a lord or lady seated on a throne and a mat, generally in combination with a toponym, meaning he or she became the ruler of that place. The difrasismo for the community itself was “water and mountain” (yucu nduta in Dzaha Dzaui; in atl in tepetl in Nahuatl), referring originally to the ecological niche in which the human population lived.
Just like persons, each yuvui tayu had its “calendar name,” a sacred date conceived as a founding date.20 It probably functioned as a base date for determining public ceremonies. The connection of peer polities with such dates situated them within a network of spatial-temporal relationships, creating a large-scale ceremonial cycle over the region, similar in function to the cycle of markets. The Christian correlate is the feast day of the Patron Saint.
The historical record usually starts with the yuvui tayu and its sacred date, then the Founding Couple and their descendants, whose births, marriage, and different activities can be dated as well. There is no consistent pattern; however, the painters seem to have been primarily interested in genealogical relationships and specific activities, such as conquests. Those elements had implications for the inheritance and tribute rights of the descendant at the end of the lineage, for whom the manuscript was made. Given such a context, many dates were likely recorded more for their symbolic, ideological value than out of a preoccupation with chronology. The dates anchor a cyclical view of time that is focused on the repetition of seasons, connected to the changing places of sunrise and sunset.
Although cyclical and linear views of time are not mutually exclusive and do not constitute a radical opposition (cyclical time is also conceived of as proceeding forward, and linear time is known to have rituals and commemorations that return in a cyclical manner), their implications for worldviews are quite distinct.21 The linear time view of the Christian tradition is eschato-logical, that is, focused on a final judgment, and thus is apt to promote—at least ideally—an awareness of moral good and wrong, of sins one should avoid to escape punishment. On a similar level of abstraction, the cyclical time view of Mesoamerica is ecological, focused on the cycles of Nature, and it produces another form of responsibility: respect for the natural powers, an awareness that the human being is weak, irrelevant in the great cosmic scheme, and should be prepared for disasters with an attitude of perseverance and resignation. Although the community is the permanent locale of history, pictorial writing registers and commemorates events by depicting individuals engaged in certain actions. The focus on the community thus shifts to highlighting specific persons, the rulers of the village-states, as the protagonists of Ñuu Dzaui history. The traditional “Western” individualistic perspective reinforces this tendency in modern interpretations.
Colonial documents inform us about their titles: Iya and Iyadzehe, “Lord” and “Lady.” When comparing this with other contexts and with present-day usage of these terms, it becomes immediately clear that there is an association with sacred, divine character. Today, these words are used for the divine powers of Christianity, especially the Saints and the Virgin. According to the dialectal variants, Iya is also pronounced ihya, iha, or yaa. In the traditional worldview this title can be applied to the venerated beings of Nature. In Ñuu Ndeya (Chalcatongo) today, Iha Nuni is “Lord Maize,” often equated with Jesus Christ, and Iha Ndikandii, “Lord Sun,” is “God the Father” (“Padre Eterno”). This is important for a clear understanding of the stories told by these manuscripts. Far from being just particular individuals, marked as male or female, the protagonists are personages of high, nearly divine status who still have influence and should be respected. Often they are thoughtlessly described as an “elite.” It is problematic, however, to what extent this term, with its specific meaning and associations in present-day society, can be projected back to the precolonial (pre-capitalist and preindustrial) world. The protagonists of the pictorial manuscripts are comparable to the biblical figures of Christian cosmovision. Their history, just like the accounts of Homer or the Bible, is not just a register of events pertaining to an elite; it has first and foremost a moral, symbolic character and, as such, forms part of the shared convictions of a community. The ruling families were participating in communal life and were connected with their people in a relationship of tribute and reciprocity. The ancient heroes are emblematic of the communal history; the defunct Iya have become one with the landscape.
When we talk about kings and queens, we should keep in mind the present-day concept of authority in indigenous communities: it defines the respect people have for the responsibility of office holders, not for those individuals themselves as members of a “class.” We therefore think that in the precolonial period it was not so much the individual rulers who were shrouded in sacredness but their hereditary offices, or cargos. It was the seating on the mat and throne of their Predecessors that gave the Iya their special status. To be successful, that is, to cultivate the prestige and power bestowed upon them, the living Iya had to take into account existing networks of loyalties and use the available political strategies. Obviously, those who had inherited such respectful positions could easily try to manipulate them to their personal benefit, selfishly enjoying their privileges and abusing their power. A strong ethic of communal responsibility was developed and expressed in flowery speech at many ceremonial occasions to avoid that danger.
The names of the rulers tell us a great deal about the values associated with their personalities. In addition to the calendar name (equivalent to the present-day Saint’s name), each individual had a given name, which the child received at age seven when taken to the temple for an ear-piercing ritual (Herrera 1947, decade XIII, book XIII: ch. 12). This was also the age at which priests initiated their service in the temple.
The Ladies are characterized as flowers (ita), jewels (dzeque, yusi), precious birds (tedzaa ndodzo, “quetzal bird”), large feathers (yodzo), butterflies (tecuvua), fans (huichi), and delicate cobwebs (nduvua), in combination with adjectives and nouns that refer to colors, the sky, and other elements of beauty and brilliance. Several names contain the triangular woman’s garment, or quechquemitl. In Dzaha Dzaui this is read as dzico, a word that designates not only that type of dress but also the concepts of nobility, beauty, honor, bravery, fame, virtue, and authority. When dzico occurs in the name of a man, it is represented by the xicolli-tunic, also called dzico in Dzaha Dzaui.
One of Ñuu Dzaui’s most famous women had such a name: Lady 6 Monkey, “Serpent Quechquemitl.” As the serpent in her name has a tail of quetzal feathers, generally read as yodzo (“plumes”) or ndodzo (“quetzal”), we can reconstruct her given name as Dzico Coo Yodzo or Dzico Coo Ndodzo, meaning “Virtue or Power of the Plumed Serpent.” Later, after she had been successful in an armed conflict, she received a new name: “War Quechquemitl,” that is, Dzico Yecu, “Famous Through War.”
1.4. Calendar name and given name: Lady 6 Monkey ‘Quechquemitl (Virtue / Power) of the Plumed Serpent’ (Codex Añute, 8-III).
A similar name element, both in form and significance, is the skirt. Actually, the border or fringe of the skirt seems to be intended: huatu in Dzaha Dzaui, a word that also means well, grace, nice, happy, and content. As an alternative this term could be rendered as a woman’s braids (also huatu in Dzaha Dzaui). Together, huatu and dzico form a difrasismo, used in colonial times to translate into Dhaza Dzaui the Catholic concept “glory of the saints” (sa dzico, sa cuvui huatu ini, “gloria de los santos”).
Signs of strength and courage characterize the names of the Lords: jaguar (cuiñe, ñaña), eagle (yaha), hummingbird (tedzaa ndeyoho), rain (dzavui), sun (ndicandii), fire serpent or lightning ball (yahui), in combination with war (yecu), blood (neñe), fire (ñuhu), and similar terms. Several of these names obviously have a connotation in the sphere of the nahuales: the name expresses the power of the animal or being that was the “alter ego” of the person in question. The yahui is the “fire serpent,” painted as a red serpent with an upward-curled snout, a body covered by a tortoise shell, and a tail of pointed scales. Alvarado translates yahui as “wizard that flies through the sky.” The term clearly corresponds to the present-day concept of the fireball, a very powerful nahual.22
A special category of given names is one that includes references to places or peoples. Thus we find Ladies called Yusi Ñuu Dzaui, “Jewel of the People of the Rain,” or Yusi Ñuu Cohyo, “Jewel of the Toltecs.”23 A brief examination of the names of male rulers and princes shows that many contain connotations of or direct references to war, bravery, and bloodshed. Also, names that include wild animals with claws transmit the notion of a strong nahual with power over life and death.
1.5a. Lord 8 Deer ‘Jaguar Claw’ as warrior (Codex Tonindeye, 43).
1.5b. Priest of Death (or Ancestor Cult) in a xicolli or tunic (Codex Ñuu Tnoo–Ndisi Nuu, 28-V).
In this context, the title of the ruler, generally translated as “king,” toniñe, can be understood as “noble lord (toho) of blood (neñe).” Possibly this term points to his original function as warlord, which later may have been enriched with other connotations such as “person who does the bloodletting (performs self-sacrifice) for the community” and “person of noble blood.”24 In fact, several of the names that contain “blood” and are now interpreted as “bloody” may actually refer to this title.
The distinctive attribute of high status is an ornament of quetzal feathers, generally located in the headdress. In itself it can be read as toho, “noble lord, respected person, principal.”25 Today the great kings of antiquity are known as ndodzo (ndoso or ndodo according to the different dialects), a word that refers both to the position of a leader (being in front or on top) and to the quetzal bird. This association confirms the reading of quetzal feathers as a sign of nobility and rulership. The man with quetzal feathers can be tay ndodzo, “valiant warrior” or “leader” (Alvarado).26
The nahualistic connotations of the names of male rulers not only emphasize their strength and bravery but also fit well the widespread idea that the nahual animals function as protectors of the community. Their religious charisma was enhanced by the fact that part of their preparation as future rulers was to serve as priests for one year.
A constant element in the discourse of a ruling couple is the manifestation and legitimation of their power; political realities or projects are related explicitly to the generally accepted cosmology and value system. This is not just a monologue but an interaction with other powerful individuals (e.g., lineage heads) and the people at large. The archaeological study of state formation suggests that at a certain phase in history, hereditary leaders, adding military prowess to their traditional religious power, took permanent control over the small states as rulers and tribute receivers, supported by a growing bureaucracy and, in general, economic specialization and social stratigraphy. Large-scale ruins are indicative of a hierarchical structure based on tribute of goods and services, as well as the symbolic construction of a community through collective self-expression. Where ecological, economic, and technological factors set the scene for the possible formation and growth of the village-state, ideology and ritual had to provide the inspiration for the internal cohesion and identity of the community, the fundament for the legitimacy of the leadership, and often the engine for expansion and development.
One of the central themes in the sources is the ideology of the historical personages who commissioned these documents. That ideology needed to be communicated in permanent visual messages and to be expressed in ritual enactments that obliged all participants to manifest their acceptance of the canon and allegiance to the power structure based on it (cf. Rappaport 1999: ch. 4). Like the iconography and architecture of monumental centers such as Teotihuacan, Monte Albán, Tikal, Palenque, Tula, and Chichén Itzá, the codices and lienzos functioned in a performative context and expressed the interaction between communities and their rulers. It is important to identify their ideological character and see how it was produced through a specific historical and social context. Both in Mesoamerica and in the Caribbean region,
The centralized authority of the hereditary paramount caciques was legitimized by their presumed descent from mythical ruling ancestors. . . . Through ritual, paramount caciques enjoyed privileged access to their divine ancestors, who interceded with supreme supernatural forces on their behalf. Since the ancestors of caciques were closely identified with the supernatural forces, they were revered by means of elaborate rituals that were performed in the inner sanctum of temples as well as in public ceremonies. . . .
These native rulers were entitled to other privileges befitting their high rank—special insignia, dress, diet, residence, forms of transportation, and a bevy of wives. In view of their privileged access to esoteric knowledge and their ritual interaction with supernatural forces, caciques were considered semi-divine themselves. (Redmond & Spencer 1994: 218)
For the rulers of the Mesoamerican village-states, the combination of military success and religious activities was crucial. The principle of legitimation for rulers was to put themselves in an axial position within the cosmos and derive their strength from the Other World of Gods, Ancestors, and forces of Nature. This is seen most clearly in Maya sites where numerous reliefs eternalize the rulers, engaged in ritual celebrations at key positions in time and space. Both in Ñuu Dzaui and in Maya iconography it can be shown that the ancestors of the rulers, the founders of the noble houses, were deified, and, as such, they became one with the powers of Nature. In their direct connection to those ancestors, in their fasting and visionary experiences, their transformation as nahual animals, and their symbolic identification with Patron Deities, the kings and queens acted on behalf of the entire community. The evoked charismatic power was used in a social context of shared values and was combined with the key concept of reciprocity:
While the divinity of the ruler and of the high nobility gave ideological satisfaction to members of the dominant strata, it was the reasons for this divinity—that they were charged by the gods to be benevolent towards their subjects—that would have had more appeal for the subordinate classes. . . . Just as the gods worked on behalf of humans, generously maintaining the natural order, so humans had to provide nourishment for the gods. As a generous and benevolent king ruled on behalf of his people, so the people ought to repay him with their loyalty and obedience. Class relations can thus be viewed as an exchange. (Hicks, in Claessen & Oosten 1996: 271)27
1.6. Toltec ruler Quetzalcoatl, seated on a nahual throne, according to Duran.
The idea of a covenant with the powers of Nature was the basis for offering the first harvested products and the life force of hunted animals to the Gods. This age-old practice, then, was translated into a militaristic ideology of sacrificing defeated and captured enemy warriors to the Patron Deities to guarantee the continuous existence of the world order and the realm. It was a matter of reciprocity: the Gods lent power to the rulers in exchange for demonstrations of their prowess and piety. As the rulers nurtured the people, the people had to nurture them with life force and devotion. The rulers were locked in a cycle of bloodletting and other ritual obligations, which reminded them of their modest human condition.
Just as religious convictions determined social ethos and the way Native Americans behaved toward Nature, ideology provided the frame for the recording and interpretation of history itself. Emblematic for the communities, the ruler, as both commander of the armies and supreme mediator with the Gods, both warrior and nahual-priest, became the focal point of history. We see this reflected in the archetypical king of the archetypical civilized kingdom: Quetzalcoatl of Tollan.