Archaeological Survey in the Coastal Chontalpa de Oaxaca, México

The Postclassic Political Situation at the Río Huamelula

Colonial documents narrate that three supra-regional powers engaged in expansionistic enterprises in southeastern Oaxaca shortly before the conquest: the Mixtec kingdom of Tututepec, the Zapotec kingdom of Tehuantepec, and the Aztec Triple Alliance. The ethnohistorical record of Huamelula and Astata, on the other hand, repeatedly refers to their dynastic and political ties with the Isthmian Zapotec capital of Tehuantepec (Archivo General de Indias, Escribanía 160 bis, Códice Ramírez 1979:86-89; see also Kroefges 1998⁷). This does not exclude the possibility that Tututepec had been militarily successful in the PARH study area at a certain moment.

The archaeological record cannot be easily interpreted in terms of their rivaling influence on the communities along the Río Huamelula. While the kaolin pottery types of the Classic and Postclassic periods suggest a continuing stylistic and economic orientation toward the Isthmus to the east, any sudden changes in the political landscape–through military conquest by Tututepec, for example–are not reflected in the archaeological record retrieved by PARH.

Previously, Brockington (1982) suggested that the spatial distribution of codex-style polychrome pottery along the Oaxacan coast coincided with the degree of sociopolitical influence of Tututepec over subdued communities. The scarcity of this diagnostic pottery in the PARH area may indicate that the Postclassic communities along the Río Huamelula did not participate in the Tututepec imperial organization as closely as did the neighbor communities at the bays of Huatulco. There, some 80 km further west, polychrome codex-style vessels are abundant at sites at Santa Cruz Huatulco and Bocana Copalita (see Fernández Dávila and Gómez Serafín 1988, 1990; Martínez Magaña 1999; personal observation). The documentary evidence has shown that the Huatulco area was under strong control by Tututepec’s imperial officers (see Relación de Guatulco 1984).

Endnotes

7. The Codex Ramírez (1979:86-89) tells about a vengeance expedition of Axayacatl against Tehuantepecs coastal allies, during which the Aztec ruler’s army moved westward until reaching Huatulco ("Guatusco"). The AGI document from 1571 is a testimony by the Aztlatan cacique, a son-in-law of the widow of Zapotec ruler of Tehuantepec, Cocijopij (Juan Cortéz). According to an earlier study by Kroefges (1998) on the indigenous colonial historical-cartographic pictorial found in Astata, the so-called Lienzo de Tecciztlán y Tequatepec, a genealogical line of local rulers from Huamelula is joined by Zapotec warlords to establish a cacicazgo that included Chontal communities of the Chontalpa Alta and Costa.

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