Toponymic Analysis of Three Lienzos from the Mixtec Lowlands, Oaxaca

The Region of the Lienzos

The style presented in the lienzos situates them in the Mixteca region, one of the regions ¹   of the State of Oaxaca, defined based on geographic, linguistic and cultural criteria. It is located to the west of the State of Oaxaca, which is found between the 16^o and 18^o parallels 15’ north and between the 97^o and 98^o meridians 30’ west. Its geographic limits surpass the actual political division of the State of Oaxaca, and additionally reaches: to the west, the States of Guerrero and Puebla; to the north, it follows the basin of the Atoyac River in the south of the State of Puebla until it comes to the Cuicatlan Gorge in Oaxaca; to the east, its limit is the region of the Gorge and the Central Valleys of Oaxaca; to the southeast it is adjacent to Miahuatlan and Pochutla, and, finally; to the south, with the Pacific Ocean (Plate 4).

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This extensive territory is divided into three subregions which, according to their geographical characteristics, are known from south to north as (Dahlgren, 1990): The Mixtec Coastal Region, which includes the southwestern portion, corresponding with the Oaxacan coasts; The Mixtec Highlands, which covers the central section and has its limits to the east with the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, and, third; the Mixtec Lowlands, situated in the northwest part of the state of Oaxaca (Plate 4).

This last Mixtec subregion, known principally due to geographic criteria as the Mixtec Lowlands, is that which especially interests us since various authors (Caso, 1958; Smith, 1973; Smith and Parmenter, 1991) have proposed that these lienzos come from the northern area of the Mixtec Lowlands, in the district of Huajuapan. Said area is where the largest concentration of Ñuiñe-style monuments have been found, particularly in the localities of Huajuapan de León, ²   San Juan Bautista Suchitepec ³   and San Vicente el Palmar ⁴   (Plate 4).

The Mixtec Lowlands is a region shaped by a series of orographic accidents and valleys. It is situated, as we have mentioned, to the northwest of the State of Oaxaca, taking in three Districts: Huajuapan de León, Silacayoapan and Juxtlahuaca. However, its geographic limits surpass the political division of Oaxaca and extend toward the southwest of Puebla and the northwest of the State of Guerrero (Rodríguez, 1996). It is notorious that the developments in the Post Classic, according to Colonial sources (since the archaeological evidence is practically nil), make us think that the socio-political dynamic of the northern and southern areas established narrow relationships with the seigniories of the Mixtec Highlands, Coixtlahuaca and the south of Puebla.

Endnotes

1. The number of regions in Oaxaca varies from eight to thirteen. Part of the difference is because there are authors who consider Mixteca as one whole region and others divide it in three regions (see Winter, 1989 and Rodrigo, 1997 in regards to this).

2. The argument is based on Smith’s identification (1973) from a gloss inscribed within the Lintel of the right temple, which is located in the center of CMP36 where huayñodi, one of Huajuapan’s mixtec names from the XVI century which is ñudee or ñodii (hot town), is recorded. The gloss literally records house (huay/huahi), town (ño/ñu), and hot (dii/ndii).

3. In this map which shows mixtec glosses, Caso (1958) proposes the only location where mixtec speakers for the XVI century are known is Suchitepec de Oaxaca, for this reason the glosses are provenienced from this town, since the town is from the district of Huajuapan de León.

4. In the appendix that Smith and Parmenter show (1991), they present a general description of San Vicente el Palmar map, which is an original that has since been lost, and which corresponds to the copy located in the Archivo Agrario Nacional de Oaxaca (ARANO). This means it is possible that is the same record and that liezo 57 glosses comes from this location named San Vicente el Palmar.

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