CONTEMPORARY STUDIES AND DISCUSSIONS 127 CHAPTER FOUR CONTEMPORARY STUDIES AND DISCUSSIONS Our own work started in the aftermath of the International Congress of Americanists in Mexico (1974). We met in 1974 in Ñuu Ndeya (Chalcatongo) by mere chance (if there is such a thing), during Aurora’s rescheduled vacation to attend the Patron Feast of September 8 and Maarten’s first (and unplanned) trip to the Mixteca Alta. Born in the Mixtec traditional community of Yuku Shoo, belonging to Ñuu Ndeya, Aurora had learned her first Spanish when she entered the local primary school at the age of eleven. After finishing at that school, she worked as a domestic servant in Mexico City and then for two years as a migrant in the United States, where she learned English. Coming back to Mexico she worked as a hotel-receptionist and tour guide in Oaxaca, and then for seven years as an international tele- phone operator in Mexico City, during which time she made her first trip to Europe. Meanwhile Maarten had combined the study of Greco- Roman philology and archeology (B.A.) with minors in Nahuatl and Quechua at Leiden University, and had started the M.A. specialization in ancient American civilizations with Professor Ferdinand Anders at the Institut für Völkerkunde, Vienna University. As part of his long-term research, Anders was directing a major project of facsimile editions of ancient Mexican codices at the Akademische Druck-und Verlagsanstalt (ADEVA) in Graz, Austria. Becoming involved in this project, Maarten tried to apply his Leiden training in iconographical and philological methods to these manuscripts. Forming a team we chose to combine our diverse interests and early expertises by focusing on the history and language of Ñuu Dzaui, in particular on the interpretation of the Mixtec pictorial manuscripts. Our first aim was to relate the contents of Codex Yuta Tnoho (Vindobonensis) to Ñuu Dzaui geography and religious worldview. The geographical dimensions of this manuscript had often been dis- cussed in class by Anders , who in those years had just prepared a new facsimile edition of the manuscript (Adelhofer 1974). The first impres- sions of the Mixteca Alta inspired Maarten Jansen to try to locate some of the impressive mountain ranges that fill its pages. The point of M. Jansen and G.A. Pérez Jiménez - 9789004193581 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 10:52:06AM via free access 128 chapter four departure was, obviously, the breakthrough by Karl Anton Nowotny in the interpretation of this specific codex (1948, 1959c), as well as his fundamental studies of the composition of the pictographic signs (1959b) and of the world of the ancient Mexican religious pictorial manuscripts in general (1959a, 1961a, 1967). The new handbook on Mixtec place signs, just published by Smith (1973a) was an eye-opener. Aurora Pérez brought into this field her first-hand and active knowl- edge of Sahin Sau, the modern Mixtec language as spoken in Ñuu Ndeya (Chalcatongo) and a personal understanding of customs and concepts of the cultural tradition. Not really in opposition to Furst’s art-historical study, but follow- ing another approach, we tried to situate the Vienna manuscript within the total corpus of both the Books of Wisdom and the other Ñuu Dzaui codices, published and interpreted by Alfonso Caso, and to connect the contents with the landscape, concepts and customs of Ñuu Dzaui itself. Starting to work in the region together, we went to Yuta Tnoho (Santiago Apoala), a truly magical place. Here, according to the story of creation registered by Friar Gregorio García, the pri- mordial couple Lady 1 Deer and Lord 1 Deer had lived on the Mountain of Heaven. The same couple appears associated with Heaven in the first pages of Codex Yuta Tnoho . A large painting on page 36 of Codex Tonindeye situated the place sign of Yuta Tnoho, ‘River that pulls out’ (Río que Arranca) or ‘Story-Telling River’ in an impressive landscape. On the truck that took us from Nochistlan to Apoala, Don Raúl García Alvarado had already expressed to us his profound interest in the village’s past: from the stories told by the elderly he knew that Yutsa Tohon was a community of historical importance, he was con- vinced that there must be an ancient manuscript or códice somewhere that would confirm and clarify the local legends, he had been looking for such a document himself.... With his help and that of other inhab- itants the representation of the town in the codices was soon identi- fied. To the East rises the peak of the Mountain on which the Heaven rests, Kaua Kaandiui (Cavua Caa Andevui in Alvarado’s orthogra- phy). The Story-Telling River, the Cave of the Serpent, the Waterfall, the place where the Sacred Mother Tree (Tinuu) had once stood, were all there. Nancy Troike, following all this from a distance, immediately invited us to communicate these findings at a symposium of the annual congress of the Society of American Archaeology , in spring 1976, in St. Louis Missouri. Later Maarten presented a more formal M. Jansen and G.A. Pérez Jiménez - 9789004193581 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 10:52:06AM via free access CONTEMPORARY STUDIES AND DISCUSSIONS 129 4.1. Kaua Kandiui, the Mountain of Heaven, East of Yutsa Tohon (Apoala). paper to the session organized by Troike during the International Congress of Americanists in Paris (1976, published 1979), followed by his Master’s thesis ‘El Lugar donde estaba el Cielo’ (Leiden 1976), supervised by Ferdinand Anders. The discussion of the main results with Karl Anton Nowotny, living his final years in Cologne, was very inspiring and made a lasting impression. M. Jansen and G.A. Pérez Jiménez - 9789004193581 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 10:52:06AM via free access 130 chapter four 4.2. Codex Yuta Tnoho, p. 35 (Lower Right to Lower Left, boustrophedon): Invocation of the Ñuhu. The elderly couple Lord 1 Flower and Lady 13 Flower have a daughter, Lady 9 Alligator. The father speaks to Lord 9 Wind, who acts as a ‘marriage ambas- sador’ and visits Lord 5 Rain in the Place of Heaven. As a consequence of his media- tion, Lord 5 Rain weds Lady 9 Alligator in River of the Hand Holding Feathers, i.e. Yuta Tnoho (Apoala). In the framework of a position at Leiden University , which Maarten obtained for his Ph.D. research, we were able to continue the study of Codex Yuta Tnoho and related documents in more depth. Traveling through the region and talking to many people, mainly in Yutsa Tohon (Yuta Tnoho, Apoala) and Ñuu Ndeya (Ñuu Ndaya, Chalcatongo), but also visiting other important towns, such as Ñuu Tnoo (Tilantongo) and Chiyo Cahnu (Teozacualco), we were able to identify more top- onymic signs and specific acts. The supervisors of the thesis work, Benedikt Hartmann (originally a specialist in ancient Near Eastern religions) and Ferdinand Anders, did not just watch from afar, but actively participated in short fieldtrips to the Mixteca Alta, providing intellectual partnership over the years. The analysis of the Codex Yuta Tnoho showed that the first Lords and Ladies, born out of the Tree in that Sacred Valley, performed a New Fire ceremony for a number of places, among which we found the emblematic glyphs of the four directions and the center. This was clearly in accordance with the testimonies of Friar Antonio de los Reyes and Friar Francisco de Burgoa about those Lords and Ladies of M. Jansen and G.A. Pérez Jiménez - 9789004193581 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 10:52:06AM via free access CONTEMPORARY STUDIES AND DISCUSSIONS 131 4.3. Carved stone, representing a Ñuhu, set in the wall of the church of San Martín Huamelulpan. Yuta Tnoho (Apoala) going to the four directions, taking possession of the land and founding the dynasties. The leader of the ceremony waves some branches over the landscape, an action that is clearly the same as the present day limpia or ceremonial cleansing. Following up the decipherments by Mary Elizabeth Smith, we could clarify concepts such as Ñuhu, ‘deity’ and iya, ‘(divine) Lord’. Their present-day usage made it clear to us that the old question of trying to define the pro- tagonists of the foundation period in the codices using the dichotomy between ‘Gods’ or ‘historical persons’, simply made no sense in Dzaha Dzaui . The ancient rulers (iya) had religious importance and became deities (Ñuhu) after death (as indicated clearly in Reyes’ grammar). Chronology Again On several occasions and in correspondence Maarten Jansen dis- cussed extensively with Emily Rabin the possibility of shortening the time span between Lord 8 Deer and the Spanish invasion by ‘taking out’ a second 52-year cycle of the chronological sequence proposed by M. Jansen and G.A. Pérez Jiménez - 9789004193581 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 10:52:06AM via free access 132 chapter four Caso . The main reason for this was the analysis of the opening scene and glosses of Codex Ñuu Naha (p. 2): in the year 3 House three nobles from Ñuu Naha arrived in Chiyo Cahnu in order to ask the local rulers, Lord 8 Rabbit and his wife, Lady 6 Grass, for their son, Lord 1 House, to become king in Ñuu Naha. Amidst all kinds of annotations we find the statement ‘1300 años’, i.e. ‘the year 1300 ad’. According to the con- version table the year 3 House could be 1301. This is a remarkably precise and explicit correlation. Because of the fact that Mesoamerican and Christian years are not completely identical a variation of one year is normal in such correlations. Furthermore the native historian who explained the pictorial scenes of Codex Ñuu Naha seems to have been well informed.