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THE CLOUD PEOPLEDivergent Evolution

of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations

EDITED BY

KENT V. FLANNERY and JOYCE MARCUS

University of Michigan Ann Arbor; Michigan

With a New Introduction by the Editors

PERCHERON PRESS A Division of Eliot Werner Publications, Inc.

Clinton Corners, New York

BIBLIOTECA LUIS GONZALEZLA PIEDAD, MICH

SECTION 8a The Buildup of Mixtee Power

TOPIC 70 The Origin and Evolution of the Mixtec System of Social Stratification1

RONALD SPORES

Social stratification, most scholars would agree, is a pri­mary attribute of states. Several students of political evolu­tion (e.g., Fried 1960,1967: 224—226,325; Dumond 1972; Lenski 1966:160,164—168,210—219) do, in fact, hold that one condition necessarily implies the other, that state orga­nization and social stratification go together. Fried (1967:235) goes so far as to claim that the state “ is a collec­tion of specialized institutions and agencies, some formal and others informal, that maintains an order of stratifica­tion.” It is, however, one thing to observe the coexistence of social stratification and the state, but quite another to dem­onstrate the relationship of certain social, political, and eco­nomic variables. Several descriptive, problem-oriented, and/ or comparative studies of the organization and/or develop­ment of specific states have been conducted in recent decades (Nadel 1942; M. G. Smith 1960; Skinner 1964; Fallers 1965; Lloyd 1965; Katz 1972). Additionally, a few an­thropologists have contributed theoretical statements relat­ing to the rise of the state as an evolutionary process (e.g., Fried 1960, 1967; Adams 1966; Sanders and Price 1968; Carneiro 1970; Service 1975) and on the variety, origins, and concomitants of social stratification (e.g., Sahlins 1958; Lenski 1966; Gould 1969; Harner 1970).

’I wish to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the. editors and cocontribu­tors to this volume and to Thomas Gregor and David J. Thomas who raised important questions and provided able criticism regarding the subjects treat­ed in this topic.

Despite obvious advances in analyzing, relating, and com­paring complex social and political systems, it is clear from recent studies that a satisfactory articulation of sociopoliti­cal theory and analyses of specific developments of class and state has yet to be achieved. Clearly, there is a need for better understanding of social stratification and the state in all areas of the world, Mesoamerica included; setting this as a desirable goal, I wish to consider the class structure of an­cient Mixtec society, to consider its political implications, and to grapple with the thorny problem of the origins of social stratification and the development of Mixtec states in western Oaxaca.

Development of social stratification and the state was nei­ther inevitable nor precluded by the relatively restrictive en­vironment of the Mixteca. Similar environments in other areas of Mesoamerica supported autonomous egalitarian communities (northeastern Oaxaca, Hidalgo—Tamauli- pas-northern Veracruz), a highly centralized “imperial” state (Tarascan Michoacan), as well as the system of interre­lated states in the Mixteca. No single valley or region of the Mixteca was capable of producing the massive surpluses usually associated with large-scale class and state systems in other parts of the world. Mixtec-speaking peoples did, how­ever, develop a social system that allowed effective integra­tion of localized clusters of communities and furnished mechanisms whereby territorial boundaries, distance, and even ethnic frontiers could be overridden. The formulation

of appropriate institutions made possible the adaptive radia­tion of Mixtec society through a system of social differentia­tion, marital alliance, a marketing network, conquest war­fare, concentration of decision-making power in the hands of an elite group capable of controlling natural and human productive resources and their allocation, and a supporting ideological system. Impressive cultural achievements were based on a technoenvironmental adaptation featuring a sim­ple agricultural and supplemental collecting pattern appro­priate to existence at the egalitarian village level or, with appropriate sociopolitical and economic mobilization of so­ciety, to the level of the state.

Sixteenth-century Spanish documentation, Prehispanic and Colonial manuscripts in native pictographic traditions, and modern anthropological studies often project a view of Mesoamerican societies as if they were composed primarily of elites. Texts more often than not refer to the deeds, tradi­tions, relations, and concerns of the aristocratic elements of native societies, and the Spanish administrative system tend­ed to favor the same groups, with the aristocracy being af­forded primary access to Spanish courts and offices.

The several studies of Mixtec society published as of this writing (Jiménez Moreno and Mateos Higuera 1940; Dahlgren 1954; Caso 1949,1960,1966; M. E. Smith 1963; Spores 1965,1967,1974a) have emphasized the ruling class and have devoted little attention to the overall structure of native society, to lower aristocratic class or group organiza­tion, or to interclass or intergroup relations. Aristocratic aspects of native life are, therefore, most easily extracted from the documentation. Perception of broader patterns of social relations requires considerably greater effort.

CLASS STRUCTURE

Concepts of social stratification permeated Mixtec soci­ety, regulating individual and group behavior and in­tergroup relations and figuring prominently in Mixtec ideology and political organization. It is therefore crucial to confront the problem of social stratification.

I have previously treated the concept and reality of Mixtec social stratification in terms of regulation of access to pro­ductive resources; differential privilege, duties, and obliga­tions; and contrasting behavioral complexes in marriage, residence, inheritance, ritual observance, language, and so on, but with particular reference to the royal class. Clearly, a more balanced treatment is required if we are to understand the phenomenon of social stratification and its relationship to environmental adaptation, economic institutions, oc­cupational specialization (or role differentiation), conquest, mobility, ideology, and the political implications of stratifi­cation and social mobility.

Class, social hierarchy, and social etiquette receive atten­tion in the chronicles of Herrera (1947:Dec. 3, lib. 3, caps. 12-13), Burgoa (1674:1, 376-396), the Relaciones Geo-

gráficas of 1579—1581 (Avendaño 1579; Eras 1579; Pacho 1581; RMEH 1:174-178; RMEH 2:131-163; Caso 1949; Bernal [Ed.] 1962), the Alvarado lexicon and the Reyes grammar of the 1590s (Jiménez Moreno [Ed.] 1962), and in the abundant pictographic and conventional administrative, legal, and ecclesiastical documentation of the sixteenth cen­tury (Berlin 1947; Dahlgren 1954:127—145; Spores 1967:9—14, 139—141; Spores 1974b). The sources reveal that ancient Mixtec society was organized into two major social strata: (1) the hereditary rulers (casta linaje, yaa tnubu), plus a hereditary noble or principal {tay toho) group, and (2) a humble or plebian class also known by the Nahuatl derivative macehuales or, in Mixteco, nanday tay ñuu, tay yucu, or tay sicaquai (Spores 1965:977—985; 1967:9—14; 1974b). In the lower stratum was a fourth group composed of landless tenant—servant-tributaries generally designated terrazgueros or, in Mixteco, tay situndayu, present in at least four of the larger and wealthier kingdoms, Yanhuitlán (AGN Civil 516; AGN Tierras 400; AGN Tierras 985-986) and Achiutla (AJT 9, exp. 7) of the Mixteca Alta, Tecomax- tlahuaca in the Mixteca Baja (AGN Tierras 2692, exp. 16), in Tutu tepee of the Mixteca de la Costa (AGN Mercedes 6, fol. 404), and quite probably in Teposcolula (AGN Tierras 1433, exp. 1) and Tilantongo (AGN Mercedes 7, fol. 253v) of the Mixteca Alta. Finally, there were the slaves who per­formed domestic service, functioned as concubines, and be­came sacrificial victims. Slaves figured in tribute assess­ments, were captured in battle (tay nicuvuinduq), were born in the households of their elite masters (dzayadzana), were bought and sold (dahasaha or tay noho yahui) (AGN In­quisición 37; Herrera 1947: Dec. 3, lib. 3, cap. 13), but did not constitute an identifiable social group. Insofar as can presently be determined, no definable slave subculture or social class developed in the Mixteca.

Returning to the upper end of the social order, suggestions by early and more recent writers (Herrera 1947:Dec. 3, lib. 3, cap. 13; Dahlgren 1954:141) that there may have been a privileged merchant or wealthy class (mercaderes y gente rica) outside the hereditary aristocracy are not substantiated by available documentation. There is little doubt that mer­chants and men of wealth did exist in Mixtec society, but significant individual differences in wealth do not seem to have led to the formation of social aggregates beyond the major class groupings previously delineated. Ascribed social status was the crucial criterion of power, wealth, and priv­ilege. Lacking appropriate class affiliation, one would be denied access to productive resources that allowed the ac­quisition of wealth, economic advantage, or deferential status.

It is axiomatic perhaps that the process of social stratifica­tion—the unequal distribution of social, political, and eco­nomic power among major identifiable strata of a society— is based on differential access to productive resources. This was clearly the case in the Mixteca where the ruling class controlled the most productive lands and the most impor­tant resources. Just as clearly, the land—farming land—was

the primary productive resource, and good lands have been in both absolute and relative short supply in the Mixteca since the area has been extensively occupied and inten­sively utilized by agriculturalists. Information on land ten­ure, so important an aspect of social stratification in agri­cultural societies, is by no means abundant for the Mixteca, but several inferences can be drawn from available information.

The royalty and the nobility held private, heritable title to lands, and terrazgueros were bound to the privately owned lands of the aristocracy but held no property in their own right. The plebians, however, constitute a special problem for analysis. Members of this worker-farmer-tributary class worked upon and collected tribute from community lands, but their relationship to the land is somewhat unclear. Land claims and suits relative to macehual lands are ex­tremely rare during the Colonial period, most certainly dur­ing the sixteenth century. It is difficult to determine to what extent this rarity may reflect lack of access to the Spanish legal system, poorly developed concepts of private owner­ship of lands, or simply a lack of conflict over small private holdings or traditional claims to community held lands. It is not clear whether natives had perpetual or usufructory rights to farmlands or whether rights pertained to indi­viduals, or to kinship or residence groups, or to all catego­ries. Neither do we know the kinds of levels of rights to different kinds of land. The native rulers of Yanhuitlán con­trolled the best alluvial bottomlands of the Nochixtlán Val­ley from Yanhuitlán to Yucuita and to Zahuatlán, a gerry­mandered strip of the valley’s best lands (AGN Civil 516; AGN Tierras 400; Spores 1967:164—171). The Tecomax- tlahuaca rulers’ lands were also said to be among the best in the Mixteca. It is known that although the lower stratum of society did have access to community collecting areas and to firewood, wild plant resources, some mineral resources, ro­dents, small animals, and small birds taken there, only the aristocracy ordinarily had the right to hunt and consume deer and quail and to utilize certain hides, furs, teeth, feath­ers, and fibers on their wearing apparel. Such important resources as irrigation waters and salt were controlled by the aristocracy.

As in the case of any stratified society, rights to lands and resources must be qualified and carefully scrutinized. It is my present belief that private lands and resources were con­trolled by the ruling families and the nobility with the con­sent of their rulers, and that commoners did not hold private title to farmlands. The macebuales were traditionally al­lowed to work relatively less-productive farmlands and col­lecting preserves—subject to the whim of the ruling aristoc­racy and only as long as tribute and service were given. In return for the privilege of land use, the maintenance of shrines and temples, and protection provided by the aristoc­racy, commoners were expected to serve and to pay tribute to the aristocracy and to the state. This differential access to agricultural lands served as the economic base for the Mix­tec class system.

In the sixteenth century, land disputes involving caciques, principales, and whole communities appeared in profusion from around 1530 (e.g., AGN Indios 101, exp. 1) to the end of the Colonial period (Spores and Saldana 1973:passim; Spores and Saldana 1975¡passim; AJT, leg. 23, exp. 30), but cases involving private lands held by Indian commoners are quite rare, even in the seventeenth century. It is difficult, at this point, to say just what the status of the Prehispanic commoner relative to land might have been. Neither Taylor (1972:67—100), working in the Valley of Oaxaca, nor I have arrived at definitive opinions regarding Prehispanic ma­cehual land tenure. I suggest, however, that private owner­ship of lands for commoners evolved in the Mixteca gradu­ally during the Colonial period. Large private holdings were held by caciques and Spaniards, and when commoners did obtain titles to lands, they were small and usually relatively less-productive plots. While it is clear that macehuales were obtaining and holding lands in the latter part of the sixteenth century, their Prehispanic relationship to the land and the precise manner by which they began to acquire it in Colonial times remain uncertain.

The Prehispanic commoner was a citizen participating in the life of his community to the extent allowable for his status. He held usufruct rights to certain community lands but he was required to pay tribute:, to respect, obey, and serve his ruler, and to observe special restrictions and rules of etiquette concerning his interaction with other classes, his ritual and subsistence activities, and his dress, diet, profes­sional activity, and movement. Although the ruling aristoc­racy normally entered into marital alliances that extended beyond the community and the kingdom, the commer ob­served patterns of local endogamy. Had it not been for mar­keting activities and religious peregrination, life for the Pre­hispanic commoner would have been totally restricted to his community.

Reference has been made to the existence of serfdom in at least six of the more important Mixtec communities, includ­ing Yanhuitlan, Tututepec, Tecomaxtlahuaca, Teposcolula, and Tilantongo, but it is quite likely that the pattern was more widespread. During the last quarter of the sixteenth century, Spanish administrators attempted to remove this special class of tenant—servants from the traditional custody and control of the rulers of at least two kingdoms in the Mixteca and to place these individuals who had served and paid tribute only to their rulers on regular Crown and enco- mienda tribute rolls. The caciques of; Yanhuitlan (AGN Civil 516; AGN Tierras 200; AGN Tierras 400; AGN Tierras 985-986) and Tecomaxtlahuaca (AGN Tierras 2692, exp. 16) brought suits claiming ancient, traditional, and exclu­sive rights to the services and tribute of numerous families residing in specified barrios of the affected communities. Elsewhere (Spores 1967:159-160), I have estimated that some 2000 terrazgueros (tay situndayu) were in the service of the rulers of Yanhuitlan at the time of the Conquest. By 1580, the number of such individuals had declined by at least half, and native witnesses stated that

when the Spaniards came to this New Spain, they removed these from the said caciques, and from other [caciques] and registered them so that they would pay tribute like the rest of the people, notwithstanding the fact . . . that the said barrios and the Indi­ans belonged to the said patrimony [of the cacique of Yanhuitlán] [AGN Civil 516].

In Tecomaxtlahuaca, the number of terrazgueros given over to the exclusive use of the ruler was said to have declined from some 800 “indios” at the time of the Conquest to 60 males (or an estimated 240 individuals) in 1578 (AGN Tier­ras 2692, exp. 16). The cacica of Teposcolula, Doña Lucía Cortés y Orozco, still claimed rights to services of ter­razgueros in 1704 but complained of a serious erosion of her traditional rights to goods and services (AGN Tierras 1433, exp. 1, fs. 113—121).

The terrazgueros worked the rulers’ private irrigated land (nuhundoyo) (said in both Yanhuitlan and Tecomax­tlahuaca to be the best lands in each kingdom), provided services in the households of ruling families, and resided in special, named barrios. The terrazgueros appear to have been dependents who were probably excluded from public affairs in their respective communities and kingdoms. There are explicit references in the Tecomaxtlahuaca case to ma- ceguales terrazgueros and esclavos y indios forasteros y ven­id izos. The implication is that the tay situndayu originated outside the affected kingdoms, or at the very least that they occupied a quite special status relative to the rest of Mixtec society. It would be totally erroneous, however, to equate the statuses of serf and slave.

Although the Prehispanic origins of the terrazgueros re­main problematic, it is my strong impression that they de­rived from five sources: (1) captives in the wide-ranging raiding and warfare of the Late Postclassic period; (2) slaves purchased by the rulers; (3) local macehuales who placed themselves “in servitude” to the ruler for the privilege of working and deriving some benefit from the rich agricultural lands of the royal patrimony; (4) migrants, or displaced for­eigners who either chose or were forced to accept ter­razguero status for the advantages it provided; and (5) off­spring of terrazgueros.

The role and function of terrazgueros or mayeques in Mesoamerica remains uncertain—not only for the Mixteca, but even for areas such as México-Tenochtitlán (Caso 1963:871-874; Katz 1972:144-148, 224-227; Carrasco 1971:355—356; Sanders 1971:12—22). I believe that al­though upward and downward mobility were possible in this class, the status of terrazguero generally placed the indi­vidual and his family at an economic advantage. The land­less remained landless, but there were fields to be worked and shares to be derived from some of the most fertile lands in the Mixteca. Further, the onus of servitude was offset by the advantages of protection offered by the lord. It is clear that the tay situndayu represented a significant so­cioeconomic component of Mixtec society and that their composition, their origins, and their relationship to other classes and groups must be further analyzed in the ongoing study of Mixtec social structure.

THE ORIGINS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Even under ideal circumstances in which historical re­cords are plentiful, it is difficult to explain the origins and early course of development of any system of stratification. In the case of the Mixteca, information can be derived from archaeological and linguistic materials, from patterns ob­servable through the documentary record, and from my- thicohistorical accounts. Herrera, Reyes, Torquemada, Bur- goa, Orozco y Berra, and Martinez Gracida have given varying interpretations of origin myths. Burgoa, depending on written and oral sources, recounted a mythicohistoric account suggesting conquest-related origins for Mixtec so­cial stratification:

[Along the Apoala River] were born the trees that produced the first caciques, male and female. . . . And from here by suc­cession they grew and extended to populate an extensive king­dom. Others agree with Father Torquemada that the first men who settled this very rugged and mountainous region came from the west, like the Mexicans. . . . The first settlers were attracted to the lands located in high ramparts and inaccessible moun­tains . . some believing that the original population was in the meadows of the town which the Mexicans called Sosola. . . . Others assert that the first señores and capitanes came from the northwest, where they originated, after the Mexicans came, and they came guided by their gods and penetrated these mountains and arrived in a rugged site which is between Achiutla and Tilan- tongo in a spacious plain, formed in the nearby lofty mountains, and that they settled here, making fortresses. They made impreg­nable walls of such magnitude that for more than six leagues around the people of the garrison went to settle. . . . And all the mountains and barrancas today are marked by stepped and ter­raced fields from top to bottom and looking like stone-edged stairways. These were the pieces of4and that the señores gave to the soldiers and macehuales for the sowing of their seed, the size and quality of the land depending on the size of each family. . . .

It can be inferred, then, that the ancient capitanes or señores were dominated by a greater power and searched for a site which would aid them in their defense, and motivated by this fear they struggled valiantly. They cultivated and worked the steep slopes where they grew and harvested seeds because they did not ven­ture forth to hunt or go beyond the walls where they could remain hidden. This appears to be the most reasonable theory because the greatest Señorío of these Mixtecas was preserved from its antiquity up until the light of the gospel shone on Tilan- tongo (that was the frontier of that settlement) and touched one of the sons of that Señor; and the conquistadores, in baptizing him, gave him the name of the King, our Señor, don Felipe de Austria, thus indicating the royal blood of this great cacique [Burgoa 1674:274-276],

The Burgoa account relies rather heavily on earlier ac­counts by Reyes and Torquemada, but pictographic ac­counts in codices Nuttall, Bodley, and Vindobonensis pro­vide important parallel evidence of the widespread acceptability of these conquest—migrational—radiational views. This evidence suggests that conquest and unequal allocation of productive resources according to rank did contribute to social stratification in the Mixteca. While mythicohistorical accounts are difficult to substantiate, con­ventional documentary and pictographic sources leave little doubt that warfare had been an important aspect of Mixtec

culture since Classic times. In the case of the Kingdom of Tututepec, it is quite clear that as political expansion by military conquest occurred, representatives of the Tututepec ruling family were placed in control of conquered commu­nities as governors, administrators, and tribute collectors (Avendaño 1579; Eras 1579; Pacho 1581; RMEH 1:174—178; RMEH 2:131—163; Berlin 1947). In time, such high-status individuals must have coalesced into a signifi­cant stratum of society, a self-conscious, identifiable social class. This coalescence can be viewed as an adaptive strategy aimed at expanding and consolidating control over a large ecologically diverse and productive geopolitical sphere to satisfy the needs of an increasingly demanding aristocracy. Conquest and marital alliance, then, were not aimed at meeting basic subsistence needs, but at the maintenance of a social system based on social stratification.

Elsewhere, I have attempted to demonstrate that the Mix­tees attained a significant level of social and political organi­zation without the development of true occupational spe­cialization that is normally found in state societies and which is a frequent concomitant or progenitor of social stratification (Gould 1969). It is true that sixteenth-century documentation does mention specialized endeavor. Herrera (1947:Dec. 3, lib. 3, cap. 12) states that “habia en la tierra muchos capitanes y caballeros, maestros de su Ley; tenían sortílegos y médicos,” and the Alvarado lexicon provides terms for physician (tay tatna), priest (ñaha niñe or tay sa­que), merchant (mercader: tay cuica), peddler (merchante: tay dzata, tay yosai), artisan (tay huisi), and scribe (tay toatutu).

It is quite clear that craftsmen, scribes, potters, weaver—tailors, body servants, and domestics were drawn into part-time or periodic service from the common class. Major retainers, advisors, and courtiers, however, were of noble and royal rank. A semblance of full-time specializa­tion may have existed among the priests, but even this is a doubtful assumption. Herrera (1947:Dec. 3, lib. 3, cap. 13) indicates that boys who had reached at least their seventh year were eligible to enter a “monastery” for special re­ligious training. Practitioners, observing celibacy, rose through a series of grades in the monasteries, and after 4 years they left the monasteries, dropped vows of celibacy, and entered the service of the native ruler.

The tenure of the religious practitioner would appear to have been limited, but at least some who had performed as priests continued to serve in ritualistic capacities as royal counsellors. When a priest achieved the status of noncelibate advisor to the ruler, it is likely that his religious advice (cere­monial form, reading of omens, soothsaying, prognostica­tion, etc.) continued to be provided to the royal patron as an important component of the political role of the priestly pasado.

Unlike the ascribed statuses of members of the ruling and noble classes and of the ruler’s advisory council, priests were drawn from both the plebian and principal classes (Aven- daño 1579; Eras 1579; Pacho 1581; RMEH 1:174-178; RMEH 2:131-163; Caso 1949; Bernal 1962; AGN Inquisi-

cion 37). Despite such references, there is little compelling evidence to indicate the existence of professional classes of priests, warriors, craftsmen, curers, administrators, scribes, service personnel, or tradesmen, or of full-time commitment to such endeavor. In fact, there is little evidence—historical, archaeological, or ethnographic—to suggest the existence of full-time occupational specialization at any time during the Prehispanic period.

In addition to inferences derived from historic and linguis­tic sources, it is probable that archaeological investigations may provide insights into origins, movements, and relations of various Mixtec groups. Archaeological researches in the Nochixtlan Valley (Spores 1972:171—194; 1974b) suggest that observable settlement and socioeconomic differentia­tion evolved in the Ramos phase (approximately 200 B.C.—a .d . 300) when the first large, complex settlement de­veloped at Yucuita. The valley settlement pattern prior to this time, in the Cruz phase, had been characterized by sever­al relatively small, homogeneous, and widely spaced vil­lages. Although knowledge of the Formative period in the valley is relatively limited, there are clearly no sites of the size and complexity of Formative settlements in the Valley of Oaxaca, in the Valley of Mexico, in Guatemala, or on the Gulf Coast. Thus far, indicators of the marked social com­plexity, elaborate ceremonialism, or extended political inte­gration inferred for Formative developments in other areas are not present in the Nochixtlan Valley. Although ritualism is strongly indicated by the appearance of numerous figurine fragments, decorated ceramics, and brazier fragments, the Nochixtlan Valley appears lacking in unusual ceremonial complexes, elite dwellings, differential distribution of exotic goods, sumptuary burials, or the sculptural—hieroglyphic indicators of either status differentiation or conquest and political integration found in other areas (Sanders and Price 1968:26—29; Coe 1965; Bernal 1965; Flannery 1968b; Marcus 1974).

Expansion of settlement size and complexity occurred during the Ramos phase when a large, complex (functionally diversified) center worthy of the designation “urban” emerged at Yucuita (sites N 203, N 204, N 217, N 218, N 220, N 225). Whereas the main Cruz phase occupation at Yucuita was apparently confined to an area approximately 4 ha, the Ramos-phase settlement covered at least 1.5 km2. Nearly continuous structural remains may be observed extending along and across the entire loma—cerro system just east of the Yucuita community center, and four adjacent “satellites” (sites N 208, N 226, N 227, N 229) are located within 3 km of Yucuita. Included in the large but highly concentrated Yucuita structural complex are at least 10 ma­jor mound complexes containing floors and alignments of quartered stone and associated ritual deposits (such as heavy ash and charcoal, braziers and incensarios, skull burials, and anthropophagic remains), plazas, a subterranean vaulted- roof tunnel system, quarries, terraces, single-celled and mul­tiroomed buildings with masonry block foundations and walls, and adobe-block tombs with stone slab covers. Deep refuse containing culinary remains of deer, rabbit, dog, and

human bone, corn, beans, avocados, zapotes and chile are found in association with heavy deposits of Yucuita Tan, Yucuita Red-on-tan, Yucuita Thin Tan and lesser quantities of Gray, Rust, and Brown wares. The ceramic complex is typical of the Ramos phase here and at other Nochixtlán Valley sites such as Nochixtlán Panteón (N 606), Etlatongo (N 810), and Atrás de la Concha (N 009), as well as sites outside the valley such as Huamelulpan (Gaxiola 1976); there are even similarities with Monte Negro in Tilantongo (Caso 1938; Acosta n.d.a). Distinctive Ramos-phase in- cised-bottom bowls, anthropomorphic and anthropozoo- morphic figurines, siliceous gray chert tools and flakes, obsi­dian blades, sheet mica, marine shell objects, and carved bone beads and pendants are also found in unprecedented abundance at Yucuita. Block-adobe tombs containing ex­tended burials, grouped secondary burials (one at N 203 F containing remains of seven individuals), and individual skull burials recovered in excavations at Yucuita are similar to manifestations at Huamelulpan and Monte Negro.

Of the 35 Ramos-phase sites known thus far in the Nochixtlán Valley, Yucuita is by far the largest and most complex, and I believe that it was the primary center of political and economic power in the valley and probably in the Mixteca Alta. Nearly half of the Ramos-phase sites are located in the Yucuita arm of the valley and most of the larger “town” sites cluster quite near the primary center. Deposits are deeper; architecture and material goods are more heavily concentrated, diverse, and complex; and more “elite” goods, obsidian, sheet mica, Monte Albán-like Type G-12 incised bowls, and braziers are found at Yucuita than elsewhere in the valley. The site is extremely large for its time and by comparison with earlier settlements. In fact, only one site—Late Classic Yucuñudahui—approaches it in size, and no site is richer in content or more complex in organization. Etlatongo (N 810) in the south-central portion of the valley contained massive earthworks and was undoubtedly of sub­stantial importance in the Ramos phase, but it is both small­er and less diversified in its structure than Yucuita. Yucuita became the primary source of a cultural pattern that I believe characterized life in the central Mixteca from Ramos times to the Spanish Conquest. This early urban center served an integrative function as no site had before its time (Spores 1972:177—182), for it was the first center where sufficient demographic, technological, economic, and political power was concentrated to make possible urban life and an un­precedented level of functional divergence in settlement (hamlets, towns, and a city) and regional integration. A prin­cipal feature of the new urban orientation of Yucuita was an emphasis on “public” architecture, much of it ceremonial, that completely outstrips such manifestations in the pre­vious period. Formal religion was a dominant theme in the center, suggesting the integration of political and sacred activities.

The Ramos-phase emphasis on ritualism appears in the form of large special-function areas containing dense depos­its of ritual waste in association with monumental architec­ture, adjacent to (but separable from) associated domiciliary

remains. By contrast, goods with probable ritual functions or connotations (figurines, effigy vessels, inscribed ceramics, etc.) from earlier periods are found with household goods in dwellings with boulder-stone foundations and/or stone-and- adobe lower walls. The only Formative “mound” yet ex­plored (at Coyotepec, site N 233) was a multilevel occupa­tional deposit dating to both the Formative and Classic peri­ods, but the complex recovered in and around the mound was quite similar to complexes found associated with dwell­ings at Yucuita (N 203 B, N 203 K). In contrast, at least some of the mounds, probably the majority, in later centers such as Yucuita, Yucunudahui, Etlatongo, and Cerro Jasmin, were certainly ritual rather than domiciliary foci (Caso 1938; Spores 1972, 1974a). Although ceremonial activity areas are immediately adjacent to habitational areas in Yucuita, architectural and artifact complexes can be rather easily differentiated for the two types of functional areas.

The emphasis on ceremonialism in Ramos and Las Flores times suggests that urbanism and social stratification emerged in the Mixteca as part of an ideological transforma­tion whereby formalized religion became a central integra­tive feature of Mixtec society. I suggest that religious practi­tioners, in effect, created a situation of social inequality and then, in order to reinforce and perpetuate the system, em­phasized and strengthened their spiritual, political, and eco­nomic hold on the greater society. This is one of several strategies that could have been adopted in an environment allowing various subsistence and sociopolitical adaptations. Such adaptations ranged from scattered extended family homesteads to small economically, socially, and politically independent clusters of comparable egalitarian commu­nities; to a hierarchically integrated cluster of simply orga­nized villages; to a ranked regional complex of differentiated settlements; to an extensively organized interregional so­ciopolitical system. Late Formative—Early Classic Mixtecs pursued an adaptive strategy that ensured continuation of a system of social stratification and reinforced the decision­making power of the new elite. Religious practitioners of the Formative period became the priests of the Classic period.

It is logical to assume, in the absence of evidence indicat­ing true division of labor or military overthrow, that politi­cal power also rested with the religious elite. The status of religious mediator in an expanding society with increasing needs and increasing dependence on ritual manipulation, rather than technological innovation, was of special adap­tive significance to the Mixtecs. Survival of mankind and of a cultural system depended on religious power; a demon­strated ability to understand and control the supernatural universe placed great temporal power in the hands of the religious practitioner.

According to our argument, the first special status to emerge was the religious specialist having the ability to con­trol sacred and, increasingly, secular activities. The first large and complex architecture at Yucuita is associated with material remains that suggest, beyond doubt, formalized rit­ualistic activity. As religious practitioners became priests, they were able to control and direct the effort and output of

the members of a formerly egalitarian society. These efforts were directed toward ritual enterprises, including construc­tion of impressive ceremonial complexes and the provision of vast quantities of tribute and services, ostensibly in sup­port of cult activities, but in fact consumed and redirected in large part by the emergent elite. The amount and diversity of exotic goods obtained in and around Ramos-phase remains at Yucuita is impressive (Spores 1972, 1974a) and the pat­tern is repeated at Las Flores-phase Yucuriudahui. Someone had the ability and power to demand goods and services and to channel them in specified directions.

Observing the archaeology of the Early Classic, it is clear that significant social transformations occurred, but the sources and supportive mechanisms of social inequality are more difficult to ascertain. Although there are ample indica­tions of contact between the Nochixtlan Valley and such outlying areas as the Valley of Mexico, Puebla-Tehuacan, Veracruz, Chiapas, and the Valley of Oaxaca from Forma­tive times to the Spanish Conquest (Spores 1972, 1974a), there is no conclusive evidence of external conquest for the Classic period. The movement of Nochixtlan Valley settle­ments from valley floor to mountain- and ridgetops, as seen in at least 88 of 113 Las Flores sites (Spores 1973:165-168), may indicate widespread conflict in the Mixteca Alta, but if there was extensive warfare, it is by no means clear who may have been fighting whom. Given only the archaeological evidence, it is difficult to say whether movement to high ground was prompted by military, economic, or primarily ideological determinants. Neither, 1 must add, is there any material evidence of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century subordination of the Nochixtlan Valley to the Culhua— Mexica Confederacy (settlement during the Postclassic being divided between low-ground and medium-altitude sites), yet we know from historical sources that numerous towns in the valley were reduced to tributary status by the Aztecs. The Bodley, Nuttall, and Colombino codices cer­tainly do suggest that intercommunity conflict and internal warfare, raiding, and conquest were well established throughout the Mixteca by a.d. 900, and the codices and conventional documentation indicate the persistence of this pattern through the Postclassic period.

So, while the case for a conquest basis for social stratifica­tion is quite inconclusive, certainly warfare coexisted with an extensive system of aristocratic marital alliance and un­derlay, reinforced, and amplified the social status quo in the Mixteca from mid-Classic times to the Spanish Conquest. Further, while there is no convincing evidence for the emergence of full-time occupational specialization in the Mixteca from the Formative period to the Conquest, I do believe that a particular kind of specialization did emerge during the Late Formative—Early Classic transition and that herein may lie at least a partial explanation for the origins of social stratification in the Mixteca.

I would hypothesize that the first “specialists” to emerge in Mixtec society were individuals possessing specialized rit­ual, magical, or curing knowledge. Such individuals stand out, even in simple egalitarian societies where shamans oc­

cupy what may be their societies’ only specialized, if not necessarily privileged, status. Latent, if not active, political power may accrue to such statuses, and, depending on so­cial, economic, and ideological circumstances and the per­sonal attributes and abilities of the practitioner, latent power may be translated into active localized or extended political power.2 Netting states the case rather well and in a way that I believe is applicable to Mixtec society:

Let us suggest that political development in many cases takes place internally and voluntarily rather than by imposition or wholesale borrowing from neighboring groups, and that the main lines of development and channels for change are pre­figured in existing institutions and patterns of behavior. I would claim that on the road to statehood, society must first seek the spiritual kingdom, that essentially religious modes of focusing power are often primary in overcoming the critical structural weaknesses of stateless societies.

These weaknesses are by definition those of a society based on localized, highly autonomous units. To integrate a number of such units or to allow an existing unit to expand without fission, ways must be found to keep the peace while enlarging personal contacts beyond the range of kin group and locality. . . . The new grouping must be united, not by kinship or territory alone, but by belief, by the infinite extensibility of common symbols, shared cosmology, and the overarching unity of fears and hopes made visible in ritual. A leader who can mobilize these senti­ments, who can lend concrete form to an amorphous moral community, is thereby freed from complete identification with his village or section or age group or lineage [1972:233].

To emphasize the point I wish to make, it is advantageous to quote from the continuation of Netting’s argument:

A leader who can simultaneously reassure farmers worried about their harvest, adjudicate their quarrels, and profitably redistribute or promote the exchange of valued goods is ob­viously not the same as other men. He occupies a central social position. A higher social status is both functionally necessary to his activities and an appropriate reward for his services. . . .

Political chiefship may be dignified by titles and inherited through more rigidly defined kinship links. Regular differences in access to resources, control of services, and possession of valued goods may emerge. Privilege becomes both more overt and increasingly ascribed. Both the powers and the prerequisites of a highly ranked individual or group are justified by ritual status. Such people are singled out fundamentally by their rela­tionship to sacred things and suprahuman potency [1972:236-237; © 1972 by the MIT Press].

I believe that Netting’s inferences and conclusions apply specifically to Mixtec society. I would argue that the origins of social stratification—and coincidentally the state—in the Mixteca are attributable to internal processes of social dif­ferentiation based on the emergence of religious practi­

21 have consciously used and emphasized may, for I am quite aware that political power does not necessarily fall to those holding supernatural or ritual power and that latent power is not necessarily translated into active political power. There are too many cases to the contrary. With reference to the Mixteca, however, archaeological and historical evidence converge, sug­gesting convincingly that the relationships among ritual, social, and political power, power-holders, and institutions evolved as 1 have hypothesized. On the basis of data presently available, 1 believe this to be the best explanation of the rise of social stratification in the Mixteca. I make no pretense of attempt­ing to generalize for society at large.

tioners as political powerholders. Power to mediate between man and the supernatural world could be translated into power to demand goods and labor services from believers, to control scarce resources, to divert resources to private as well as public ends, to concentrate decision-making and co­ercive power in the hands of a small group, and to make possible the expansion of political dominion through war­fare, alliance, or by voluntary aggregation. Eventually, wealth in goods and services, privileges, and entitlement to lands and productive resources accumulated to a significant degree in the hands of a few families. Ritual power and authority were transformed into political power and author­ity. Through religious and economic control and through a combination of alliance, annexation, and conquest, mem­bers of the Mixtec elite were able to reinforce their privileged status, to establish their royal charters, to perpetuate sup­portive mythologies, and to expand their power and influence.

Once such social and political systems had been estab­lished, elite status depended on the nearness or directness of relationship to elite ancestors, both real and fictive. In time there arose a gradation of most direct descendants (royal class), collateral or secondary descendants or kinsmen (no­ble class), and unrelated (common class) status groups. His­toric and protohistoric usage suggests that conquered peo­ples could be assimilated into any one of the three major social categories or attached as mayeques (tay situndayu) or slaves. Eventually, priestly and political functions became differentiated (again, I do not see these as occupations in the sense of Gould 1969). Architectural manifestations of this changing relationship may be perceived in the archaeologi­cal sites. Dwellings in Ramos-phase Yucuita, many of them containing numerous contiguous rooms, were built within and immediately adjacent to ceremonial precincts. There is no clear demarcation of dwelling and monumental cere­monial activity areas. In Las Flores-phase Yucuñudahui, the distinctions between dwelling areas and ceremonial archi­tecture is far clearer; I do not deny the existence of possible domiciliary structures in ceremonial areas, but insofar as the main central complex of ballcourt, plazas, courts, and mounds is concerned, the area at Yucuñudahui is more clearly aligned and set apart as a special activity area as opposed to the adjacent, but separable, dwelling areas. The dozens of smaller Late Classic sites scattered about the peaks and ridges of the Nochixtlán Valley show a similar pattern of a central ritual activity area surrounded concentrically by habitations.

Interesting parallels might be drawn between Ramos- phase Yucuita and Yagul, the Valley of Oaxaca site. Yagul is smaller than Yucuita but comparable in general orientation and complexity. Yucuita and Yagul are squeezed into com­pact, multifunctional units; they can be contrasted with Classic Yucuñudahui or with Monte Albán or, even though placement is quite different, with Teotihuacán. The latter three centers contain elaborated central ceremonial com­plexes surrounded by dwellings and service areas. Other early centers in the Mixteca Alta—Monte Negro,

Huamelulpan, and probably Yatachio—share the multiplex core features of Yucuita. The large site of Cerro Jazmín appears to have begun in Ramos times as a relatively small but multiplex center, grew during the Las Flores period as much the same kind of settlement, and continued to be uti­lized during the Postclassic period as a ceremonial center but only quite marginally as a dwelling area.

In the Postclassic period, there was even greater distinc­tion between civic—ceremonial centers and dwelling areas. Ceremonial sites were often located at some distance from socially differentiated dwelling zones. Many Postclassic sites contained numerous household structures and indications of ceremonial activity (braziers, offering cups, incensors, of­fering blades, etc.) but very little in the way of obvious cere- rponial architecture. Other sites, many of them formerly oc­cupied as dwelling centers, show signs of intensive ceremonial activity in and around mound—plaza complexes but little or no indication of permanent settlement.

It is clear that there were substantial increases in popula­tion in the Nochixtlán Valley from the Cruz phase (18 known localities, 8 intensively occupied) to the Ramos phase (35 localities, 27 intensively occupied) (Spores 1972:165— 194). There were not only more sites, and more intensively occupied sites, in the Ramos period, but settlements were larger and, at least in several instances, more complex than in the Cruz phase. I would hold to my previous estimate of12,000 for Ramos (see “Note on Population Estimates” in this topic). One site alone—Yucuita—had a population that must have approached 8000 persons (5 of 35 Ramos lo­calities, all intensively utilized, are now considered to con­stitute one large complex settlement, Yucuita).3 By Las Flo­res times, the number of sites (113), localities intensively occupied (74), and large (approximately 1 km2 or larger) centers (e.g., Yucuñudahui, Cerro Jazmín, Jaltepec, Etlatongo) were sufficiently developed to support a popula­tion of 35,000. The maximum population for the valley, however, was in the Postclassic Natividad phase when 159 sites were occupied, 113 of them intensively. Many Postclassic sites were quite large, though less “monumental” in plan and construction than Classic sites, and we believe that a population estimate of 50,000 is not out of line with available archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence.

Continuing with archaeological data, there are certain manifestations of cult—state differentiation in that major Postclassic ceremonial precincts are often quite distantly re­moved from civic centers (Spores 1967:90—108, 1972:175—192). Shrines were constructed in the compact centers, as we have observed in such Postclassic sites as

3ln the case of complex settlements, such as Yucuita, without historical documentation as a basis of inference it is quite difficult to say where the city of Yucuita leaves off and other nearby communities begin. With this point in mind, 1 have raised an earlier estimate of the population of Ramos-phase Yucuita from 7000 to 8000 because I have decided that I had rather ar­bitrarily excluded an adjacent but not totally contiguous site, Tindehuehano (N 220), which lies some 250 m across an irrigated valley from the main site but is culturally directly related. It now seems inconceivable that this 100- by-200-m site could be outside the social, political, and economic realm of Yucuita just because it is separated from the center by a corn patch.

Yucuita, Chachoapan, Nochixtlán, and Loma de Ayuxi in Yanhuitlán. But many ceremonial sites were set apart from the main population centers, in caves, on high mountains, and, in several instances, in old, abandoned, or nearly aban­doned Classic sites that continued to be used, not as habita­tion zones, but as religious centers (Spores 1972:189). This placement tends to confirm ethnohistorically derived in­ferences that in Postclassic times the religious cult and its practitioners were differentiated from, under control of, and supported by, the ruler (Spores 1967:9, 22-27; 1974b).

During the Postclassic period, males of the ruling class served a 1-year religious “apprenticeship” in a hermitage. Subsequent to assumption of title, rulers served important functions as sponsors of cult activities, but others drawn from both the common and noble classes served as priests in cult activities supported by the ruling family of each king­dom. As far as I am concerned, the combined weight of documentary and archaeological evidence clearly indicates the separation of duties between ruler and priest, even though the ruler, as the primary patron of the religious cult, did from time to time perform ritualistic functions.

Further archaeological and ethnohistorical research will, I believe, reinforce the view that the Mixtec class system be­gan in the terminal Formative or Early Classic period, around a .d . 1. As increasing numbers of people adapted themselves to the Nochixtlán Valley and the surrounding mountains and valleys of the Mixteca, skilled religious prac­titioners took advantage of their specialized roles in super­natural mediation, exercised increasing control over goods, lands, resources, and the productive services of their fol­lowers, and rose to positions of political authority. Special forms of social interaction, marriage, and creation of heredi­tary charters led to a differentiation of the religious— politi­cal sector from the mass of Mixtec society. An ideological reorientation emphasized recognition of and reliance upon a religious elite; complex settlement and cultural systems arose in conjunction with a system of social stratification based not on further differentiation of the labor force or on military conquest but on consanguineal and affinal propin­quity to members of the religious—political elite. Ritual and economic power (through the right to demand goods and services for ritual services rendered) were transformed into political power. Localized sociopolitical elites evolved true social groupings (classes), and diversified, multicommunity political networks (Mixtec kingdoms) emerged. During the Classic period, social, political, and economic ties between elite families and communities were further extended and intensified through intermarriage, military conquest, and annexation. Eventually, probably some time in the later Classic or Postclassic periods, the political elite (the ruling families and the principales) became differentiated from, and exercised control over, the religious professionals and cult activities.

By Postclassic times, social and political power, initially based on ritual power, transcended this traditional base and became far more secular and oriented toward (1) traditional rights and privileges and a supporting ideology that rein­

forced the social order, (2) control of productive resources and systems of tribute, redistribution, and market exchange, and (3) extension and consolidation of political power and domain through marital alliance, economic control, and conquest-annexation. As population increased (Spores 1969,1972; Sanders 1972) and perceived needs of the aris­tocracy and basic needs of the general population changed, institutions underwent adjustments. Adaptation was achieved through extension of spheres of influence and con­trol by sociopolitical means rather than through technologi­cal innovation, organized conflict over resources, or inter­regional migration. Converging ethnohistoric and archae­ological data indicate the differentiation of religious and political institutions, but, clearly, formal ritual activities were controlled and sponsored by the political elite. To speak of a “priestly state” in Late Formative and Early Clas­sic times may not be far from the truth, but to ignore the transformation to a secular state in later times would be erroneous. While occupational specialization in the form of the religious practitioner with his specialized knowledge and power may have stood at the base of the stratification pro­cess, such an occupation was not subsequently prominent in the rise of the Mixtec class system. Once the social system began to take on its characteristic form and became fully established, secular concerns and secular supports and the weight of tradition furnished the sustaining foundation of the Mixtec social system. Religion and its ritual and ideolog­ical extensions (e.g., reflections and justifications for social stratification in creation myths and elite genealogical my­thology) provided supernatural validation for the so­ciocultural system and justification and reinforcement for the political order.

NOTE ON POPULATION ESTIMATES

A general statement relative to population is in order. Population estimates for the prehistoric period in the Nochixtlán Valley are necessarily based on projections from the historic period of the sixteenth century. On the basis of demographic data taken from Spanish documentation I have estimated that the population of the valley was around50,000 in a .d . 1520 (Spores 1969).

Even though we now know that there were at least 159 Natividad sites occupied (113 intensively), instead of the 111 sites that were known up to 1969,1 am not persuaded that the population of the valley was any greater than 50,000. The population was simply dispersed over more space than we formerly realized. Additionally, we obviously do not know with certainty that all of the Postclassic sites were occupied simultaneously, despite the fact that struc­tures and ceramic and artifact complexes look contempo­raneous. The census data from the sixteenth century, diffi­cult to interpret at their best, allow one to arrive at total population for a given community—Yanhuitlán, for exam-

pie—but seldom is there an indication of precisely where the population was located on the ground (see Borah and Cook [1960] for a detailed treatment of Mixtec population trends since 1520). The “community of Yanhuitlan” may have had a population of 24,000, but it is not clear how the popula­tion was dispersed over the landscape. I believe that the political community of Yanhuitlán consisted of as many as 15 settlements or clusters, some contiguous and some lo­cated 10 km or farther from the capital.

It is possible to arrive at population figures for various communities at a given point in time, say a .d . 1540, but it is exceedingly difficult to equate community and archaeologi­cal sites. It is safe to assume that families lived in certain settlements and that they related to one another somehow, in some way. It is difficult to say how individuals and fami­lies within a settlement were related and just as difficult— but just as important—to say how one contiguous cluster of dwellings may have related to others. How many settlements constitute a community? How many communities a king­dom or other sociopolitical unit? How were communities or kingdoms linked into larger socioeconomic networks or sys­tems? How do we correlate settlement units of components with socioeconomic or political communities, or “interac­tion spheres” ?

What I am saying is that the town-by-town census mate­rials for the sixteenth century can provide reasonably reli­able community population estimates, but it is quite difficult in many cases to say whether given archaeological localities were associated with one community or another, or whether certain sites were occupied before, during, or after the Con­quest, or at all three points in time. We can say that a popula­tion of 50,000 in a .d . 1520 is correlated with 159 sites of certain width, length, complexity, and orientation relative to natural and cultural features. In time, I hope, archaeological analysis will become precise enough for us to work out polit­ical configurations and socioeconomic relations among sites, particularly cabeceras and their political satellites. When and if that can be done, it is at least conceivable that archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence will allow identi­fication of Yanhuitlán’s aboriginal center and each, or most, of its subject settlements. Until that time, to imply that de­mographic precision is possible is counterproductive.

Although villages of about 100 souls can consistently be differentiated from a Tikal or a Monte Albán, I fear that 1 am chronically skeptical of procedures that yield “exact” popu­lation figures for particular prehistoric archaeological sites at particular points in time. There is too much room for distortion of the physical remains, too many complexities of construction—destruction-reconstruction to be dealt with in the usual time available to the archaeologist, too little methodological aptitude, too much left unexcavated, too much leeway in artifact chronologies, too little geo- chronological precision, too much pseudorigorous statisti­cal manipulation of excavated complexes which may be quite revealing in a collector band’s camp site but hardly so for complex sites characteristic of Mesoamerican civiliza­tion. The painstaking excavation of two or three foci in

medium or large settlements is simply inadequate to reveal the kind of demographic data that archaeologists care to discuss but are hard put to substantiate. Furthermore, can we ever be quite sure that configurations of sites with com­parable cultural complexes were actually occupied simul­taneously, or years, decades, or centuries apart? They may appear to be contemporaneous settlements, but are they?

Population figures for prehistoric sites are too inexact to satisfy normal scientific requirements, and this is regretta­ble. I believe, however, that when we can correlate number, size, and general orientation of a series of sites with known population figures (not to imply that I am by any means satisfied with even the historical demographic data from the Mixteca Alta or that either Borah and Cook or I interpret them properly or adequately), that it will be possible, by exercising some care, to project relative numbers, sizes, and orientations into prehistoric time and arrive at reasonable approximations of population. Until better methodologies are found, I believe not only that the procedure is reasonably sound but that the figures are fair “ballpark” estimates of total population in the valley at various points in time. We must now move forward with better paleodemographic studies for the greater Mixteca and for Mesoamerica as a whole.

CONCLUSION

A differentiation of religious practitioners qua political leaders is postulated for the Late Formative and the Ramos phase in the Mixteca. (Settlement patterns and sociopolitical organization are diagrammed in Figure 8.1.) While the rise of religious specialists to positions of secular power may have been fundamental to the origins of the Mixtec class system, occupational specialization does not appear to have been a significant causal factor in the rise and maintenance of social stratification. Moreover, conquest of Mixtec com­munities by outside powers does not appear to have played a significant role in the stratification process. The emergence of religious practitioners as a political elite undoubtedly was associated with a complex of reinforcing marital and politi­cal alliances and internal military conquest that promoted exploitation of widespread resources and contributed to the overall integration of the social system.

These factors, coupled with a relatively low population density, the ecology of the Mixteca, the economic system, and the ideology, did not encourage development of a true division of labor and an occupationally based system of stratification. The system was, rather, what could be called traditional patrimonial, whereby once an elite element was established, it maintained social and political dominance as much through ritual and ideological “management” as out of economic necessity. This is not to say that control of land, resources, wealth, and power symbols did not figure in maintenance of the system; they did. But physical or eco­nomic coercion do not loom large in this development. The

FORMATIVE Low population density Simple settlement system

Egalitarian society Religious practitioners

with quasi-political function

Village social, political, economic autonomy

EARLY CLASSIC Medium population density Complex settlement system

("urbanism")Social status inequality

Religious-political leadership

Localized regional social, political, economic, integration

LATE CLASSIC Medium to dense population Complex settlement system

("urbanism")Social stratification Political leadership and

religious specialists

Developing areal (in ter­regional) social, political, economic integration

POSTCLASSIC Dense population Complex settlement system

Social stratification Political leadership and

religious specialists

Developed areal social, political, economic integration

5] □ Residential area Delineation ofceremonial precinct ^__ ) Political affiliation

A Ritual activity area /'" 'N Delineation of

'— ' settlement

FIGURE 8.1. Diagrams showing evolving settlement patterns and sociopolitical organization in the Mixteca Alta: time, space, and functional relationships.

force of tradition and sanctified social custom were as perva­sive and fundamental to the maintenance of the system as were economic considerations.

In late times, conquest of one kingdom by another seems not to have affected significantly the societal status quo es­tablished in Classic and Early Postclassic times. While there were undoubtedly individual differences in wealth, power, and prestige, as far as the class system was concerned, new rulers were the social equals of displaced rulers, principales remained principales, and commoners remained com­moners. Even external control of Mixtec kingdoms by the Culhua—Mexica tripartite confederacy was far more eco­nomic than sociopolitical or ideological in its impact on native society and does not seem to have altered the class system, the integration, the “authenticity,” and func­tional-adaptive persistence of the Mixtec social system.

Regarding claims that the Mixtec social system was highly adaptive, I must make it clear that I am emphasizing the

sociopolitical, rather than the technoenvironmental, adap­tation of an evolving society. The ideological, social, and political aspects of adaptation are primary in the develop­ment of the system of stratification, and technoenvironmen­tal adaptation is secondary. The environment of the Mix­teca, while somewhat limited in total productive potential, is internally dversified, allowing a variety of adaptations. Simi­lar environments have supported similar and dissimilar so­cial systems. Why, then, did the Mixtec system develop as it did?

The adaptive radiation of Mixtec society from a gener­alized Oaxacan or Mesoamerican Formative base can be seen as a result of a series of choices made by people both within and outside Mixtec society relative to the assignment of values or emphases to particular aspects of their culture. The power to make things grow, to ensure fertility, to main­tain good health, to ensure the continuity of life in the super­natural world, and the power to mediate between super­

natural forces and man rested in the hands of religious practitioners who converted their powers to deal with the supernatural world into power to deal with the natural world and to make decisions having a binding effect on increasingly larger numbers of people. Control of resources, the ability to ally, conquer, and control, and, we must not forget, the ability to deal with external threats both super­natural and political, operated in shaping Mixtec society and in the creation and maintenance of the class system. The fact that the rulers of Yanhuitlán and Tecomaxtlahuaca con­trolled by far the most productive lands in their respective domains was determined not by the existence of certain tech- noenvironmental relationships but by the existence of a highly evolved set of social mechanisms that allowed those highest-status individuals to take charge of and maintain control of those resources. The environment, so to speak, was adapted to preexisting social institutions rather than those institutions being the product of a special technoen- vironmental relationship. The Mixtec sociopolitical system developed in the Classic period and, evolving through the Postclassic and Colonial periods, allowed for adaptations to

diverse environments, cold and dry, temperate and moist, hot and dry, hot and humid, mountaintops and slopes, nar­row and broad valleys, and coastal plains. Evolving mecha­nisms allowed for the bridging and integration of diverse regions and, eventually, ethnic domains consisting of speak­ers of various Mixtec dialects as well as Chochones, Triques, Amuzgos, Chatinos, Nahuas, coastal Zapotec, and, finally, Zapotec speakers of the western portion of the Valley of Oaxaca.

I believe that we might go far toward a response to the ethnologist’s query, Why do some societies endure and hold together while others are changed radically and disinte­grate?, by examining carefully the evolution of the Mixtec social system and by observing the sequence of options— including the delegation of power to particular individuals, the creation and maintenance of a system of social stratifica­tion, and the development of a flexible but effective and highly integrative political and economic system—which were exercised by Mixtecs between the end of the Formative period and the Spanish Conquest.

TOPIC 71 The Mixtec Writing System

MARY ELIZABETH SMITH

The Mixtec writing system is usually described as a “lim­ited” or “partial” writing system because it uses signs prin­cipally to record names of -persons and places. The remainder of the story is conveyed through symbols and pictorial conventions that appear to have only occasional relationship to language. In addition, as far as can be deter­mined at the present time, the signs utilized to express names are based on whole words in the Mixtec language rather than on syllables or single sounds (phonemes). This type of writing, sometimes called logographic (Gelb 1963:99—107), is considered by historians of writing to be an early or forma­tive stage of writing.

The Mixtec writing system discussed in this topic is that seen in a group of Late Postclassic painted manuscripts, or codices, that set forth genealogical and historical data. Stone monuments and wall paintings from earlier periods and found within the present-day Mixtec-speaking region have been excluded because it is still uncertain which native lan­guage is depicted in the writing on these earlier monuments.1

'Some of the stone sculpture and painting from the Mixtec-speaking region has been discussed briefly by Alfonso Caso (1956, 1965b). A distinctive group of stone monuments from the Mixteca Baja region of northern O ax­aca-southern Puebla, presumably Late Classic in date, has been named Nuifte and studied in most detail by Paddock (1966a:174-200, 1970a, 1970b) and Moser (1977). The stone sculpture of the Oaxaca coast (the western section of which is Mixtec speaking) has been treated in depth by Maria Jorrin (1974).

Also omitted are such objects as carved bones, goldwork, and polychrome ceramics (Caso et al. 1967; Caso 1969; Ramsey 1975) that exhibit “Mixtec” style and often contain short texts. Here, too, it is still a question whether the texts on these objects reflect the Mixtec or some other language. For the same reason, the wall paintings of Mida (León 1901; Seler 1904) will not be discussed in detail, although they, as well, are considered to be Mixtec in style. The painted manu­scripts, on the other hand, are very definitely based on the Mixtec language, and they form a substantial corpus that amply illustrates the Mixtec system of writing in use at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

Included in the group of Mixtec manuscripts painted in a Preconquest style are Codices Nuttall (Nuttall 1902), Bodley (Caso 1960), Selden (Caso 1964), Colombino (Caso and Smith 1966; Troike 1974), Becker I and II (Nowotny 1961a), Vienna (Nowotny 1948; Caso 1950; Adelhofer 1963), and Sánchez Solis (also called Egerton 2895 [Burland 1965]). From the Mixtec-speaking region, there have also survived numerous Postconquest pictorial manuscripts (list­ed in Glass 1975:67) that retain elements of Prehispanic style and whose precise provenience is known. In some in­stances, these Postconquest manuscripts are accompanied by glosses written in European script or can be related to Colonial legal documents, and hence these later manuscripts are invaluable in interpreting the specific motifs found in the Preconquest manuscripts.

The origins of the Mixtec writing system are unknown, although this system or adaptations of it seem to have been utilized in other regions of Mesoamerica in the late Postclassic period. It has been suggested, for example, that the system being used by the Aztecs and other groups in and around the Valley of Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest is based on the “Mixtec system” (Robertson 1959a: 13). In the manuscripts from the Valley of Mexico, however, the writing system is used to express the Nahuatl language, whereas in the Mixtec manuscripts the system reflects the Mixtec langauge.

The Mixtec writing system, as it is exhibited in the genea- logical-historical manuscripts, uses three means of convey­ing information: signs, symbols, and pictorial conventions. Signs—or pictorial motifs that represent one or more words in the Mixtec language—are found principally in the names of persons and places.

Symbols, in my definition, are motifs that do not depend on language for their interpretation and that are often dis­tributed in more than one region of Mesoamerica. For exam­ple, I would consider the Mesoamerican “speech scroll” to be a symbol. The speech scroll—a volute usually shown being emitted from the mouth of a human being or animal— represents speech or sound in many regions of Mesoamerica, and, as far as I know, the name of this motif is not known in any native language. What I call a symbol some historians of writing call an ideograph or ideogram.

Pictorial conventions have little relationship to language and, in common with symbols, are found in regions of Meso­america where various languages are spoken. Examples of pictorial conventions include a mummy bundle to indicate a dead person, the confrontation of a male and a female figure to indicate marriage, and the grasping of the hair of one person by another to indicate conquest or prisoner-taking.

SIGNS

Signs are used to express both the names of persons and of places, although the place-name signs seem to be more com­plex in their composition than personal-name signs. In addi­tion, a more extensive vocabulary of signs is used to depict names of places than is used in the names of persons.

Most of the persons who appear in the Mixtec histories have two types of names: the calendrical name, which indi­cates the day on which they were born, and the so-called personal name or nickname, which was supposedly given to a child at the age of 7 by a priest (Herrera 1947:321). Utiliz­ing the traditional Mesoamerican calendar system, calendri­cal names of persons are composed of 20 day-signs which combine with the numbers 1 through 13 for a possible 260 day-names.2 Personal names usually consist of two motifs,

2Emily Rabin (1975) has demonstrated that the “ lucky” and “ unlucky” days seen in the calendrical names in Mixtec manuscripts are very different from the lucky and unlucky day-dates recorded by Sahagun for the Valley of Mexico.

although occasionally as many as three or four or as few as one are used. From glosses in the Mixtec language written on Codices Sánchez Solis and Muro (M. E. Smith 1973b), we know that most personal names are composed of two or three motifs that represent nouns only, such as “Rain De­ity—Flint Blade” (Sánchez Solis 23). Occasionally, however, the personal name is a noun-verb—object combination, such as “The Tiger Who Burns the Sky” (Muro 3).

Deities and Mythological Figures in Personal Names

Although the motifs used in personal names have yet to be studied completely as a system of nomenclature, the vocabu­lary of signs that appears in these names is very definitely a finite one. For example, very few of the rich variety of deities and mythological figures depicted on the obverse or ritual side of the Codex Vienna are included as motifs in personal names. The deity motif that occurs most frequently in the names of persons who are historical and neither priests nor mythological personages is the rain deity known in Nahuatl as Tlaloc and in Mixtec as Dzavui. This deity is part of the names of 56 different rulers in the Mixtec genealogies (50 men and 6 women). The prevalence of the rain deity motif in Mixtec names is not surprising because the Mixtec people call themselves in their own language ñuu dzavui, or “the people of the rain deity.”

A mythological figure that is also a fairly frequent compo­nent of personal names is the fire-serpent, whose name is

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a.

FIGURE 8.2. "Ollin figures,” "Xolotls," or "Earth men": (a) Codex Vienna 52; (b) Codex Selden 14-IV. (Drawing prepared by Caren Walt.)