Abstract
Ritualized violence in the Late Postclassic Northern Mixteca of Oaxaca is explored via artifacts, pictograms, and field identifications of landforms within the territory of the highland seigneury of Coixtlahuaca. The landforms, believed to have been the place where the gods convened and then sacrificed themselves, are depicted on colonial period painted maps and described in documents written in alphabetic script. Several ancient cosmogonic myths were projected onto the landscape of the Coixtlahuaca Basin and memorialized through the production of luxury material artifacts. Rulers and other high-status nobles, entrusted with maintaining sacred traditions and receptive to messages from the sacred sphere, patronized local artisans to produce works that perpetuated the memory of these creation narratives. Replicated in different media and codified as having occurred within the bounds of the seigneury’s lands, these artifacts exalt the supreme sacrifice of the patron deities described in the narratives. They provide tangible evidence of events that took place in primeval times around which a bonding, religious understanding, devotion, and sense of identity for this area’s inhabitants developed. Reciprocating the sacrifice of the patron gods, humans were sacrificed during the observance of feasts cued to the agricultural cycle and warfare. The underlying structure of the relationship with the sacred reveals a concern with war and human sacrifice borne of a long-standing obligatory tradition of ritual petitioning and invocation of sacred forces consonant with the wider Mesoamerican worldview. Blood-letting rituals were aimed at maintaining balance and assurance that sustenance would be provided for and properly reciprocated. This treatment advances an enriched perspective that emerges by contextualizing the origin myths within the frameworks of regional archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnographic accounts.
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Notes
- 1.
These spirit owners of places live there in subterranean houses, protecting them. In Ñudzahui (Mixteco) they are called ñu’u or nu ñu un meaning the “face of the earth” they are distinguished by the sounds they make (Monaghan 1995: 98–104). The association of deity, hill or cave, and settlement is widespread throughout the Mixteca and Tehuacan Valley with supernatural power concentrated on promontory features with springs (Bernal García and García Zambrano, 2006; Ravicz and Kimball Romney 1969: 394; Stone 1992). The inhabitants of San Juan Yolotepec and Chinango, communities located north of Huajuapan de León in the Mixteca Baja, refer to the tupa or “spirit of the mountain” (González Huerta 2003). This particular supernatural inhabits caves in hills. An especially powerful hill may have more than one tupa. No one created this entity, which has always been there. It can show up as a man, a woman, an animal, or a stone. It can appear at any time and any place but never descends upon settlements. It may share its power with some humans, and it may hurt them, but does not kill them. Those who venerate it petition its favor by requesting rain in times of drought, healing the sick, or even wealth.
- 2.
The riparian vegetation in the area is a gallery forest consisting primarily of Bald cypress (Taxodium mucronatum), sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), and willow (Salix sp.). Sometimes alder (Alnus sp.) and sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) are present. These species produce a pleasant scent. Perfume, especially from flowers, was associated with the nobility since it was their privilege to carry nosegays in public. In contrast, common folk who were farmers smelled of earth and perspiration.
- 3.
From the Latin word sacrificium, a composite term from the roots sacer meaning sacred and facere, to make, that is “to transform into sacred.” The German word opfer, offering, complements the meaning (González Torres 1985:25).
- 4.
The Nahuatl noun for bloodletting autosacrifice by piercing or cutting some part of the body as an offering to the images of the gods is nextlahualli: “sacrificio de sangre, que ofrecían a los ydolos, sajándose u horadando alguna parte del cuerpo” (Molina 1992 [2]: f. 71v). It is a noun derived from the verb ixtlahua: “pagar lo que se debe” that translates as “to pay what is owed” (Molina 1992 [2]: f. 48v).
- 5.
A symbol is a device that allows humans to make abstractions for nonverbal transmission of information. Symbols serve as instruments of communication, expression, knowledge, and control (Firth 1984: 26–27).
- 6.
Aposematic from the Greek apo “away” and sema “sign.” A conspicuous warning signal in biological taxa, such as vivid coloration, that identifies menacing creatures and communicates the unprofitability of a prey to potential predators.
- 7.
“Those known for their bravery and daring wore an ocelot’s pelt [sic jaguar] that had been skinned completely, head, legs, paws and tail, and its head was placed on the that of the Indian and the tail hanging behind. And this meant, that just as the ocelot is fierce and offends by tearing to pieces, he who wore it was to do the same; the same applied to those who wore mountain lion pelts… ..And they would paint themselves with different colors, and they regarded black as the fiercest, and they would stain their faces and eyes, and their whole bodies, so that they looked like the demon himself, And that is how some go out to dances, so common today, which they regard as bravery… . They would tie their hair behind and others in front and they would dress so they were very ugly, all to look like the demon whom they loved and with whom they communicated” (Suárez de Peralta 1990: 58–59, translated by the author).
- 8.
Insight as to how rulers were perceived can be found in the response to the question of how the natives were governed in the Relación Geográfica of Tecomahuaca (Velázquez de Lara 1984: 240). “El gobernador era siempre señor natural, y éste era obedecido mucho y temido. Tenía otros coadjutores a quienes respetaban mucho…”. Translation: “The ruler was a natural lord who was well obeyed and feared. He had other assistant enforcers who were very respected… .”
- 9.
Nahual is the name given to an entity who can introduce one of its souls into another being and act within it, as well as to the one that suffers the invasion (López Austin 1990: 199, note, 13).
- 10.
Sounds and music produce emotional responses based on culturally generated associations (Berger 1989: 28). Sounds may mimic what is being represented by acting as the aural equivalent of icons, offering cues to an enculturated collective by accentuating the effect of what is being witnessed, creating memories that serve to guide and visualize the progression of a ritual ceremony or feast.
- 11.
The Christian Calendar was similarly structured as a succession of holy days and feasts to be observed and celebrated.
- 12.
- 13.
Pages 12 and 20 present individuals that wear headdresses like those worn by the Rain God priests (tlaloque) and mortuary bundles on the Selden Roll and Lienzo of Ihuitlan (Rincón Mautner 2012a: 266, 268, Fig. 13.5A&B). These are among the pages that Cassidy (2004: 82, 125,127) established which had been partially or completely repainted, which suggests perhaps a rescripting and adaptation to circumstances.
- 14.
Indurated C-horizon of the soil profile formed by the accumulation of calcium carbonate. It can be easily cut and hardens when exposed to air and is often used in constructions in the Mixteca.
- 15.
Bones are seeds from which new life springs. In Mexico and Guatemala, the Spanish word for pit (a large seed) is “hueso,” meaning bone (Furst 1978: 318).
- 16.
Maize cobs are metaphorically beheaded in the field at the end of the growing season. Prior to harvest, farmers bend the stem leaving cobs attached and dangling from the stalk, i.e., “broken necks”. This practice allows cobs to dry out faster, protecting the grain against excess humidity from dew and rainfall. Pulque on the other hand continues to be offered in at the time of planting as a sacrifice to the Earth and Rain gods responsible for fertility and plant development to ensure a bountiful harvest. Pulque is poured into the center of the first cajete or “bowl” made in the field before the maize seeds are sown. Prayers are offered to the spirit owners of the field requesting their permission, to the earth, the wind, and God Almighty. Men participating in the sowing also drink pulque and other libations as they move across the fields to complete their commitment to this duty.
- 17.
In the context of this creation myth, it seems helpful to follow López Austin’s (1990: 198–203) ideas who proposed that there were two groups of gods that divided the universe and furthermore links creation to the death of the very gods who had participated in it. He also addresses several key Mesoamerican concepts related to the divisibility, fragmentation, and uniting of divine energy: i.e., fusion, fission, replication, and images, aspects that also apply and help understand the symbolic nature of human sacrifice.
- 18.
Tezcatlipoca also known as Titlacahuan, “… .it was said, was the creator of heaven and earth, and was all powerful. It was he who gave the living all that was necessary in terms of food, drink and riches. He was invisible as air and darkness, and when he made his appearance or spoke to a man, he was like a shadow. And it was said that he gave the living poverty and misery, and incurable diseases… .” (Sahagún 1989: vol., 1, Book III, Chapter 11: 206–207).
- 19.
A stone statue of Mictlantecuhtli, god of death, was also worshipped in the ceremonial precinct at this site. Another stone sculpture of an anthropomorphic torso wearing flayed skin indicates that Xipe Totec was also celebrated (INAH 2019). Interestingly, Tehuacan would become one of the principal locations for the yearly slaughter, butchering, and processing of thousands of goats beginning in colonial times and as will be discussed below, a tradition with religious connotations that continues to this day (see Chapter “The Myth of the Willing Human Sacrifice: The Complex Nature of Human Sacrifice in Aztec Ceremonialism”).
- 20.
The Rain God was known by several names including Dzahui (Mixteco), Cociyo (Zapotec), and Tlaloc (Nahuatl). The latter is a plural name derived from the qualifying adjective meaning “full of earth, covered with earth, or made of earth” (Sullivan 1974). The deity lived in the earth. His houses were caves, landform features abundant in the karst geology of the Southern Mexican Highlands.
- 21.
The “assistants” were other earth deities known as the Tlaloque (plural of Tlaloc) or gods of rain associated with the Earth Goddess upon whom she depended for her fertility (Sullivan 1965: 43, note 6).
- 22.
The carved femur was found in the 1960s and retrieved from this cave’s floor near the western access. The distal and proximal ends of the bone were cut off, and the body was decorated by incising elaborate imagery related to the role of the Colossal Bridge in the Creation narrative with a very fine-edged tool, such as an obsidian blade. It is housed in the collections of the Frissell Museum in Mitla, Oaxaca.
- 23.
Instead of human hearts decorating the western cave access, Burland (1955: 24–25) saw flowers which he considered to be a reference to the goddess Xochiquetzal (7-Flower), and to the legendary Chicomoztoc or Place of Seven Caves, a place of origins. Other scholars (Caso 1979: I: 119–120; Boone 2000: 153) agree with his Chicomoztoc interpretation.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
The distinct depiction of these Late Postclassic serpents suggests opposition and complementarity.
- 28.
Santa María Asunción Nochixtlán is a town on the Pan-American Highway, 40 km south of San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca, Oaxaca, Mexico. Whether this polychrome tripod vessel was found in Nochixtlan is debatable (Paddock, 1994: 102–103). Given the nature of its subject matter representing Coixtlahuaca’s patron deities before the entrance to the Colossal Bridge, it would have had the most meaning for the nobility from Coixtlahuaca. Eulalia Guzmán (1934: 31–32) visited the ruins and reported seeing no polychrome sherds. Mickey Lind is the only archaeologist who excavated the Pueblo Viejo of Nochixtlan (N428) and in its N205 sector. Among the ceramics, he only found Yanhuitlan Fine Cream and Cacique Burnished, but no polychrome (Lind, personal email communication, August, 16, 2017, 9:59 PM). It therefore seems more likely that the vase was looted from a tomb in Coixtlahuaca in the late nineteenth century and taken to Nochixtlan, which at the time had a good deal more traffic than Coixtlahuaca, and where it would have been more easily sold.
- 29.
- 30.
Olivier (personal communication, February 2020, Olivier 1998) considers this representation of Tezcatlipoca as Tepeyollotli offering tobacco which he carries in a gourd characteristic of priests. Interestingly, López Austin (2001) considers the figures on this vessel as two aspects of the Plumed Serpent. Furthermore, Olivier’s (2015b) proposal of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca as twin brothers has echoes in an origin legend recorded by a priest in Cuilapan in, 1607 (García, 1981). It involves two supernatural brothers who shared Quetzalcoatl’s calendar name 9 Wind. Although unnamed in Codex Vindobonensis Obverse p. 48c, they are both depicted in the story as an eagle and fire serpent to each side of Quetzalcoatl in his descent from heaven. Furst (1978: 60–62, 106) discusses parallels between the Cuilapan legend and this codex, and she did not identify these individuals shown as the brothers described in the story. They appear to be aspects of Quetzalcoatl’s name 9 Wind (Nicholson 2001:146–147). Both gods and the brothers were known to be shape-shifters, magically transforming into serpents and other manifestations, performing bloodletting sacrifices, and ultimately establishing the earth. Living up to their shared “wind” name they are described as wind. Quetzalcoatl as day wind and Tezcatlipoca as the night wind. The wind reverses direction inside the Colossal Bridge where these gods were believed to dwell blowing from the east during the day and from the west at night (Rincón Mautner 2005a: 128).
- 31.
The hill’s name Ndaga, was obtained from a 1590 map that accompanied the land-grant request made to the Spanish Crown by Tepelmeme’s ruler who sought an area on which to keep a herd of sheep and goats (Archivo General de la Nación-México, Tierras vol., 2729, exp.5, f.117, Painting # 2225). As late as, 1617, the same lord again requested a land grant in this shrine’s vicinity, for which he submitted another map depicting it, which underscores the close relationship between nobles and powerful places where the gods were consulted (Rincón Mautner 2012a: 262–266).
- 32.
- 33.
Burland (1955: 25) described the mountain as the Place of Xochiquetzal, a deity that is one of the advocations of the Mother Goddess Complex. In turn, I identified the representation as the Earth Goddess and, based on her depiction in the Roll, provided alternative names in Nahuatl since her Nguigua and Ñudzahui names are unknown (Rincón Mautner 2007: 158, 2012a: 260).
- 34.
The Late Postclassic ceremonial Atlatl #2 (Rincón Mautner 2019), the Lienzo of Coixtlahuaca I (Seler II (n.d.) and Lienzo of Tlapiltepec (n.d.) painted in 1572, the Lienzo of Tepelmeme (ex-Tequixtepec II, and the early, seventeenth century Codex Baranda (1989) from Tequixtepec refer to the same priests identified by their calendar names: 10 House, 13 Lizard, 4 Monkey, and 9 Vulture.
- 35.
The above ideas related to the significance of the calendrics were first pointed out to me by Osvaldo Murillo Soto (personal communication 05/26/2020), who in addition mentioned a similar propitious ritual protocol showing the lighting of the New Fire on the back of a xiuhcoatl associated with “1 Cipactli” depicted in Codex Borgia (1976: 49), as armed deities descend from the sky.
- 36.
Many scholars consider the New Fire ceremony to be an exceptional event that marks the beginning of a new 52-year cycle. Dehouve (2018) and Olivier (2008: 278) have pointed out that there were many different types of New Fire ceremonies celebrated for different reasons, all of which varied in time and place. Fire was generally regarded as a supernatural that marked the passage of time. A fire was lit if it had gone out during the night, and “reanimated” each day in every hearth across the land. For Dehouve, every ritual begins with fire-lighting, the first ceremonial act of a ritual sequence, which entails blood-letting sacrifice and other penitential mortifications including fasting, sleep deprivation, and sexual abstinence.
- 37.
These thrones were not the result of systematic excavation, there is no record indicating in which building(s) they were found, or even whether they are contemporaneous with each other. Personal communication Luis M. Gamboa Cabezas, researcher in charge of cultural assets at Tula, September 2007.
- 38.
The Anales de Cuauhtitlan (Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas 1975: 52) cites the years 4 House and 5 Rabbit, equivalent to 1445 or 1446, as the dates when Moctecuhzoma’s troops prepared to conquer Coixtlahuaca. The Lienzo of Tlapiltepec (n.d.) and the Lienzo of Ihuitlan (n.d.) present a date each associated with Lord 6-Water Atonaltzin. I interpret these dates as related to the Mexica conquest, possibly following two battles in the year 7 House, Days 4 Motion, and 11 Grass which correspond to June and July 1461. The discrepancy in the dates reported in the Anales and those of the lienzos is of 15 years.
- 39.
In all likelihood, the Mexica-appointed ruler seems to have had a council composed of members of his ethnic group. I base this proposal because members of Coixtlahuaca’s 1571 governing council, portrayed on Lienzo Coixtlahuaca I (Seler II) in the area to the right of the church, all have Nahuatl personal names rather than the customary day sign and coefficient combination traditionally used in the area.
- 40.
While Durán (1994: 188) mentions that the monumental sacrificial stone called a cuauhxicalli portrayed carvings of the Aztec wars during Moctecuhzoma’s reign (1440–1469 CE) including the war with Coixtlahuaca, it is unlikely this would be the Tizoc Stone, which according to López Austin and López Luján (2012: 440) was carved during that subsequent lord’s reign (1481–1486 CE). It also lacks the depiction of Coixtlahuaca’s place sign mentioned by Durán and a reference to its famous ruler Atonaltzin, descendant of Toltecs.
- 41.
Muñoz Camargo (1984: 202–203) recorded the belief of this setting of mountains as gods in the sixteenth century for which scholars have revealed additional aspects of their nature and personalities (Iwaniszewski 2001: 113–147; Iwaniszewski and García 2001: 95–111; Morante López 2001; Montero García 2012; Saunders and Baquedano 2015: 1–6).
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Acknowledgments
This essay is dedicated to the memory of the great Mesoamerican scholar, Alfredo López Austin. Many people aided me in the process of developing this essay. My sincere thanks to members of the local Ayuntamientos of Tepelmeme and Coixtlahuaca, to my friends Gustavo Salazar and his late wife, Josefina, Dr. Edgar Mendoza, and Mrs. Elena Hernández, for the company in the field and generous hospitality in their homes. I am grateful for the valuable insights gained through discussions sustained with Ruth Gubler, Guilhem Olivier, Karen Bassie-Sweet, Michael Brose, Robert Cobean, Richard Diehl, Martha Ehrlich, Luis M. Gamboa Cabezas, Michael Lind, Nahúm Guzmán Nava, Nick Hopkins, Alfredo López Austin, Leonardo López Luján, Guido Krempel, Michael McGuirt, James B. Kiracofe, Carl Johnson, Johannes Neurath, and the late Barbara Price. Special thanks to Victor Manuel Pablo Martínez, David Smee, and Irvan Ramdani for the artwork they prepared to illustrate this essay. I am especially indebted to Computer Engineer Marcos García Yeh at CEPHCIS-UNAM, Mérida, for his help with the Mixtec Calendar-Julian Correlation Program.
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Mautner, C.R. (2024). Portals to the Gods: Reciprocity, Sacrifice, and Warfare in the Northern Mixteca. In: Mendoza, R.G., Hansen, L. (eds) Ritual Human Sacrifice in Mesoamerica. Conflict, Environment, and Social Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36600-0_4
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