The Mixtecs Of Oaxaca

The Mixtec peoples were among the major original developers of Mesoamerican civilization. Centuries before the Spanish Conquest, they formed literate urban states and maintained a uniquely innovative technology and a flourishing economy. Today, thousands of Mixtecs still live in Oaxaca, in present-day southern Mexico, and thousands more have migrated to locations throughout Mexico, the United States, and Canada. In this comprehensive survey, Ronald Spores and Andrew K. Balkansky—both preeminent scholars of Mixtec civilization—synthesize a wealth of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data to trace the emergence and evolution of Mixtec civilization from the time of earliest human occupation to the present. The Mixtec region has been the focus of much recent archaeological and ethnohistorical activity. In this volume, Spores and Balkansky incorporate the latest available research to show that the Mixtecs, along with their neighbors the Valley and Sierra Zapotec, constitute one of the world’s most impressive civilizations, antecedent to—and equivalent to—those of the better-known Maya and Aztec. Employing what they refer to as a “convergent methodology,” the authors combine techniques and results of archaeology, ethnohistory, linguistics, biological anthropology, ethnology, and participant observation to offer abundant new insights on the Mixtecs’ multiple transformations over three millennia.

A history of the Mixtec Indians of southern Mexico, this book focuses on several dozen Mixtec communities in the region of Oaxaca during the period from about 1540 to 1750.

Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Chatinos: Ancient Peoples of Southern Mexico examines the origins, history, and interrelationships of the civilizations that arose and flourished in Oaxaca. Provides an up-to-date summary of the current state of research findings and archaeological evidence Uses contemporary social theory to address many key problems relating to archaeology of the Americas, including the dynamics of social life and the rise and fall of civilizations Adds clarity to ongoing debates over cultural change and interregional interactions in ancient Mesoamerican societies Supplemented with compelling illustrations, photographs, and line drawings of various archaeological sites and artifacts

Mixtec Evangelicals is a comparative ethnography of four Mixtec communities in Oaxaca, detailing the process by which economic migration and religious conversion combine to change the social and cultural makeup of predominantly folk-Catholic communities. The book describes the effects on the home communities of the Mixtecs who travel to northern Mexico and the United States in search of wage labor and return having converted from their rural Catholic roots to Evangelical Protestant religions. O’Connor identifies globalization as the root cause of this process. She demonstrates the ways that neoliberal policies have forced Mixtecs to migrate and how migration provides the contexts for conversion. Converts challenge the set of customs governing their Mixtec villages by refusing to participate in the Catholic ceremonies and social gatherings that are at the center of traditional village life. The home communities have responded in a number of ways—ranging from expulsion of converts to partial acceptance and adjustments within the village—depending on the circumstances of conversion and number of converts returning. Presenting data and case studies resulting from O’Connor’s ethnographic field research in Oaxaca and various migrant settlements in Mexico and the United States, Mixtec Evangelicals explores this phenomenon of globalization and observes how ancient communities are changed by their own emissaries to the outside world. Students and scholars of anthropology, Latin American studies, and religion will find much in this book to inform their understanding of globalization, modernity, indigeneity, and religious change.

This handbook surveys and describes the illustrated Mixtec manuscripts that survive in Europe, the United States and Mexico.

The Mixtec peoples were among the major original developers of Mesoamerican civilization. Centuries before the Spanish Conquest, they formed literate urban states and maintained a uniquely innovative technology and a flourishing economy. Today, thousands of Mixtecs still live in Oaxaca, in present-day southern Mexico, and thousands more have migrated to locations throughout Mexico, the United States, and Canada. In this comprehensive survey, Ronald Spores and Andrew K. Balkansky—both preeminent scholars of Mixtec civilization—synthesize a wealth of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data to trace the emergence and evolution of Mixtec civilization from the time of earliest human occupation to the present. The Mixtec region has been the focus of much recent archaeological and ethnohistorical activity. In this volume, Spores and Balkansky incorporate the latest available research to show that the Mixtecs, along with their neighbors the Valley and Sierra Zapotec, constitute one of the world’s most impressive civilizations, antecedent to—and equivalent to—those of the better-known Maya and Aztec. Employing what they refer to as a “convergent methodology,” the authors combine techniques and results of archaeology, ethnohistory, linguistics, biological anthropology, ethnology, and participant observation to offer abundant new insights on the Mixtecs’ multiple transformations over three millennia.

The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, the first of its kind, provides a current overview of recent research on the Aztec empire, the best documented prehispanic society in the Americas. Chapters span from the establishment of Aztec city-states to the encounter with the Spanish empire and the Colonial period that shaped the modern world. Articles in the Handbook take up new research trends and methodologies and current debates. The Handbook articles are divided into seven parts. Part I, Archaeology of the Aztecs, introduces the Aztecs, as well as Aztec studies today, including the recent practice of archaeology, ethnohistory, museum studies, and conservation. The articles in Part II, Historical Change, provide a long-term view of the Aztecs starting with important predecessors, the development of Aztec city-states and imperialism, and ending with a discussion of the encounter of the Aztec and Spanish empires. Articles also discuss Aztec notions of history, writing, and time. Part III, Landscapes and Places, describes the Aztec world in terms of its geography, ecology, and demography at varying scales from households to cities. Part IV, Economic and Social Relations in the Aztec Empire, discusses the ethnic complexity of the Aztec world and social and economic relations that have been a major focus of archaeology. Articles in Part V, Aztec Provinces, Friends, and Foes, focuses on the Aztec's dynamic relations with distant provinces, and empires and groups that resisted conquest, and even allied with the Spanish to overthrow the Aztec king. This is followed by Part VI, Ritual, Belief, and Religion, which examines the different beliefs and rituals that formed Aztec religion and their worldview, as well as the material culture of religious practice. The final section of the volume, Aztecs after the Conquest, carries the Aztecs through the post-conquest period, an increasingly important area of archaeological work, and considers the place of the Aztecs in the modern world.

Mesoamerican Voices, first published in 2006, presents a collection of indigenous-language writings from the colonial period, translated into English. The texts were written from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries by Nahuas from central Mexico, Mixtecs from Oaxaca, Maya from Yucatan, and other groups from Mexico and Guatemala. The volume gives college teachers and students access to important new sources for the history of Latin America and Native Americans. It is the first collection to present the translated writings of so many native groups and to address such a variety of topics, including conquest, government, land, household, society, gender, religion, writing, law, crime, and morality.

One of the earliest texts written in a Native American language, the Codex Sierra is a sixteenth-century book of accounts from Santa Catalina Texupan, a community in the Mixteca region of the modern state of Oaxaca. Kevin Terraciano’s transcription and translation, the first in more than a half century, combine with his deeply informed analysis to make this the most accurate, complete, and comprehensive English-language edition of this rare manuscript. The sixty-two-page manuscript, organized in parallel columns of Nahuatl alphabetic writing and hand-painted images, documents the expenditures and income of Texupan from 1550 to 1564. With the alphabetic column as a Rosetta stone for deciphering the phonetic glyphs, a picture emerges of indigenous pueblos taking part in the burgeoning Mexican silk industry—only to be buffeted by the opening of trade with China and the devastations of the great epidemics of the late 1500s. Terraciano uses a wide range of archival sources from the period to demonstrate how the community innovated and adapted to the challenges of the time, and how they were ultimately undermined by the actions and policies of colonial officials. The first known record of an indigenous population’s integration into the transatlantic economy, and of the impact of the transpacific trade on a lucrative industry in the region, the Codex Sierra provides a unique window on the world of the Mixteca less than a generation after the conquest—a view rendered all the more precise, clear, and coherent by this new translation and commentary.

Explores the culture and customs of the Mexican region of Oaxaca.