Mixtek Ñuu Dzaui…

Several of the walls of the National Palace Gallery have been painted in indigo blue to receive Mixtek.  Ñuu Dzahui, Gentlemen of the rain, first magna galley dedicated to an ancient culture, whose geographical distribution extends beyond the high mountains of northern Oaxaca and its overcast skies that gave it its name, also covering the south of Puebla and the end East of Guerrero.

The Secretariats of Finance and Public Credit, through the headquarters, and Culture, through the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), co-organize this unprecedented exhibition, to which a variety of public and private institutions have joined, and even communities, in an eagerness for the “rain town,” Ñuu Dzahui, to reveal all its beauty and cultural heterogeneity, based on ancient testimonies and its contemporary artistic manifestations.

More than 500 works – which include lots of miniature objects – open the panorama of the ñuu savi, as they call themselves: archaeological pieces recovered from rich contexts such as Tomb 7 of Monte Albán and the burial of the “Lady of Yucundaa”, recreation  of a typical Mixtek house (built formerly by inhabitants of Tepelmeme Villa de Morelos), invaluable documents such as the San Vicente del Palmar Codex, handicrafts in various materials and even a collection of musical instruments.

Mixtek Ñuu Dzahui, Gentlemen of the rain “breaks with the schemes of a strictly archaeological exhibition, to propose a cultural sample of what the Mixtek are,” details the renowned archaeologist Nelly Robles García, researcher at INAH and coordinator of the curatorial script, have intervened a number of experts.

Under this premise, the exhibition that will remain until mid-2018 in the National Palace, part of the first villages organized a couple of centuries before our era;  until today, which also includes the assembly of a plastic sample of creators of Mixtek origin, with works by the renowned Rufino Tamayo and young artists such as José Luis García, who exhibits part of its high temperature ceramics.

The exhibition is divided into nine thematic nuclei: Mythical creation, Cosmogony, Archaeological Mixtek, Daily life (based on the explanation of the Mixtek house, where one is born, lives and dies), Postclassic manors, Alliances, The art of writing, The transition to the 16th century and today’s Mixtek.

Dr. Nelly Robles García tries to be brief in explaining the future of the Mixtek, but does not avoid the passionate tone when talking about her people.  She comments that the fact the Mixtek did not have large governing cities, perhaps “invisible” their significance has been in recent decades when there has been an “explosion” of archaeological initiatives in the Upper and Lower Mixtek, and the Oaxaca coast, as well as in the “Mixtek guerrerense and poblana.”

The record of several villages of Olmecoid influence, two millennia before Christ, points to the more remote antecedents of the “Mixtek”, among them is Etlatongo, near the town of Nochixtlán, Oaxaca. Sites like Monte Negro, near Tilantongo, located between 200 BC – 200 AD, and Yucuita and Huamelulpan, in the Mixtek Baja, to name a few, are considered among the first cities of this culture.

Although the Mixtek did not develop a central city, as the Zapotecs did with Monte Albán, their strategies via matrimonial alliances, inheritance and war expansion, allowed them to establish strong and autonomous manors.  After the arrival of the Spaniards, this bargaining power (the exchange currency was to allow evangelization) allowed them to maintain influence over their territories and their privileges, although epidemics decimated the indigenous population.

An example of the above was the discovery of the burial of the “Lady of Yucundaa”, whose importance is comparable to Tomb 7 of Monte Albán, says Nelly Robles.  The character was buried in the early colonial era (1522-1600) in the atrium of the church of the Old Town of Teposcolula or Yucundaa, but with a rich trousseau of pre-Hispanic tradition, composed of thousands of lapidary objects.  Both burial and trousseau are shown in Mixtek. Ñuu Dzahui, Gentlemen of the rain.

The museums of the Cultures of Oaxaca, Former Convent of Santo Domingo de Guzmán; the Regional of Cholula, Puebla; the National of Anthropology, the Regional of Huajuapan, and the ceramoteca of Cuilapan and the “Eduardo Noguera”, are some of the repositories that have lent part of their archaeological collection.

 Ornamental objects made of gold and silver, precious stones such as turquoise, obsidian, green stone and other materials found by Alfonso Caso in Tomb 7 of Monte Albán, in 1932 can be admired from the Museum of Cultures of Oaxaca.  turquoise mosaic, rock crystal cups and different pieces of goldsmith’s, including a mask representing the god Xipe-Tótec.

Thanks to the efforts of the Alfredo Harp Helú Foundation before the community of San Vicente del Palmar, in Tezoatlán de Segura and Luna, Oaxaca, it was possible to transfer the restored codex of that town to the National Palace.  The extensive document dating from the second half of the 16th century, is a cartography made on amate paper that shows the territorial boundaries of the Lower Mixtek and has glosses in pre-Hispanic writing.

Documents from the communities of San Miguel Tequixtepec, Santa María Zacatepec and Tepelmeme Villa de Morelos are also exhibited, as well as a facsimile of the Yanhuitlán Codex, the Map of Teozacoalco and various translations into the Mixtek language that refer to evangelizing work in the region.  In general, the documentary set demonstrates the change from painting to writing during the 16th century.

The curator Nelly Robles concludes that if something is clear in Mixtek.  Ñuu Dzahui, Gentlemen of the rain, is that this town has never lost its artistic skill, any material that passes through its hands is destined to become a work of art;  That is not to mention that their culture and all its manifestations, from the ability to trade to the ball game, go with them everywhere, because they are also known as “the people who always move.”

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