To learn more about the structure of the Social Organization of the Mixtecos, We invite you to visit this interesting article and we will touch on the issues of culture and writing of this great ethnic group. Don't miss it, you will like it!
What was the Social Organization of the Mixtecs like?
The social organization of the members of this ethnic group was carried out through a system of hierarchies. These formed as a lineage that eventually came into conflict. This town is one of the most important in Mesoamerica; Its cultural depth and its persistence in history make it different.
The Mixtecs are the origins of many of the most important known pre-Hispanic codices in the indigenous history of America, before colonization. They are the largest city after the Nahuas, Mayas and Zapotecs. In their language, they were called Ñuu Savi, which in Spanish means "People of the rain".
The Mixtec civilization inhabited the territories of Mesoamerica for a period of more than 2000 years, between 1500 B.C. C. and the beginning of the XNUMXth century, when the Spanish conquest violently put an end to the continuity of these cultures.
Although they were a developing culture in terms of knowledge and the magnificent expression of their art, the Mixtecs were not a very organized people with respect to the establishment of their social classification and their political-territorial organization.
This indigenous group was no longer a nomadic people and began to settle in the territories that are now known as La Mixteca (Ñuu Dzahui, in ancient Mixtec), a mountainous region that includes the Mexican states. from Puebla, Oaxaca and Guerrero.
Then there were the landless Indians, the peasants, the farmers, the assistants or "terrazgueros" of the artisans, known as "tay situndayu".
There were also Mixtec serfs, who called themselves "tay sinoquachi" and, finally, there were Mixtec slaves, a group called "dahasaha".
Although during the pre-Hispanic period the Mixtecs were characterized by a strict hierarchy, the differences became visible during the development of the society.
This derives from sedentarization and the birth of political, historical, economic and cultural processes that have occurred since the XNUMXth century.
Characteristics of the social organization of the Mixtecs
There was no possibility of social advancement: The possibility of promoting social status did not exist. Marriages between the "dzayya and the ya" implied that their group would be preserved as long as they reproduced.
At one point, they practiced inbreeding to accomplish this, leading to a much stronger kingdom and alliances, which increased social inequalities.
Free people lived in cities: Free people were often city dwellers. They recruited farm workers and allowed them, depending on their work, to improve their quality of life.
The same was not true for servants and slaves, who were doomed to be from another kingdom, since they almost always came from captures in battles against other peoples. The Tay Ñuu, as free people, had their will, their property and what they produced on their property. Another group, called the terrazgos, was made up of people who had lost power over the product of their efforts, as they had to pay homage to the nobles due to the war.
The «wildebeest» as a dominant group
Initially, the "yucuñudahui" replaced the "yucuita" as the dominant group. However, later the figure of the "ñuu" was established, which is known today as most Mixtec cities. The «wildebeest» focused on the structure of marriage, to establish stronger unions between them and develop a power that allowed them to fight against other neighboring cities, including the Mixtecs.
Political and economic aspects of social organization
Regarding their political organization, as mentioned above, the Mixtecs were not very organized. They did not have an "umbrella" government that would centralize their mandate and unify the Mixtec kingdoms. On the contrary, the Mixtec people were divided into many tribes that, on several occasions, had internal conflicts.
One of the main factors of its pre-Hispanic political system is related to the fragmentation of many states into small territories and the fact that they were often in conflict with each other.
As for its community infrastructure, it is structured (especially in Oaxaca) by groups called "tequios."
They are also hierarchically divided, much like the aforementioned social organization: first the rulers, then the nobility, and finally the farmers and slaves.
The Mixtec have a geography that is not very suitable for agriculture. The ancestors settled in a huge territory that included northwestern Oaxaca, the southern tip of the state of Puebla, and a part of the eastern state of Guerrero.
For this reason, the Mixtecs have developed irrigation systems and terraces for optimal conservation of their crops.
Culture
language and writing; With the arrival of the Spanish, the Mixtecs already spoke many varieties of the Mixtec language, already at that time with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility.
According to Spores (1967 and 2007) to the Preclassic, the language spoken in the region was the Protomixtecan language, from which not only all Mixtec languages are known today, but also Triqui, spoken by members of the homonymous people in the southern part. of the Mixteca Alta.
The degrees of divergence between the many current Mixtec languages are the product of the history of their speakers: for example, according to analysis of the separation of two languages that come from a common one.
The coastal variety of Mixtecs separated from the nuclear Mixtec of the highlands around the XNUMXth or XNUMXth century of the Christian Era, which coincides with the late colonization of the Costa Chica by the Mixtecs.
The Dominican friars in charge of the evangelization of Oaxaca established for the first time a phonetic script of the Mixtec language. The brothers Antonio de los Reyes and Francisco de Alvarado are responsible for writing the first grammar in the language spoken in the Mixteca Alta at the time of the conquest.
The variety collected by the friars seems to correspond to the one used in Yucundaa (Teposcolula), which could have served as a lingua franca in the region. The spelling of the Teposcolula variety was later adapted to write the Mixtec language, whose name at the time of the conquest was dzaha dzahui.
Like other Mesoamerican peoples, the Mixtecs also cultivated literary forms. They had pictographic writings, of which pre-Hispanic testimonies such as Nuttall (Tonindeye), Selden, Vindobonensis, Becker I and Colombian codices are preserved.
With the exception of the latter, which is located in Mexico, the rest of the pre-Columbian codices created by the Mixtecs that survived the destruction can be found in museums and libraries in Europe.
These codices served as mnemonic devices, so that the paintings that appear on their pages could be translated into oral text by someone who knows the keys to interpret them.
Writing Instruments
Like almost all Mesoamerican societies, the Mixtecs developed a writing system. The first indications of the use of writing in the Mixtec area correspond to the Upper Mixtec, the Late Preclassic (XNUMXth century BC-XNUMXst century AD).
In Huamelulpan, lintels with calendrical inscriptions have been located that could be the names of some rulers of the ancient Mixtec city. However, these inscriptions are made in the Zapotec writing system.
The Classic also led to the development of the ñuiñe script, although its similarity to the Zapotec script of Monte Albán complicates the identification of its distribution area.
Towards the beginning of the Postclassic (XNUMXth century) the so-called Mixtec script appears, which is part of a broader stylistic trend called the Mixteca-Puebla style or the Mesoamerican International Postclassic style.
This writing is mainly pictographic, although there are some hieroglyphic and ideographic elements that complement it. Mixtec writing has served as a channel to preserve the beliefs of this city and certain aspects of its history.
Alfonso Caso owes the demonstration of the Mixtec paternity of the codices that today are part of the so-called Mixtec group, attributed for a long time to the Mexicas or the Mayans.