Pre Columbian Manifestations in Contemporary Mixtec Society

3500 Years of Culture...

The Mixtec, or Ñuú Savi, culture of Oaxaca, Mexico, is one of the richest in Mesoamerica; yet it's one of the least understood. The Mixtec region is home to over a thousand sites, with 300,000 descendants still living in the area (Edinger, pg. 44), and 1/3 of the population still speaking the language. However, their culture has drastically changed over the past 500 years since the Spanish conquest. But, how?

This project aimed to showcase the rich culture of the Mixtec people and how they have preserved it for future generations.

Jesse Juárez

AP Capstone Diploma Candidate, Class of 2025

Problem Statement

Mesoamerican cultures are slowly losing their cultural heritage

Significance

The Mixtec people are one of the largest groups of indigenous people in the Americas, and as of 2020, they had 530,000 native speakers. This large group of people

Research Question

How has Mixtec pottery changed since pre-Columbian times?

Definitions

Mixtec ( derived from the Nahuatl word, in Mixtec Ñuú Savi): A group of Middle American Indians living in the modern states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Puebla, and parts of the southwestern United States (due to immigration).

Mixtec: Ñuú Savi - "people of the rain"

Ñuu Savi - "the land of the rain"

Nahuatl: Mixtecah - "cloud people"

Spanish: Mixtecos - Mixtecs

Depiction of Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, a Mixtec cacique, in the Codex Tonindeye

Hypothesis & Assumptions

If I can draw a correlation between contemporary Mixtec pottery styles and their uses, then I can show that the Mixtec culture has/has not preserved its culture because the uses/styles will/will not be the same.

Method

A semi-semiotic approach with a regional archeo/anthropological analysis

Map of Oaxacan Cultures

Oaxaca has the highest concentration of Indigenous people in Mexico and one of the highest concentrations of Indigenous people globally; here, we can see the distribution of its Indigenous cultures across the state, with a high concentration of Mixtecs living in the western part of the state.

Mixtec Bowl (c. 600 - 1400 CE)

A Mixtec bowl with Dzahui (Wind/Rain God) iconography. Bowls like these were commonly created to detail the history of the Mixtec people or to symbolize important deities like Dzahui. This pattern is common in many other forms of Mixtec pottery, clothing, and architecture in both the pre-Hispanic and modern era.

Collection of Jesse Juárez (author), provenance before 1973

Mixtec Urn, depicting Dzahui (c. 100 BCE - 200 CE)

Urns were important in pre-Columbian Mixtec culture, as they connected Mixtecs from the material world to their ancestors and gods. This urn depicts the god of thunder and rain, Dzahui.

Dzahui was a central god in Mixtec society, as their entire livelihood revolved around agriculture, and rain was an essential part of it. The Oaxacan landscape is stormy, as the Mixtecs call themselves the people of the rain (see definitions above), and the rainy seasons provide water for irrigation. Because of this, worship of Dzahui was imperative for the livelihood of the Mixtec people, and motifs and depictions of Dzahui can be found scattered across Oaxaca and the rest of Mesoamerica.

Description: Urn depicting Dzahui

Culture: Mixtec

Era: C. 100 BCE - 200 CE

Location: Huamelulpam, Oaxaca, México

Pre Columbian Manifestations in Contemporary Mixtec Ceramics (2).pdf

Report abuse