The obverse of Codex Zouche-Nuttall-throughout all forty-one pages-is primarily a document recording ceremonies, the histories of these ceremonies, and, therefore, almost certainly, the ideology which these ceremonies validate. For purposes of definition, and considering the similarity of the ZN rituals with those recorded in Codex Vienna, I call the implied ideology the Epiclassic Mixtec ceremonial complex. All three narratives, which I have termed "sagas," are in fact ritual histories. All involve lineage, ordering rituals, and the Cult of the Dead.
All of the pictogram tableaux recorded on ZN pages 1-8, including the capture events in the War from Heaven (pages 3-4), are ceremonies. The locus of this ceremonial complex is found at Apoala, and the relationship and exchange of ceremonial components between Apoala and Yucuñudahui are emphasized by the codex scribes. According to the narrative testimony examined in previous chapters, this ceremonial complex-which includes the Mixtec system of oracles-remained a stabilizing feature of Mixtec culture. The reverse of Codex Zouche-Nuttall, which details the political history of Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw of Tilantongo, indicates that this warlord attempted cultural changes during his lifetime. Codex Bodley records that subsequent to Eight Deer's assassination in AD 1115, most of the changes. he attempted to make, primarily those involving the oracle of the dead at Chalcatongo, did not continue after death.
Careful archaeological work in the Nochixtlan Valley (Spores 1969:560c) indicates previous settlements from about AD 300 gradually phased out during the Classic and Late Classic periods. This process began in the era we have identified as Epiclassic-a period between the Late Classic and the Postclassic periods. Some settlements, however, persisted and flourished, especially Yucuita and, very notably, Yucuñudahui. Other civic centers or towns de-veloped and/or expanded at this time, including Cerro Jasmin (Suchixtlan, Monkey Hill) and Jaltepec. Furthermore, in the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic periods-at a time Spores (1969:561c-562a) refers to as the Natividad phase beginning ca. AD 1000-the number and population of civic centers in this area continued to increase until the Spanish entrada in 1521. In fact, a long ridge from Yanhuitlan to Sayultepec and Etlantongo shows evidence of nearly continuous occupation in the Natividad phase.
Codices Zouche-Nuttall and Vienna pictorially record Epiclassic ideological changes. The second saga (ZN obverse pages 14-22) concerns itself with (1) the founding of the Wasp Hill ruling lineage prior to Lord Eight Wind, (2) the extermination of that lineage in the War from Heaven, and (3) the founding of the first lineage at Tilantongo. It almost certainly depicts the founding of four great temples, or ceremonial centers. Pages 14-19 are replete with sky images and descents of various persons from the sky-essentially representing interactions between earth, sky, and water landscapes. Pages 14-22 display thirteen sky and water images, five of them with cave openings, and three of those have individuals associated with them. The first saga (ZN pages 1-8) has only one tableau where landscape water is featured, and a second one where water is poured from a jar. Representations of sky appear only once in the War from Heaven sequence, on page 4 where Striped Men from the Sky are captured. Otherwise, pages 1-8 have twenty-five cave/earth images.
Codex Vienna begins paradigms of order in the sky, and many things happen there, but paramount among them is the birth of Lord Nine Wind Quetzalcoatl-an event upon which all subsequent events in Vienna depend. In other codices, Lord Nine Wind is a prominent ceremonial figure and battles against both Stone Men and the Striped Men from the Sky in the War from Heaven. During this war, another individual named Nine Wind fights against Lady Nine Grass, the oracle of Chalcatongo, in the southern Nochixtlan Valley (ZN pages 20b-21a).
The ideological shift implied by various portrayals of Nine Wind is dramatic: the previous and subsequently exterminated Wasp Hill lineage/ideology is replaced with the establishment of a different set, with the emphasis shifting to sky elements at Apoala in Codex Vienna. In Zouche-Nuttall's first saga Lord Eight Wind is prominently associated with caves. He appears from a cave in water only once (page 1); all other appearances are either in earth caves or temple caves. In Eight Wind's case, caves imply movement from one place or element to another. Remembering that ZN pages 1-8 have just one scene with prominent water (page 5) and one with landscape water (page 1), and only one scene representing sky (page 4), the preponderance of earth images and the absence of sky and water iconography are striking.
Remembering also that the first saga has strong connections with Apoala and Lord Eight Wind's emergence from a cave there, the third saga (ZN pages 36-41) begins in Apoala with a cave event. This saga has no sky images whatever, and water appears as the two Apoala lineage rivers and a waterfall on page 36.
The data recorded in the first pages of Codex Zouche-Nuttall obverse indicate that the protagonist, Lord Eight Wind, was a prime mover in an era of sweeping, dramatic, and conflictive social change. He either forged links with the new lineage order emerging at Apoala or was an intrinsic part of its formation. Subsequent data in this and other codices indicate the extreme importance of his lineage and the organization associated with it.
Although Lord Eight Wind is not displayed as a direct participant in the crucial War from Heaven, the Zouche-Nuttall manuscript indicates that he was involved with its conflict with the Stone Men, and that he was a seminal figure in the organization and subsequent institution of a new order of rule by the miraculous tree-born nobles from Apoala. After his political career ended, he married three women late in life and began a large, enduring family. In the later war of extermination conducted by Tilantongo against the Jaltepec/Hua Chino marriage alliance, the two conflicting royal parties (Tilantongo's first dynasty and Jaltepec's second dynasty) were descended from Lord Eight Wind through his daughters. The exterminated lineage at Hua Chino was not (Caso 1964:54a).
Regarding this intra/extra-familial fight, Eight Wind's power and influence did not end with his death at age ninety-two. Communication with his mummy was instrumental in beginning the marriage alliance war between his descendants. The codex scribes even provide us with a visual connection to events on the manuscript reverse that transpired in the time of Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw. It is reasonable to conclude that a function for ZoucheNuttall's first saga is to connect formational events in the Early Epiclassic era ordering of the new Mixtec society to its later history through the power and prestige of a dominant patriarch.
Lord Eight Wind was indeed a great patriarch. His influence continued both mystically and physically as his lineage grew, diversified, and extended itself through time. One can assert that descent from Eight Wind through his daughters validated some royal descents in the female line. The three sagas of Zouche-Nuttall obverse all involve lineage establishment, and all are connected by lineage histories. That is why Jansen and Jimenez (2005:14b) propose that the manuscript should be called "Codex Tonindeye," the Book of Lineage History.
These narratives tell us that early Mixtec history was tripartite in the minds of the scribes: the first saga (pages 1-8) presents the beginnings of Mixtec history, with a new lineage formation at Apoala. Saga 2 (pages 14-22) is a Mixtec history based around a previous lineage subsequently removed from power and the founding of ceremonial centers. The third saga (pages 36-41) is Mixtec history descended entirely from Apoala lineage validation.
In order to give us the complicated historical and ideological information encoded in Codex Zouche-Nuttall's first eight pages, the scribes enhanced the project by using interesting, creative formats. One such format allows certain pages to be "eclipsed," or hidden, by folding preceding and succeeding pages to cover them, and still another involves integration of the chronology with that in Codex Vienna.
The text also displays a kind of literary duality. Each two pages comprise a data set. Pages 1 and 2 are Eight Wind's introduction as a santo or supernatural being who participates in creating the ideology for Mixtec people to be called "People of the Rain," and the Mixteca itself the "Land of the Rain God." Pages 3 and 4 tell of the War from Heaven, itself in two parts: the campaign against the Stone Men and the battle against the Striped Men from the Sky. Pages 5 and 6 are the history of Lord Eight Wind's lineage founding and the patron deities attendant upon them. Pages 7 and 8 are a transition to the future era of Lord Eight Deer of Tilantongo. These last two pages depict two metaphysical events that may be seminal to the Oaxaca cult of the dead-namely, conferences with the mummy bundles of two deceased kings.
Also, pages 3 and 4 each terminate with a section from a ceremony known to be associated with Apoala; that is, each page has a terminal text comprising part of a whole, so that the ceremony itself is displayed in two parts. Even the protagonist of this story, Lord Eight Wind, is associated with the deity Lord Nine Wind Quetzalcoatl by sharing the dignity of double birth. In this later association there are two sequential interconnecting chronologies, as has been shown. Lord Eight Wind himself had two lives: one supernatural, during his first fifty-two years, and the second natural, during his final forty years. This latter "life" is enriched by a third quality, however: his life beyond the grave, whereby he continued to influence the political history of his descendants.
Codex Zouche-Nuttall itself is not a singular artifact. It is closely associated with its "sister," Codex Vienna. This dual association has been recognized from the time Zelia Nuttall first examined them and even before, during the time of the Aztecs. Both artifacts were presented by Emperor Montezuma II as part of the treasure he gave to Hernán Cortés (Nuttall 1902:9a-11b). The codices traveled to Europe together and were separated only after arriving in that strange land. Although they remain physically separated, the investigations of scholars have recognized them to be part of a historical and ideological unity representing in bold and beautiful artistic statements the greatness of the Mixtec people who wrote them more than seven hundred years ago.
In this present era we acknowledge that these ancient manuscripts were not written specifically for us to read. Nevertheless, they are time machines that provide windows through which we can see the world of a great indigenous people who pursued the dynamics of their existence without European influence. Theirs was a world of animated power which astonishes us even now-perhaps because it is literally focused in might and authority upon great houses of nobles who controlled their keeps wisely and at no great distance from one another.
This historical panorama is also tinged with an enduring sorrow, because when Europeans finally arrived in Oaxaca in 1521, the new cultural paradigm imposed on Native Americans swept away preexisting societies, creating people without history. The Mixtec codices-fragile manuscripts painted in bright colors on leather pages covered with thin gesso-are the remaining true testimonies of that history. I would like to think this the reason that the doomed Emperor Montezuma II included them as treasure to be sent to the great royal houses of alien Europe. For the most part, the gold and jewels that the Spanish so esteemed have either vanished or are forgotten now that the flurry of excitement surrounding them has been quelled by the passing of five centuries. At this time, in more considered and reflective, and perhaps more appreciative, moments, we can see and know the true treasure that grew and blossomed among the indigenous peoples of New World Oaxaca because we are now learning to read their few surviving books, the tonindeye: their family histories, and accounts of the deeds of their great kings and queens. In these books, which stand among the great literatures of the world, one can recognize that the political and ideological culture of ancient Oaxaca was brought to life by the deeds of their great lords and ladies.