The mythological origin of the Mixtecs

The mythological origin of the Mixtecs

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Before talking about Mythological origin of the Mixtecs, we must basically know who they were. By Mixtec civilization we understand the pre-Hispanic culture that emerged in the Middle Preclassic and that ended with the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

However, archaeological remains have been found long before these dates and even the first cultivations date back to 5000 BC. It occupied the area known as "The Mixteca", Called" Mixtecapan "by the Mexica, a region located between the current states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Puebla, in Mexico, and means in Nahuatl "Country of the rain."

The mixtec culture It is one of the most extensive in Mesoamerica, beginning as a consequence of the diversification of the Ottoman-speaking peoples and from the moment of their sedentarization, mainly with the cultivation of corn.

The mythological origin of the Mixtecs

Like other Mesoamerican mythologies such as the Mexica or the Mayans, Mixtec belief was that it was lived in the "era of the Fifth Sun", which means within the Mesoamerican worldview, that there have been five stages of the Earth since its creation.

In all of them, the earth goes through a series of destructions and creations where each time is ruled by a new Sun.

According to him creation mythAt the beginning it was chaos on Earth, where the spirits of the creative forces flew around. The cosmogonic beginning is governed, as in the Mexican or Mayan myths, by duality.

The creators were two, One Jaguar Deer-Snake Y One Puma Deer-Snake, and they were responsible for separating the light from the darkness, the water from the earth, the above from the below, and for having their first four children, who would later be the creator gods.

One of them was Nine Wind (also one of the names of the Feathered Serpent), who made a hole in the Apoala tree and maintained relations with it, resulting in the birth of the first Mixtecs and among them, the first man, Dzahuindanda, the main protagonist of Myth of the Sun Arrow.

The myth of the Sun Arrow

This myth tells how Dzahuindanda attacked the Sun with his arrows and the Sun in turn, with his rays. At dusk, the sun, mortally wounded (staining the horizon red), hid in the mountains and to prevent his return and claim his territories, Dzahuindanda brought others to settle in that territory.

In this way, when the sun was reborn the next day, it was not possible for him to expel the people from that territory, being the moment in which men took the right to take over the region by divine mandate.

Another variant of the Mixtec creation myth

Exists another variant of the Mixtec creation myth where two giant trees in a cave in Apoala, loved each other so much that their branches intertwined and their roots joined. From this love the first Mixtec man and woman were born.

Over the years and several generations, the city ​​of Achiutla, place where he was born Tzauindanda.

At one point, the creation grew so large that they needed more land to live, and Tzauindanda promised that he would go out to conquer those they needed, facing whoever was necessary to obtain them.

As the days went by, he spotted some “fresh and beautiful” lands, a place where he stayed until he began to feel that the sun's rays were like arrows piercing him, causing him more heat and thirst.

At that moment, Tzauindanda understood that the Sun was the owner of those landsIn order to defeat him, he began to attack him with his arrows in a battle that lasted until sunset, where he saw that the sun was getting weaker and the horizon was dyed red, until he hid behind the mountains, badly wounded.

Video: Mixtec Writing Introduction