Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez ENCOUNTENCOUNTEERR withwith thethe Drama and Power in the Heart of Mesoamerica Preface Encounter WITH THE plumed serpent i Mesoamerican Worlds From the Olmecs to the Danzantes GENERAL EDITORS: DAVÍD CARRASCO AND EDUARDO MATOS MOCTEZUMA The Apotheosis of Janaab’ Pakal: Science, History, and Religion at Classic Maya Palenque, GERARDO ALDANA Commoner Ritual and Ideology in Ancient Mesoamerica, NANCY GONLIN AND JON C. LOHSE, EDITORS Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan, PHILIP P. ARNOLD Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks, and Cultures, Revised Edition, ANTHONY AVENI Encounter with the Plumed Serpent: Drama and Power in the Heart of Mesoamerica, MAARTEN JANSEN AND GABINA AURORA PÉREZ JIMÉNEZ In the Realm of Nachan Kan: Postclassic Maya Archaeology at Laguna de On, Belize, MARILYN A. MASSON Life and Death in the Templo Mayor, EDUARDO MATOS MOCTEZUMA The Madrid Codex: New Approaches to Understanding an Ancient Maya Manuscript, GABRIELLE VAIL AND ANTHONY AVENI, EDITORS Mesoamerican Ritual Economy: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives, E. CHRISTIAN WELLS AND KARLA L. DAVIS-SALAZAR, EDITORS Mesoamerica’s Classic Heritage: Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, DAVÍD CARRASCO, LINDSAY JONES, AND SCOTT SESSIONS Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca, “Lord of the Smoking Mirror,” GUILHEM OLIVIER, TRANSLATED BY MICHEL BESSON Rabinal Achi: A Fifteenth-Century Maya Dynastic Drama, ALAIN BRETON, EDITOR; TRANSLATED BY TERESA LAVENDER FAGAN AND ROBERT SCHNEIDER Representing Aztec Ritual: Performance, Text, and Image in the Work of Sahagún, ELOISE QUIÑONES KEBER, EDITOR The Social Experience of Childhood in Mesoamerica, TRACI ARDREN AND SCOTT R. HUTSON, EDITORS Stone Houses and Earth Lords: Maya Religion in the Cave Context, KEITH M. PRUFER AND JAMES E. BRADY, EDITORS Tamoanchan, Tlalocan: Places of Mist, ALFREDO LÓPEZ AUSTIN Thunder Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: Self-Deprecation and the Theory of Otherness Among the Teenek Indians of Mexico, ANATH ARIEL DE VIDAS Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl: The Once and Future Lord of the Toltecs, H. B. NICHOLSON The World Below: Body and Cosmos in Otomi Indian Ritual, JACQUES GALINIER ENCOUNTER WITH THE Plumed Serpent Drama and Power in the Heart of Mesoamerica Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez U NIV E R S I T Y P R E S S O F C OLORADO © 2007 by the University Press of Colorado Published by the University Press of Colorado 5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C Boulder, Colorado 80303 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of the Association of American University Presses. The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State College, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Mesa State College, Metropolitan State College of Denver, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, and Western State College of Colorado. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jansen, Maarten E. R. G. N. (Maarten Evert Reinoud Gerard Nicolaas), 1952– Encounter with the plumed serpent : drama and power in the heart of Mesoamerica / Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez. p. cm. — (Mesoamerican worlds) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87081-868-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Manuscripts, Mixtec. 2. Mixtec Indians—Historiography. 3. Mixtec Indians—Genealogy. 4. Mixtec Indians—Social life and customs. I. Pérez Jiménez, Gabina Aurora. II. Title. F1219.54.M59J36 2007 305.897’63—dc22 2007001523 Design by Daniel Pratt An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. The open access ISBN for this book is 978-1-60732-710-3. More information about the initiative and links to the open-access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. To the memory of Flying Eagle Woman Ingrid Washinawatok (1957–1999) PREFACE vi Preface cONtents Foreword by Davíd Carrasco and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma / ix Preface / xi 1. The Mat and the Throne / 1 2. Storytelling and Ritual / 33 3. Descent of the Plumed Serpent / 65 4. Founding Mothers / 115 5. The Rise of Ñuu Tnoo / 153 6. Lord of the Toltecs / 191 7. Triumph and Tragedy / 241 8. Flute of the Divine / 277 9. The Crown of Motecuhzoma / 297 Notes / 303 References / 347 Index / 369 vii PREFACE viii Preface Foreword ust as religious convictions determined social ethos and the way Native “JAmericans behaved toward nature, ideology provided the frame for the recording and interpretation of history itself. We see this reflected in the archetypal king of the archetypal civilized kingdom: Quetzalcoatl of Tollan.” So writes Maarten Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez at the end of the first chapter in the long-awaited, innovative, and significant Encounter with the Plumed Serpent: Drama and Power in the Heart of Mesoamerica. The Mesoamerican Worlds series has two other books whose titles include the famed name of Quetzalcoatl: Davíd Carrasco’s Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire: Myths and Prophecies in the Aztec Tradition, Revised Edition and H. B. Nicholson’s classic study Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl: The Once and Future Lord of the Toltecs. Jansen and Pérez Jiménez’s Encounter with the Plumed Serpent adds a new complexity and richness to our understanding of Mesoamerica’s widespread Plumed Serpent tradition. The authors use ix PFOREREFACEWORD archaeological, iconographical, historical, and mythical evidence but also include contemporary ethnographic insights gleaned from years of working with indigenous peoples. Focusing intensely on the historical narratives of the Ñuu Dzaui peoples (the name given the Mixtecs by the Nahuas), Jansen and Pérez Jiménez describe the complex relationships among creator deities, rulers, warriors, place-names, and sacred storytelling not only to illuminate Quetzalcoatl’s past significance as archetypal ruler, priest, and warrior but also to explain some of his living legacies today. As they mention in the preface, the authors strive to carry forward the “vision of a sovereign people with their own history and culture, with values and with projects for the future” by taking us deeper into the dynastic discourses, religious symbolisms, and political traditions of these Mesoamerican peoples than other scholars have done previously. The authors present these people as historical and mythical; filled with profound attachments to the material conditions of their towns, lands, and cities; and animated by extraordinary imaginations, intellectual commitments, and creative ways of expressing them. It is by focusing on this potent combination, in part, that we are able to grasp new understandings of how religious convictions and political ideology combined to make the Plumed Serpent the focal point of many creative aspects of Mesoamerican history. Additionally, the thorough introduction explicates the nature of the primary evidence, linkages and disjunctions between codices, and the nature of kingships and gods in Mesoamerican traditions. The authors also confront us with the need to give back to these people and their documents their original names. We have eagerly looked forward to sharing the innovative work of Maarten Jansen with our readers, and here it is deeply enriched by the companion voice of Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez. As was prophesied long ago, the Plumed Serpent has returned yet again, this time through the research and writings of Jansen and Pérez Jiménez. DAVÍD CARRASCO AND EDUARDO MATOS MOCTEZUMA GENERAL EDITORS x Preface Preface N 1975 WE FIRST VISITED THE SACRED VALLEY OF YUTSA TOHON, SANTIAGO IApoala, in the Mixteca Alta (state of Oaxaca, Mexico)—a small village surrounded by steep cliffs on two sides and a precipice on the third, offering an overwhelming view of the blue mountain ranges behind the Cuicatec Cañada. Our journey was motivated by statements in ancient pictorial manuscripts and in reports by Spanish monks that this had been the place of origin of the dynasties that ruled Ñuu Dzaui, the “Nation of the Rain God”—the Mixtec people, the Mixtec land—in the centuries before the Spanish invasion. Soon, with the help and orientation of knowledgeable people like Don Raúl García, Don Prisciliano Alvarado, Doña Otilia Alvarado, Don Macario López, and many more, we started to see the connection: the representations in the manuscripts coincided with the landscape that surrounded us, and in that landscape the legends from ancient times fused with those of the present. To the east, overlooking the precipice, rises the peak of Kaua Kaandiui, the xi PREFACE Mountain of Heaven, where in the time of darkness and mystery the primor- dial Ancestors had manifested themselves and built their home. From here their son and pupil, the Plumed Serpent, Lord 9 Wind, had come down to bring light and life to the world. At the other end of the valley, where the two rock faces meet and leave only a narrow passage, is the Cave of the Serpent (Yaui Koo Maa), a dark and ancient place of ceremony. A huge stalagmite inside is called the “Bishop,” a venerated image: people go to him to ask a favor. Another story tells us that when the sun rose for the first time, a princess kept prisoner in this cave turned into stone in the center of the small subterranean pond. The waters that flow from her body feed the brook that gave its name to the town, the Yutsa Tohon, “River that pulls out and drags along” or the “Storytelling River”; it runs through the valley and forms a beautiful cascade where it plunges down. On its bank once stood the huge pochote tree that covered the entire valley with its shade and gave birth to the First Lords and Ladies, who, following the example of the Plumed Serpent and carrying his Sacred Bundle, became the founders of the Ñuu Dzaui kingdoms.