In the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican world, histories and collections of ritual knowledge were often presented in the form of painted and folded books now known as codices, and the knowledge itself was encoded into pictographs. Eight codices have survived from the Mixtec peoples of ancient Oaxaca, Mexico; a part of one of them, the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, is the subject of this book. As a group, the Mixtec codices contain the longest detailed histories and royal genealogies known for any indigenous people in the western hemisphere. The Codex Zouche-Nuttall offers a unique window into how the Mixtecs themselves viewed their social and political cosmos without the bias of western European interpretation. At the same time, however, the complex calendrical information recorded in the Zouche-Nuttall has made it resistant to historical, chronological analysis, thereby rendering its narrative obscure.

In this pathfinding work, Robert Lloyd Williams presents a methodology for reading the Codex Zouche-Nuttall that unlocks its essentially linear historical chronology. Recognizing that the codex is a combination of history in the European sense and the timelessness of myth in the Native American sense, he brings to vivid life the history of Lord Eight Wind of Suchixtlan (AD 935-1027), a ruler with the attributes of both man and deity, as well as other heroic Oaxacan figures. Williams also provides context for the history of Lord Eight Wind through essays dealing with Mixtec ceremonial rites and social structure, drawn from information in five surviving Mixtec codices.

A pioneering interpretation of an ancient Mixtec painted book that offers a unique window into how the Mixtecs themselves viewed their social and political cosmos.

About the Author

Robert Lloyd Williams, a former student of renowned Mayanist Linda Schele, has studied the Mixtec codices since the 1980s and has taught courses relating to them since 1992. He is currently completing a Ph.D. in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Book Information
ISBN 9780292725737
Author Robert Lloyd Williams
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint University of Texas Press
Publisher University of Texas Press
Weight(grams) 340g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 18mm