Codex
(screenfold manuscript book) comprising 47 leaves, made of deer skin,
painted. Contains two narratives: one side of the document relates the
history of important centres in the Mixtec region, while the other,
starting at the opposite end, records the genealogy, marriages and
political and military feats of the Mixtec ruler, Eight Deer
Jaguar-Claw.
Cultures/periods
Mixtec(The
Mixtec culture, originally called Ñuu Dzavui (‘the Nation of Rain’), is
one of the important pre-colonial cultures of Mesoamerica. This term is
made up of Ñuu, ‘people’, ‘country’ or ‘nation’, and Dzavui, which is
the name of the God Rain. In Spanish the town is also designated as
‘Mixtec’, using a loan from the Mexica language (Nauatl), which referred
to this population as Mixtec, ‘inhabitants of the Place of the Clouds’)
The
Mixtec civilization is famous for its ancient pictographic books
(codices), which tells the story of the dynasties that ruled the various
city-states in Ñuu Dzavui, the Mixtec region, in southern Mexico
between the 10th and 16th centuries C.E. The Tonindeye (or
Zouche-Nuttall) codex, which comes from the kingdom of Teozacualco
(Chiyo Cahnu) is an example of those Mixtec
pictorial manuscripts and contains a wealth of historical information,
including the biography of the great ruler Iya Nacuaa 'Teyusi Ñaña'
(Lord 8 Deer 'Jaguar Claw'), who was born on June 21, 1064 C.E.
The
Santo Domingo Centre for Excellence in Latin American Research
(SDCELAR) project: 'Ancient Writing, Contemporary Voices: Decolonising
the Mesoamerican Quincentenary' (2021) gathered a group of Indigenous
archaeologists to study Mesoamerican writing collections. Key
collaborators: Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez, Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen,
Omar Aguilar Sánchez.
References: Jansen, Maarten E.R.G.N. y
Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez. The Mixtec Pictorial Manuscripts. Time,
Agency and Memory in Ancient Mexico. Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2011 .
Aguilar
Sánchez, Omar. Ñuu Savi: Pasado, Presente y Futuro. Descolonización,
Continuidad Cultural y Re-apropiación de los Códices Mixtecos en el
Pueblo de la Lluvia. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2020.
Anders,
Ferdinand, Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen y Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez.
Crónica Mixteca: El rey 8 Venado, Garra de Jaguar, y la dinastía de
Teozacualco-Zaachila. Libro explicativo del llamado Códice
Zouche-Nuttall. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992 (b).
See also: Z.
Nuttall, Codex Nuttall: facsimile of an ancient Mexican codex belonging
to Lord Zouche of Harynworth, England (Cambridge, Mass., Peabody Museum
of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1902) E.H. Boone, Stories in red and black: pictorial histories of the Aztec and Mixtecs (Austin, University of Texas Press, 2000) G. Brotherstone, Painted books of Mexico (London, The British Museum Press, 1995) F.
Anders, M. Jansen and G. A. Pérez Jiménez, Códice Zouche-Nuttall,
facsimile with commentary and line drawing (Madrid, Sociedad Estatal
Quinto Centenario; Graz, Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt; Mexico
City, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992)
McEwan 1994, p.62 <b>Codex Zouche-Nuttall</b> (Referring
to scene in AN00033073002) This is a scene from one of the rare
surviving examples of a Mixtec codex. Vivid, highly stylised
two-dimensional images painted upon deerskin record the dynastic
histories and oral traditions of ancient towns such as Tilantongo. A
central figure is the ruler 8 Deer, seen hee top
right gambling for the town of Tutupec, identified by its place glyph at
the bottom left. In the foreground is an I-shaped ball-court. The ball
game was used as a means of negotiating and resolving political and
territorial disputes.
<b> McEwan 2009, p.34
Scene
of a woman giving birth, Teozacoalco Annals (Zouche-Nuttall
Screenfold). Painted Deerskin, Mixtec, Mexico, 15th-16th century AD
</b>
The Teozacoalco Annals are one of a group of vividly
informative screenfolds from towns in the Mixteca region of western
Oaxaca. They record the genealogies of rival families
over many generations and illustrate the deeds of specific identified
by name glyphs, including Eight Deer Jaguar Claw who ruled in the 11th
century. Place-signs and day-signs provide the location and date for
many of the main episodes in the narrative such as births, succession to
office, marriages, war, conquests and deaths. The scene illustrated
in detail here shows Lady Five Flint, whose serpent insignia floats
behind her, giving birth to an heir, still attached by the umbilical
cord. This event takes place on the day Three Flint of the year Three
Flint, indicated by the glyphs beneath and at top left of the blue
roundel. She thendisappears head first into an opening - presumably a
cave - in the side of a mountain, identified by diagonal bands, with
four priests in attendance.
2012 28 March - 1 July, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Children of the Plumed Serpent 2012 29 July - 25 Nov, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Children of the Plumed Serpent 2017-2018 16 Sept-28 Jan, Los Angeles, J.Paul Getty Museum, Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas 2018 26 Feb- 28 May, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas
Associated Title: The Zouche-Nuttall Codex (Change
suggested by Jansen and Pérez Jiménez (2004). Jansen, Maarten E.R.G.N.
and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez, “Renaming the Mexican Códices.” Ancient
Mesoamerica 15 (2004): 267–271)
In
1859, the codex turned up in a Dominican monastery in Florence. Years
later, Sir Robert Curzon, 14th Baron Zouche (1810-73), loaned it to The
British Museum. His books and manuscripts were inherited by his sister,
who donated the Codex to the Museum in 1917.
Codex
(screenfold manuscript book) comprising 47 leaves, made of deer skin,
painted. Contains two narratives: one side of the document relates the
history of important centres in the Mixtec region, while the other,
starting at the opposite end, records the genealogy, marriages and
political and military feats of the Mixtec ruler, Eight Deer
Jaguar-Claw.
