Abstract
Traditions of human sacrifice among the peoples of the Northern Mixteca survived the Spanish Conquest. The Postclassic period’s emphasis on warrior patron deities and militarism found new venues for expression and identity within the rich repertoire of Christian imagery with its martyrdom of saints. Christianity succeeded because the individuals who introduced it manifested spiritual and material superiority and power indicative of their god’s omnipotence. By presenting the challenges and suffering encountered in daily living as necessary for achieving salvation, indigenous ideas of an afterlife were augmented because the Spanish negotiated with their god and the saints as avatars. The natives were overwhelmed by Spanish technology: wooden houses that floated on water (ships), huge animals that carried and obeyed the commands of their masters, animals that could be raised for food, impervious metal skin and terrible weapons that spat fire. Although the new god shared some roles that were familiar to the Indians, his greatness was made manifest in the greater powers exhibited by the faithful who served him.The ideas related to human sacrifice were readily understood because the Indian gods, like Christ, also died and were resurrected. Invoking Christ’s Passion and death during Mass aligned with indigenous beliefs in divine intervention and hence, were linked to propitiatory rituals aimed at alleviating life’s hardships resulting from recurrent drought, food scarcity, excessive tribute and labor demands, disease, and death. Through their calendarized feast days, Christ and the saints supplanted the ancient gods as guarantors of sustenance. As in pre-Hispanic times, the nobility continued to oversee the ritual life of their subjects. To maintain their highly visible roles and social position as leaders in their community, the elite first had to divulge aspects of the ancestral beliefs to the Spanish. They also needed to merge aspects of ritual life, in the context of the new religion, to perpetuate their ascendancy. The introduction of livestock transformed traditional agriculturalists into pastoralists aligning them more closely with Biblical lifeways and the ideology of Christian sacrifice. While sheep and goats were a valuable source of food in this drought prone area and a convenient substitute for human beings as offerings, they satisfied the central themes related to subsistence and obligatory reciprocity. The elites who controlled the mercantile economy and much of the livestock continued to patronize artisans to produce ornaments for the churches and provide materials required by the liturgy. To this day, they organize and subsidize expenses for feasts honoring the patron saints, encouraging participation in holy festivities to promote social cohesion.
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Notes
- 1.
The Mixteca Poblana is the area of the Mixteca within the modern state of Puebla, that was comprised of a number of realms stretching along a corridor from the East Puebla Basin to the Tehuacan Valley, from Itzocan (sic Izúcar or Segura de la Frontera) in the west, eastward to Tepexi, Cuauhtinchan, Tepeaca, Tecamachalco, Tehuacan, and Coxcatlan (see Fig. 4.2 in this volume).
- 2.
- 3.
The Storm God’s four aspects or identities are related to certain activities he personified reflecting the quadripartite organization of the cosmos, its associated trees and colors with each cardinal direction (Nielsen and Helmke 2017: 138–143).
- 4.
It may be that the heads symbolize beheaded ancestral individuals whose blood has been spilled and are ritually sown as seeds.
- 5.
The account written in 1995 by Mr. Juan Cruz, San Miguel Tequixtepec’s local historian, was published in Romero Frizzi (1996: 171). In other areas of the Mixteca these stone heads are regarded as people from a primordial time turned into stone by the rising sun (Byland and Pohl 1994: 114, 118–119, Fig. 51).
- 6.
The general use of the Spanish term “gentiles” in Southern Puebla and Northern Oaxaca refers to the people who died prior to the arrival of the Christian faith. Xantil is the Nahuatl rendition of this Spanish word used in reference to both the departed gentiles and saints and applied specifically to a broad class of votive ceramic anthropomorphic figures used as censers that represent deities.
- 7.
Hemorrhagic fevers were reported as the cause of death, a disease the natives called “cocolistle.” It is probable that a combination of etiological agents caused the population to collapse. Two primary suspects have been proposed: a Hanta virus transmitted by rodents especially after a period of drought followed by high rainfall as reported for 1545 (Acuna-Soto et al. 2002, 2004), or by Salmonella enterica, a bacterium that causes typhoid and paratyphoid as studies conducted on skeletons from neighboring Teposcolula suggest (Vågene et al. 2018).
- 8.
Ocelot is the Nahuatl word for the great feline more commonly known as “jaguar,” derived from Tupí-Guaraní languages of Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil via the Portuguese. Yaguara in Guaraní, means “the beast that kills with one leap.”
- 9.
A remarkable court case of 1552–1557 the Northern Basin of Mexico captures the fear natives felt towards the nobility because of their ability to transform themselves into predator nahuales (animal doubles). Judge Maldonado, a noble appointed by the Real Audiencia to look into a case of abuse and corruption was himself accused of the same by the plaintiffs. He threatened to devour and consume them by transforming and awakening the lion (cougar), tiger (ocelot), and snake forms that he would turn himself into (Archivo General de la Nación-México, painting #1799, Tierras 2719, exp. 8; Brotherston and Gallegos 1988; Ruíz Medrano 2008: 461, 2011: 40–41).
- 10.
The Nguiwa, the original inhabitants supplanted by the Nahua, spoke a tonal language probably harder to understand and learn than Nahuatl for speakers of nontonal European languages.
- 11.
Additional characteristics of Indo-European societies that seem to parallel the indigenous culture of the Northern Mixteca include: “the individual as the basic unit of society, recognition of three social classes, a pantheon of deities ruling human fates, but amenable to petition”; … . high tolerance for risk natural and social, and for violence; “an ethos of ostentatious generosity because wealth is fragile” (Kehoe 2018: 11–12).
- 12.
According to the on-line Merriam Webster Dictionary, a cofradía is a group or organization of Roman Catholic laymen in Mexico and Central America responsible for the material care of religious images, pilgrimages, and ceremonies. Among its obligations, was the celebration of the patron saint’s feasts. Mayordomías substituted cofradías in the eighteenth century (Mendoza García 2011: 169–173). A feast sponsor, known as a mayordomo, was usually someone who had made a promise to repay a saint or the Virgin for a favor or miracle granted.
- 13.
- 14.
This document and other primary sources mentioned in the text are listed under the section of Primary Sources in Chap. 4 of this volume.
- 15.
Several art historians have provided interpretations of the iconographic elements of the decorated frieze of the open-air chapel of Coixtlahuaca include Toussaint (1931: 184) heads of dragons and pelicans, McAndrew (1965
: 490) dragons and pelicans associated with Quetzalcoatl, an idea shared in part by Müllen (1994: 94), who instead of gentle pelicans sees pagan eagles. Vences Vidal (2000: 101, 203) refers to the serpents as dolphins and as dolphin-serpents.
- 16.
Though consistently misspelled, the letters INRI stand for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Judem in Latin which was the sign placed at the top of the cross on which Christ was crucified. The letter “N” is also reversed.
- 17.
My interpretation was based on a photograph in which Christ’s head appeared skull-like. A set of photos taken with a more powerful telephoto lens in 2013 provides a better understanding of the image which portrays a bearded man in profile.
- 18.
Müllen (1994: 110) likened the representation to a Mixtec codex.
- 19.
In the Coixtlahuaca Basin and its immediate vicinity there are three villages named after Saint Michael (Tequixtepec, Tulancingo, and Aztatla), four named after St. James (Santiago; Ihuitlan, Tepetlapa, Teotongo, Apoala). The villages closest to Torrecillas, the primordial place where the Earth was tethered at Creation and ancestral Mountain of Sustenance, are Tepelmeme, Concepción Buenavista, and San Antonio Nguicutnáa (Acutla). The former was named after Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominican order whose priests were in charge of converting the natives. The latter was named for the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, commonly confused with the conception and virgin birth of Jesus. San Antonio Abad lived as a hermit in the wilderness and was subjected to supernatural temptation. Concepción was founded by the inhabitants of Dagazee, a barrio of Coixtlahuaca who migrated northward and settled there. The migration is depicted with footprints leading from Coixtlahuaca to Tepelmeme and Concepción on the painted map in Fig. 33 of Chap. 4 in this volume (see also Rincón Mautner 2012a: 263–265, Fig. 4g).
- 20.
According to Doesburg and Swanton (2008), this manuscript is a translation of a Doctrina Cristiana en Lengua Mixteca.
- 21.
Reports of colonial period sacrifices lack references to the careful observance of liturgical preparation and subsequent distribution of the victim’s body parts for consumption giving the reader the impression that these were conducted in a rush. For a contrast during the pre-Hispanic period, see Declerq (2020).
- 22.
Doesburg (2002: 54–55, 68, 74) published a transcription of documents including a letter written by Francisco Gutierrez alerting authorities on the practice of idolatries which came to light because of a rift between two brothers, who had been Coixtlahuaca’s regent rulers. These noblemen were responsible for the loss of two hamlets that had belonged to Coixtlahuaca’s royal patrimony. During the dispute over the hamlets involving Tequixtepec, Tamazulapan, and Coixtlahuaca, Gutierrez acted as a scribe to which Coixtlahuaca objected, accusing him of bias and prejudice.
- 23.
The anonymously published transcript of a “fragment” of the process, was reported in the Boletín del Archivo General de la Nación México 1934, as a bunch of loose-leaf pages, placed in the year 1546 which coincides with the disruption caused by the dispute between Coixtlahuaca, Tequixtepec, and Tamazulapan rulers over possession of certain estancias (hamlets) where flocks of sheep and goats were kept. The fragment was subsequently classified as Inquisition vol. 37, exp.11 bis. It seems likely that because of the controversial and delicate nature of the subject matter regarding anthropophagy, the manuscript was published anonymously.
- 24.
From Nahuatl temazcal-a-ten-go < temazcal(li), sweat bath; a(tl)-ten, water’s edge; −co place. That is, “Place at the Edge of the Water of the Sweat Bath” and “Ribera del Río Temazcal” in Spanish. Karttunen (1983: 13) lists “aten-tli, edge of a body of water; ribera de río o de mar.”
- 25.
From Nahuatl temazcal-apan < temazcal(li), sweat bath; −a(tl) water; −pan place. That is, Temazcal River.
- 26.
In describing the cardiectomy procedures used in ritual sacrifice Robicsek and Hales (1984: 80–82) mention colonial period sources for the Maya area that indicate that the left anterior thoracotomy, an intercostal approach, was commonly used as the quickest and simplest way to access the heart. Recent research suggests that the heart extraction from below the ribcage through the diaphragm was the easiest, more customary approach among Classic period Maya (see Tiesler and Cucina, 2006, 2007). More recently, evidence for an intercostal approach between two ribs on the left side of the chest has been validated (Tiesler and Olivier 2020: Table 1).
- 27.
Document 51 (AAT-23) in the archive of the village of San Miguel Tequixtepec transcribed by van Doesburg (2002: 241–291).
- 28.
The letter in the archive of the village of San Miguel Tequixtepec, catalogued as Document 53 (AAT-42), was transcribed and translated from Nahuatl to Spanish by van Doesburg (2002: 293–300).
- 29.
The 1572 Lienzo of Tlapiltepec also portrays Lord 3 Dog as a conqueror with his spouse within a bounded area corresponding to Tequixtepec (Rincón Mautner 1999: 475, Fig. 98). He may have had a legitimate claim to this property because his father, Lord 5 Rabbit, in second nuptials, had married his mother, Lady 6 Rain, a noble woman from Tequixtepec.
- 30.
Document 11 (AAT-180) in the village archive of Tequixtepec, transcribed by van Doesburg (2002: 134).
- 31.
Indigenous rulers took advantage of the concession of land grants to expand their possessions and wealth. They had enough wealth to not only own large livestock herds, but to rent lands for grazing, especially those which were least productive, either because of the aridity or because the hand labor had dwindled so dramatically that growing crops was increasingly a difficult and risky enterprise. Herding was so much more reliable than cultivation especially in the Mixteca, an area prone to frequent drought, crop failure, resulting in famine.
- 32.
Votive offerings given by the faithful in fulfillment of a vow to a saint or divinity. They are objects that represent the acknowledgment that what a person requested was fulfilled by the supernatural.
- 33.
Black Christ images are associated with the earth and caves and by extension with rain (Josserand and Hopkins 2007).
- 34.
The original image of the Virgin of Candelaria is black and was found in a cave on Tenerife. In Mesoamerican context, these characteristics would suggest an identification with the Earth Goddess (see note 32). Coincidentally, the candle is reminiscent of the fire lighting ritual on the summit of Ndaga.
- 35.
Tradition regarding town foundations resulting from the excessive weight of the divine patron image being carried has been documented by the author for Concepción Buenavista, and Tepelmeme. According to the legend recorded by Barabas (2006: 203), the image of the Virgin and Child venerated in Nativitas, south of Coixtlahuaca, first appeared to a shepherd girl on the “Llano de la Virgen” (Meadow of the Virgin). News of Our Lady’s miracles reached Coixtlahuaca’s mestizos, who went looking for her. She would make herself invisible or too heavy to lift. She only allowed those from Nativitas to carry her to the new church where she is venerated to this day. A similar story is told about the Lord of the Three Falls, who first appeared in Puebla (Barabas 2006: 203). People from different towns came to carry the image back with them, but it was too heavy. Nobody it seemed would be able to take it or care for it until the natives of Santa María Ixcatlan showed up. They transported the image back to their village sheltering it in a large, especially built church where each year pilgrims from all over the state seek out the benefit of its miracles.
- 36.
Account compiled by Dan Yael Cabrera in 2016, and broadcast on Oaxaca Paranormal, a radio program in August 2019. Translated by author.
- 37.
The most abundant evidence of individual sacrificial ritual behavior is the presence of obsidian blade fragments. It was customary to use the blades and maguey spines as bloodletters in auto sacrifice (Acosta 1978: 44). While maguey thorns could be obtained locally, obsidian, for which there was much demand was supplied via trade networks: green obsidian from the Cerro de las Navajas near Pachuca, Hidalgo, and gray to transparent obsidian from the area of the Pico de Orizaba (Citlaltepetl).
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Acknowledgments
This essay is dedicated to the memory of Ruth Gubler and Josefina Salazar. In the process of completing this essay, I learned of the spread of Covid-19 throughout communities in the Northern Mixteca, and that my dear friend, Gustavo Salazar, and his family were stricken. His wife Josefina is gone, while he and his daughter recovered. The Salazar’s have been my adopted family for close to 40 years of visiting Coixtlahuaca; always opening their home and hearts with joy. I am deeply saddened by so much suffering and loss of life. I am forever in debt for their generous support through the years. I am also grateful for having so many people contribute to the success of this essay. Special thanks to Rubén Mendoza, Linda Hansen, Osiel Villegas Clemente, Felix Reyes Gómez, Galileo Cruz Sánchez, H. Daniel Santiago Reyes, José R. Martínez, Diana Cruz Clemente, David García Martínez, Ruth Gubler, Martha Ehrlich, Robert H. Jackson, Yunuen Maldonado Dorantes, Juan Hernández (current President of the Comité del Señor del Desmayo “Peregrino”), Manuel Sierra, Nick Hopkins, James “Barry” Kiracofe, Carl Johnson, Nahúm Guzmán, and Dan Yael Cabrera.
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Rincón Mautner, C. (2024). Indigenous Sacrifice in the Christian Language Among the Communities of the Northern Mixteca of Oaxaca, Mexico. 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_13
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