SACRED GEOGRAPHY IN THE NOCHIXTLAN VALLEY

• Published in: Ancient Mesoamerica 2012-04, Vol.23 (1), p.25-45
• Main Author: Hamann, Byron Ellsworth
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 16th century; American civilisations; Art and archaeology; Central Mexico; Document analysis, computing, mathematics; Generalities; Geography; Idolatry; Land; Landscape; Landscape architecture; Methods; Methods of observation; Mexico; Mexico and Central America civilisations; Nochixtlan Valley; Research principies; Sacred; Space; Synthesis; Typology and technology; Valleys
• ISSN: 0956-5361; 1469-1787
• DOI: 10.1017/S0956536112000028

The pages of the Mixtec screenfolds are painted with hundreds of place signs. Only a handful have been linked to specific locations on the ground. In this essay, I propose identifications for seven place signs which appear on pages 4 to 1 of theCodex Viennaand page 3 of theCodex Nuttall. I draw on five types of sources: testimonies from the 1544–1547 Yanhuitlan idolatry investigation, the pictorial records of the Mixtec screenfolds themselves, the findings from a FAMSI-funded study of colonial and independence-era land records, previous archaeological surveys, and on-the-ground reconnaissance. By considering the sequential relations of place signs painted in the Mixtec screenfolds, the spatial connections of geographic features visible today (features whose names and recent history are recorded in archival land records), and the sacred connections revealed by the actions of nobles and religious specialists in the Yanhuitlan idolatry investigation, strong proposals for the identification of particular place signs can be made. In turn, these identifications have broader implications for understanding colonial transformations of space. Over the course of the sixteenth century, sprawling pre-Hispanic polities were atomized. The land documents their leaders then created mapped out visions of political space that were far more circumscribed than those we see in pre-Hispanic books, and indeed in alphabetic documents—such as the Yanhuitlan idolatry investigation—that date to the first half of the sixteenth century. This suggests that different types of research methods are needed for studying landscape representations created before and after the middle of the sixteenth century. Las páginas de los códices mixtecos contienen cientos de glifos que hacen referencia a lugares. Sólo unos pocos de estos signos han sido descifrados. Una de las dificultades con la interpretación de estos topónimos es la incertidumbre sobre la escala geográfica de los códices. ¿Son historias pan-mexicanas, que van desde Teotihuacan hasta Chichen Itza? ¿O son historias mucho más locales, centradas en zonas específicas de la Mixteca? Este ensayo intenta resolver un aspecto de la escala geográfica de los códices mixtecos. El hilo conductor de mi análisis es el proceso inquisitorial contra tres nobles indígenas del pueblo de Yanhuitlan entre 1544 y 1547. Estos documentos hablan de la geografía sagrada del Valle de Nochixtlan en la primera mitad del siglo XVI. También nombran seis dioses y dios