Recommended listening: Qamuxib'al by Atekokoli
Story
It was a sunny day in the Nochixtlán Valley. The noble families of Añute had all gathered together for a grand feast. Filtering in from the barrios they ruled on behalf of the king and queen, and from estates they ran in the hinterland, they all converged on the city-state of Añute. Meaning "place of sand" in the Mixtec language, Añute was located on the slopes beneath an abandoned mountaintop citadel. In the dry highland landscape of the Mixteca Alta, the Mixtec triumphantly called themselves Ñuu Dzaui, the people of the rain. Today, though, the sun shone brightly on Añute, and the king and queen graciously welcomed visitors to their palace. After thanking their visitors for making the journey, they offered food and drink and soft seats to their guests.
One of the guests at the party was a young princess of Añute. Her name was Iyadzehe Sicuaa Dzico Ñaña, or Lady 10 Deer Jaguar Quechquemitl. 10 Deer was the day of her birth in the 260-day cycle of the Mixtec year. While all children were named automatically for their birthday, they also received a personal name. Hers referred to the mighty jaguar, whose furs adorned only the most noble of Mixtec people. Something about the little child must have put her parents in mind of a jaguar's might, whether it was her personality or an omen at the time of her birth. The quechquemitl was a special shawl worn by aristocratic women, and including it in her name symbolized power. The name was prescient, for the young Sicuaa, only a child or teenager in the year 1000, would one day go on to become a powerful queen.
Her parents were Lady 7 Death and Lord 3 Rain, a prince of Añute. 3 Rain's grandmother, Lady 8 Rabbit Sun Face, was the founder of the dynasty. According to legend, 8 Rabbit descended from the first sunrays that illuminated the mountain of Añute. Her son, Lord 10 Reed, was 3 Rain's father. 10 Reed had led Añute through a time of warfare in the Nochixtlán Valley. For centuries, the Mixtec had been subjects of the powerful Zapotec polity located at Monte Albán in the Valley of Oaxaca. The people of Añute had lived in a fortified settlement at the top of their mountain in order to protect themselves from its military might. But during the time of 10 Reed, Iyadzehe Sicuaa's grandfather, the Mixtec had risen up against their Zapotec overlords. As Monte Albán's power waned, they waged a great war against Monte Albán's satellite city in their valley, Huachino. The cities whose warriors emerged victorious from that war now sought to assert their own power in the vacuum Huachino left behind, vying for control of the Nochixtlán Valley and beyond. An uneasy peace had settled across the Mixteca Alta.
Añute was one of these up-and-coming new powers. 10 Reed's son, Lord 3 Rain, served as the high priest in the city. By the year 1000 - Year 1 Flint in the Mixtec calendar - his daughter Sicuaa was coming of age, which meant that it was time to arrange her marriage. In the ever-shifting allegiances of the rival city-states, marriage alliances were the single most important form of politics. Eager to avoid the warfare that had only recently ended in the valley, kings and queens sought to bolster their own power by marrying off their sons and daughters to neighbouring cities. In 1009, Sicuaa would marry Iya Nachi Oco Yaha, Lord 8 Wind Twenty Eagles. He ruled an important settlement near Añute called Chiyo Yuhu. Instead of marrying a princess of Monte Albán as some other men of his generation did, who hoped to draw on that fallen city's ancient credentials, he decided to look to the future and forge an alliance with Añute. The Mixtec codices, genealogical texts compiled in the 16th century, commemorate their wedding by showing them among the white jasmine flowers that still grow today among the ruins of their kingdom.
For while a royal couple shared the marriage mat, it was their kingdom. Queens among the Mixtec were not simply consorts but were powerful political players in their own right. When an alliance such as Sicuaa's and Nachi's was sealed with a marriage, both partners retained their own hereditary titles and kingdoms. An alliance between the city-states was therefore highly dependent on individual marriages, since the kingdoms were united only as long as the ruling couple was. While Nachi married two other women, Sicuaa remained his primary queen and exerted considerable power over his kingdom. Unlike the Classic Maya before them or the Aztecs after, the Postclassic Mixtec had little in the way of government bureacracy. Rulers delegated to only a few trusted officials, handling the bulk of governance themselves.
One of Sicuaa's most important duties as the queen of Chiyo Yuhu was to arrange the marriages of her children. Mixtec nobles practiced strict caste marriage, for only the children of two parents of royal blood could inherit the throne. Although her father had been high priest rather than the king of Añute, it appears that the task of carrying on its royal line passed to Sicuaa. It may be that her aunt and uncle had been childless, or that her cousins had all died - or it may simply have been that she was in the best position to increase Añute's power, and so sovereignty passed to her. While older male heirs were preferred, women were considered fully capable of continuing the family line, since descent from mothers and fathers was valued equally in determining royal succession. Sicuaa herself already represented an alliance between Añute and Chiyo Yuhu. If she could put her child on the throne of Añute with a consort from another city-state, Añute's power would only increase.
In the year 1041, Sicuaa therefore found herself in charge of determining the future of Añute - and with it, the entire Nochixtlán Valley. Together, she and her husband already governed over the eastern part of the valley and into the mountains. Crucially, they controlled the passage to the Valley of Oaxaca, the key trade corridor connecting the valley to the wider Mesoamerican world. If they could secure a favourable marriage for one of their children that added yet another kingdom to their jurisdiction, Añute could become the most powerful city-state in the region. She and her husband had had many children by this point: Lord 13 Grass, the twin Lords 3 Lizard, Lady 2 Serpent Plumed Serpent, and others. Sicuaa decided to focus her energies on her youngest daughter, Lady 9 Wind Flint Quechquemitl. Like her mother, she bore the name of the quechquemitl, a symbol of female power. Was there something flinty in her countenance as a little child that inspired Sicuaa to bestow her daughter with such a formidable name?
The Codex Añute, the 16th century history of the city, gives us no answer to that question. In the practiced but shaking hand of an elderly artist, determined to assert Añute's great history in the face of Spanish invasion, the story of Sicuaa and her daughter plays out in ink and paper. Sitting atop her throne in Chiyo Yuhu, Sicuaa stretches out a commanding hand. Her husband Nachi holds out his palms in supplication, powerless to oppose his wife in matters pertaining to Añute. Obeying her mother's orders, Lady 9 Wind approaches the temple of Añute, the House of Rain at the top of the mountain. She makes an offering of tobacco and incense to the Sacred Bundle, which holds the relics of her ancestors, the city's founders. Having paid her dues to her forebears, she takes her place on the throne of Añute. At her side is her new husband, Lord 10 Eagle Stone Jaguar. As her mother did before her, she points her finger in a gesture of authority, leaving her husband to open his hands in submission. It is clear in this case that she rules Añute as queen regnant, with 10 Eagle a prince consort subordinate to her rule. They married on the day 10 Deer, her mother's birthday, which in that year fell on the 29th of November. The choice of day honoured Sicuaa not only as mother of the bride, but as a sovereign power in Añute, able to designate the next monarch as she chose.
But once Lady 9 Wind was in charge, she had her own ideas about how to rule Añute. Sicuaa's arrangement of her daughter's marriage had been a commitment to the new political order in the Nochixtlán Valley, one of carefully reciprocated alliances between the new royal families that had emerged from the ashes of the war with Huachino. Her new son-in-law 10 Eagle was from the nearby city-state of Ñuu Tnoo, a grandson of the great war hero who had founded the dynasty there. He was also her grand-nephew, the son of her eldest daughter Lady 2 Serpent, who had been married into the Ñuu Tnoo royal family decades earlier. Añute and Ñuu Tnoo, the two great cities that emerged after the war, were therefore joined in a grand alliance. Sicuaa may have thought that bringing a son of Ñuu Tnoo to rule beside her daughter at Añute would bring her in more direct control of Ñuu Tnoo's resources. She and her husband sought to rule over an ever-growing kingdom based at Chiyo Yuhu, with Añute and Ñuu Tnoo serving as loyal vassals.
Lady 9 Wind had other plans. A mere child at the time of her marriage, she soon grew into her role as queen regnant of Añute. In the 1070s, she married her daughter Lady 4 Death into the ruling family of Ñuu Tnoo. On the face of it, this appears to be be continuing her mother's plans, but it caused a wedge between 9 Wind and her father. The codices are vague about how the war between Añute and Chiyo Yuhu began, but the first casualties were 9 Wind's own children: her three sons and Lady 4 Death were all sacrificed at the hands of her father in Chiyo Yuhu. Nachi had ordered the ritual killings of his own grandchildren. By this point, Sicuaa had disappeared from the narrative, suggesting that she may not have lived to see this tragedy strike her family.
After the brutal elimination of her children, Lady 9 Wind's only surviving heir was her youngest daughter, Lady 6 Monkey Plumed Serpent Quechquemitl. Only an infant, she had been put under the protection of the high priest in order to spare her from the violence that slew her siblings. A long and bloody conflict had begun, which would see 6 Monkey, Sicuaa's granddaughter, emerge as the most important queen in Mixtec history. She and her father 10 Eagle would fight for Añute's right to exercise its independence from Chiyo Yuhu, forging an alliance with the old city of Huachino and fending off the attacks of her brother and grandfather. This contest for power would ultimately end badly for Añute, with 6 Monkey sacrificed at the hands of her rival king at Ñuu Tnoo, Lord 8 Deer Jaguar Claw, the greatest conquerer of the Early Postclassic. In the end, all of Sicuaa's ambitions for Añute would crumble into dust, like a mountain of sand blown away into the wind.
Although her carefully laid plans for Añute's future were doomed to fail, Sicuaa's attempt to engineer favourable alliances through her daughters' marriages initiated one of the greatest dramas of Mixtec history. The conflict between Lady 6 Monkey and Lord 8 Deer was told and retold in all the cities of the Nochixtlán Valley and recorded in loving artistic detail on the deerskin codices that hung on palace walls in every kingdom. In the Codex Añute, 6 Monkey is the standout hero of the tale in spite of her tragic end. Although she and her mother had defied Sicuaa's plans, they followed her example as assertive queens seeking to promote the success of Añute at any cost.
In the year 1000, all of this political intrigue was far in the future. Sicuaa was still an unmarried princess of Añute at a time when that city's star was on the rise. On this sunny day at the royal palace, she has joined her relatives for a feast. Seated regally on a jaguar skin cushion, she looks on with curiosity as the adults debate political matters on the other side of the room. The feast is winding down now, and the servants have cleared away the food. In its place, they bring out pipes of tobacco and vessels full of steaming chocolate. Chocolate was a luxury drink for the elites. The beans of the cacao tree were one of the most important imports from the Pacific coast. Unlike today, chocolate was primarily served as a liquid. The hot beverage was flavoured with all manner of ingredients such as vanilla, honey, chilli peppers, achiote, allspice, and ear flower. The Mixtec seem to have particularly loved flavouring their chocolate with the petals and nectars of crushed flowers. Chocolate was always served at marriage feasts, sealing the political alliances that bound the Nochixtlán Valley together. People across Mesoamerica particularly valued chocolate foam, adding different plants as foaming agents and pouring the chocolate from one highly decorated ceramic vessel to another in order to make the chocolate as frothy as possible.
Bringing a foaming cup of chocolate to her lips, Sicuaa sits surrounded by the evidence of her family's prominence. The story of her great-grandmother, Lady 8 Rabbit Sun Face, plays out in the murals on the wall behind her. Her father Lord 3 Rain is depicted in his priestly regalia honouring Añute's sacred bundle on the chocolate pot that stands proudly in the middle of the room. The turquoise, gold, and spondylus shell ornaments that decorate her body represent her family's wealth and long-distance trade connections spanning from the coast in the south to the deserts of the northwest. Her skin is painted in yellow ochre, the height of fashion for aristocratic Mixtec ladies. At her side sleeps a little chihuahua, bred as lap dogs for companionship across Mesoamerica. Sipping chocolate quietly in the corner, Sicuaa learns the ways of statecraft, lessons she will put to good use in her future as the queen of Chiyo Yuhu and loyal daughter of Añute.
One of the guests at the party was a young princess of Añute. Her name was Iyadzehe Sicuaa Dzico Ñaña, or Lady 10 Deer Jaguar Quechquemitl. 10 Deer was the day of her birth in the 260-day cycle of the Mixtec year. While all children were named automatically for their birthday, they also received a personal name. Hers referred to the mighty jaguar, whose furs adorned only the most noble of Mixtec people. Something about the little child must have put her parents in mind of a jaguar's might, whether it was her personality or an omen at the time of her birth. The quechquemitl was a special shawl worn by aristocratic women, and including it in her name symbolized power. The name was prescient, for the young Sicuaa, only a child or teenager in the year 1000, would one day go on to become a powerful queen.
Her parents were Lady 7 Death and Lord 3 Rain, a prince of Añute. 3 Rain's grandmother, Lady 8 Rabbit Sun Face, was the founder of the dynasty. According to legend, 8 Rabbit descended from the first sunrays that illuminated the mountain of Añute. Her son, Lord 10 Reed, was 3 Rain's father. 10 Reed had led Añute through a time of warfare in the Nochixtlán Valley. For centuries, the Mixtec had been subjects of the powerful Zapotec polity located at Monte Albán in the Valley of Oaxaca. The people of Añute had lived in a fortified settlement at the top of their mountain in order to protect themselves from its military might. But during the time of 10 Reed, Iyadzehe Sicuaa's grandfather, the Mixtec had risen up against their Zapotec overlords. As Monte Albán's power waned, they waged a great war against Monte Albán's satellite city in their valley, Huachino. The cities whose warriors emerged victorious from that war now sought to assert their own power in the vacuum Huachino left behind, vying for control of the Nochixtlán Valley and beyond. An uneasy peace had settled across the Mixteca Alta.
Añute was one of these up-and-coming new powers. 10 Reed's son, Lord 3 Rain, served as the high priest in the city. By the year 1000 - Year 1 Flint in the Mixtec calendar - his daughter Sicuaa was coming of age, which meant that it was time to arrange her marriage. In the ever-shifting allegiances of the rival city-states, marriage alliances were the single most important form of politics. Eager to avoid the warfare that had only recently ended in the valley, kings and queens sought to bolster their own power by marrying off their sons and daughters to neighbouring cities. In 1009, Sicuaa would marry Iya Nachi Oco Yaha, Lord 8 Wind Twenty Eagles. He ruled an important settlement near Añute called Chiyo Yuhu. Instead of marrying a princess of Monte Albán as some other men of his generation did, who hoped to draw on that fallen city's ancient credentials, he decided to look to the future and forge an alliance with Añute. The Mixtec codices, genealogical texts compiled in the 16th century, commemorate their wedding by showing them among the white jasmine flowers that still grow today among the ruins of their kingdom.
For while a royal couple shared the marriage mat, it was their kingdom. Queens among the Mixtec were not simply consorts but were powerful political players in their own right. When an alliance such as Sicuaa's and Nachi's was sealed with a marriage, both partners retained their own hereditary titles and kingdoms. An alliance between the city-states was therefore highly dependent on individual marriages, since the kingdoms were united only as long as the ruling couple was. While Nachi married two other women, Sicuaa remained his primary queen and exerted considerable power over his kingdom. Unlike the Classic Maya before them or the Aztecs after, the Postclassic Mixtec had little in the way of government bureacracy. Rulers delegated to only a few trusted officials, handling the bulk of governance themselves.
One of Sicuaa's most important duties as the queen of Chiyo Yuhu was to arrange the marriages of her children. Mixtec nobles practiced strict caste marriage, for only the children of two parents of royal blood could inherit the throne. Although her father had been high priest rather than the king of Añute, it appears that the task of carrying on its royal line passed to Sicuaa. It may be that her aunt and uncle had been childless, or that her cousins had all died - or it may simply have been that she was in the best position to increase Añute's power, and so sovereignty passed to her. While older male heirs were preferred, women were considered fully capable of continuing the family line, since descent from mothers and fathers was valued equally in determining royal succession. Sicuaa herself already represented an alliance between Añute and Chiyo Yuhu. If she could put her child on the throne of Añute with a consort from another city-state, Añute's power would only increase.
In the year 1041, Sicuaa therefore found herself in charge of determining the future of Añute - and with it, the entire Nochixtlán Valley. Together, she and her husband already governed over the eastern part of the valley and into the mountains. Crucially, they controlled the passage to the Valley of Oaxaca, the key trade corridor connecting the valley to the wider Mesoamerican world. If they could secure a favourable marriage for one of their children that added yet another kingdom to their jurisdiction, Añute could become the most powerful city-state in the region. She and her husband had had many children by this point: Lord 13 Grass, the twin Lords 3 Lizard, Lady 2 Serpent Plumed Serpent, and others. Sicuaa decided to focus her energies on her youngest daughter, Lady 9 Wind Flint Quechquemitl. Like her mother, she bore the name of the quechquemitl, a symbol of female power. Was there something flinty in her countenance as a little child that inspired Sicuaa to bestow her daughter with such a formidable name?
The Codex Añute, the 16th century history of the city, gives us no answer to that question. In the practiced but shaking hand of an elderly artist, determined to assert Añute's great history in the face of Spanish invasion, the story of Sicuaa and her daughter plays out in ink and paper. Sitting atop her throne in Chiyo Yuhu, Sicuaa stretches out a commanding hand. Her husband Nachi holds out his palms in supplication, powerless to oppose his wife in matters pertaining to Añute. Obeying her mother's orders, Lady 9 Wind approaches the temple of Añute, the House of Rain at the top of the mountain. She makes an offering of tobacco and incense to the Sacred Bundle, which holds the relics of her ancestors, the city's founders. Having paid her dues to her forebears, she takes her place on the throne of Añute. At her side is her new husband, Lord 10 Eagle Stone Jaguar. As her mother did before her, she points her finger in a gesture of authority, leaving her husband to open his hands in submission. It is clear in this case that she rules Añute as queen regnant, with 10 Eagle a prince consort subordinate to her rule. They married on the day 10 Deer, her mother's birthday, which in that year fell on the 29th of November. The choice of day honoured Sicuaa not only as mother of the bride, but as a sovereign power in Añute, able to designate the next monarch as she chose.
But once Lady 9 Wind was in charge, she had her own ideas about how to rule Añute. Sicuaa's arrangement of her daughter's marriage had been a commitment to the new political order in the Nochixtlán Valley, one of carefully reciprocated alliances between the new royal families that had emerged from the ashes of the war with Huachino. Her new son-in-law 10 Eagle was from the nearby city-state of Ñuu Tnoo, a grandson of the great war hero who had founded the dynasty there. He was also her grand-nephew, the son of her eldest daughter Lady 2 Serpent, who had been married into the Ñuu Tnoo royal family decades earlier. Añute and Ñuu Tnoo, the two great cities that emerged after the war, were therefore joined in a grand alliance. Sicuaa may have thought that bringing a son of Ñuu Tnoo to rule beside her daughter at Añute would bring her in more direct control of Ñuu Tnoo's resources. She and her husband sought to rule over an ever-growing kingdom based at Chiyo Yuhu, with Añute and Ñuu Tnoo serving as loyal vassals.
Lady 9 Wind had other plans. A mere child at the time of her marriage, she soon grew into her role as queen regnant of Añute. In the 1070s, she married her daughter Lady 4 Death into the ruling family of Ñuu Tnoo. On the face of it, this appears to be be continuing her mother's plans, but it caused a wedge between 9 Wind and her father. The codices are vague about how the war between Añute and Chiyo Yuhu began, but the first casualties were 9 Wind's own children: her three sons and Lady 4 Death were all sacrificed at the hands of her father in Chiyo Yuhu. Nachi had ordered the ritual killings of his own grandchildren. By this point, Sicuaa had disappeared from the narrative, suggesting that she may not have lived to see this tragedy strike her family.
After the brutal elimination of her children, Lady 9 Wind's only surviving heir was her youngest daughter, Lady 6 Monkey Plumed Serpent Quechquemitl. Only an infant, she had been put under the protection of the high priest in order to spare her from the violence that slew her siblings. A long and bloody conflict had begun, which would see 6 Monkey, Sicuaa's granddaughter, emerge as the most important queen in Mixtec history. She and her father 10 Eagle would fight for Añute's right to exercise its independence from Chiyo Yuhu, forging an alliance with the old city of Huachino and fending off the attacks of her brother and grandfather. This contest for power would ultimately end badly for Añute, with 6 Monkey sacrificed at the hands of her rival king at Ñuu Tnoo, Lord 8 Deer Jaguar Claw, the greatest conquerer of the Early Postclassic. In the end, all of Sicuaa's ambitions for Añute would crumble into dust, like a mountain of sand blown away into the wind.
Although her carefully laid plans for Añute's future were doomed to fail, Sicuaa's attempt to engineer favourable alliances through her daughters' marriages initiated one of the greatest dramas of Mixtec history. The conflict between Lady 6 Monkey and Lord 8 Deer was told and retold in all the cities of the Nochixtlán Valley and recorded in loving artistic detail on the deerskin codices that hung on palace walls in every kingdom. In the Codex Añute, 6 Monkey is the standout hero of the tale in spite of her tragic end. Although she and her mother had defied Sicuaa's plans, they followed her example as assertive queens seeking to promote the success of Añute at any cost.
In the year 1000, all of this political intrigue was far in the future. Sicuaa was still an unmarried princess of Añute at a time when that city's star was on the rise. On this sunny day at the royal palace, she has joined her relatives for a feast. Seated regally on a jaguar skin cushion, she looks on with curiosity as the adults debate political matters on the other side of the room. The feast is winding down now, and the servants have cleared away the food. In its place, they bring out pipes of tobacco and vessels full of steaming chocolate. Chocolate was a luxury drink for the elites. The beans of the cacao tree were one of the most important imports from the Pacific coast. Unlike today, chocolate was primarily served as a liquid. The hot beverage was flavoured with all manner of ingredients such as vanilla, honey, chilli peppers, achiote, allspice, and ear flower. The Mixtec seem to have particularly loved flavouring their chocolate with the petals and nectars of crushed flowers. Chocolate was always served at marriage feasts, sealing the political alliances that bound the Nochixtlán Valley together. People across Mesoamerica particularly valued chocolate foam, adding different plants as foaming agents and pouring the chocolate from one highly decorated ceramic vessel to another in order to make the chocolate as frothy as possible.
Bringing a foaming cup of chocolate to her lips, Sicuaa sits surrounded by the evidence of her family's prominence. The story of her great-grandmother, Lady 8 Rabbit Sun Face, plays out in the murals on the wall behind her. Her father Lord 3 Rain is depicted in his priestly regalia honouring Añute's sacred bundle on the chocolate pot that stands proudly in the middle of the room. The turquoise, gold, and spondylus shell ornaments that decorate her body represent her family's wealth and long-distance trade connections spanning from the coast in the south to the deserts of the northwest. Her skin is painted in yellow ochre, the height of fashion for aristocratic Mixtec ladies. At her side sleeps a little chihuahua, bred as lap dogs for companionship across Mesoamerica. Sipping chocolate quietly in the corner, Sicuaa learns the ways of statecraft, lessons she will put to good use in her future as the queen of Chiyo Yuhu and loyal daughter of Añute.
Artist's Comments
It is long overdue for me to return to Mesoamerica in Women of 1000. I have always found it an intimidating area of research to dive into. 1000 sits between the two "big" periods of Mesoamerican history, the Classic Maya and the Aztec Empire. It is also dominated by the controversial and confusing Toltecs, who the Aztecs claimed as one of their ancestors, making it very difficult to separate fact from legend about them. I was originally going to try to draw the Toltecs because I read that they were the ones who first bred chihuahuas, and I wanted to draw a woman drinking chocolate with a chihuahua at her side. However, once I learned about all the named women we knew about in 1000 from the Mixtec codices, there was no turning back. I quickly became obsessed with learning about Sicuaa and all the history and culture surrounding her story.
Someone a long time ago suggested I draw Lady 6 Monkey for my project. I couldn't draw her because she was born in the 1070s, but I loved learning the story of her grandmother and including it in Women of 1000. Can you believe that all this was going on at the same time as Sei Shōnagon was writing the Pillow Book? That's what I love most about this project - learning about all these different stories that women were involved in at the same time on opposite corners of the globe.
I'd like to thank Maarten Jansen for responding to my email and telling me what Lady 10 Deer's name was in the Mixtec language. In the scholarship, Mixtec rulers are usually referred to in translation, meaning that I didn't have the Mixtec names for most of the people in the story. But being able to call Sicuaa by the name she actually would have used was really special. I've linked to several of Jansen's publications about the Mixtec codices below. Thank you also to all the friends who helped me out while drawing this picture - at first I was worried it didn't do justice to how much I loved Sicuaa and her story, but it's growing on me. The reconstruction art of Christine Clados and Daniel Parada was very helpful for me as well.
It was really fun to work on this over my 30th birthday weekend. I had to include a little dog, one of the ancestors of my own chihuahua, Hazel! I hope to return to the Mixtec in a future illustration, since there are other women with interesting stories alive at the same time as Sicuaa. ~ December 11, 2023
Someone a long time ago suggested I draw Lady 6 Monkey for my project. I couldn't draw her because she was born in the 1070s, but I loved learning the story of her grandmother and including it in Women of 1000. Can you believe that all this was going on at the same time as Sei Shōnagon was writing the Pillow Book? That's what I love most about this project - learning about all these different stories that women were involved in at the same time on opposite corners of the globe.
I'd like to thank Maarten Jansen for responding to my email and telling me what Lady 10 Deer's name was in the Mixtec language. In the scholarship, Mixtec rulers are usually referred to in translation, meaning that I didn't have the Mixtec names for most of the people in the story. But being able to call Sicuaa by the name she actually would have used was really special. I've linked to several of Jansen's publications about the Mixtec codices below. Thank you also to all the friends who helped me out while drawing this picture - at first I was worried it didn't do justice to how much I loved Sicuaa and her story, but it's growing on me. The reconstruction art of Christine Clados and Daniel Parada was very helpful for me as well.
It was really fun to work on this over my 30th birthday weekend. I had to include a little dog, one of the ancestors of my own chihuahua, Hazel! I hope to return to the Mixtec in a future illustration, since there are other women with interesting stories alive at the same time as Sicuaa. ~ December 11, 2023
Resources
Want to learn more about Sicuaa and other Mixtec queens? Here are some recommended resources.
Codex Añute
The Bodleian Library has digitized the Codex Añute, so you can see it for yourself in all its glory! Iyadzehe Sicuaa appears on page 5, directing her daughter to go to Añute and perform the Sacred Bundle ritual. Sicuaa is also depicted in the Codex Tonindeye, and you can find that here digitized by the British Museum. For my illustration, I combined her appearances in each codex - Tonindeye had more detail in the outfit, but depicted her in what I think is royal regalia, so I went for a mix of the two.
Encounter with the Plumed Serpent: Drama and Power in the Heart of Mesoamerica by Maarten Jansen and Gabina Pérez Jiménez
This book, which is available for free online, lays out the story of 10 Deer and 8 Wind in chapter 5, "The Rise of Ñuu Tnoo." Jansen and Jiménez have authored many other publications about the Mixtec codices which were helpful for my research. Their chapter "Chronological Correlations in Aztec and Mixtec History" lays out the chronology of the life of 10 Deer's grandfather 10 Reed and points out that 9 Wind's marriage date honoured her mother. In the same book, they have another chapter called "Reading Mixtec Manuscripts as Ceremonial Discourse: Historical and Ideological Background of Codex Añute (Selden)." This chapter goes into detail about the making of the Codex Añute, highlighting its significance as an anti-colonial document int he 16th century. Jansen and Jiménez have published two other books about the Mixtec codices: The Mixtec Pictorial Manuscripts: Time, Agency and Memory in Ancient Mexico and Historia, literatura e ideología de Ñuu Dzaui: El Códice Añute y su contexto histórico-cultural.
"Marital Alliance in the Political Integration of Mixtec Kingdoms" by Ronald Spores
This article highlights just how important royal marriages were to the functioning of Mixtec politics in the Postclassic period. I like how he focuses on the rights women maintained to their hereditary titles during marriage. This is also just a great article for an overview of the Mixteca Alta in the Postclassic period, talking about the imports and exports of different regions.
In the Realm of 8 Deer: The Archaeology of the Mixtec Codices by Bruce E. Byland and John M. D. Pohl
Byland and Pohl write in this book about how the place-names of the Mixtec codices and the stories that they tell are illuminated and confirmed by the archaeological record. What I love about this book is that the authors did extremely thorough ethnographic research talking to local people in the course of their archaeological work. They learned so much about the place-names that helped them to understand the codices. It's also really cool how they showed that the societal shifts around AD 1000 recorded in the codices are reflected in the archaeological record. My main criticism of the book is that they attribute the strategy behind 9 Wind's marriage to her father 8 Wind instead of her mother 10 Deer, in spite of the fact that the Codex Añute clearly shows that 10 Deer is the one ordering it. They call 8 Wind the "mastermind" behind this plan, but I've reassigned most of this to 10 Deer in my write-up.
"Royal Palaces and Painted Tombs: State and Society in the Valley of Oaxaca" by Ernesto González Licón
This chapter in the book Palaces of the Ancient New World compares the architectural history of the Zapotec in the Valley of Oaxaca with their Mixtec neighbours. I found great information here about what Postclassic Mixtec architecture was like. There were loads of diagrams, reconstructions and floorplans that helped me visualize what the Mixtec world looked like in the Postclassic. Licón also cites a book where I found additional Mixtec architectural images, Reyes y reinos de la Mixteca by Alfonso Caso.
The True History of Chocolate by Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe
For a more general look at the history of chocolate in Mesoamerica, this book is a fun read. The Coes were Mayanists and their bias certainly shows, but the book also looks at the use of chocolate among other Mesoamerican groups such as the Olmec and Aztec. They then investigate the development of chocolate from the colonial period up to the present day, though I haven't read that part. You can learn more about ancient Mesoamerican chocolate on Mexicolore, which even has some traditional recipes!
"Mythical Past and Historied Present: Another Interpretation of a Polychrome Vessel from Nochixtlan, Oaxaca" by Javier Urcid
This article dives into the history of the Nochixtlán Vase, one of the finest surviving pieces of Mixtec art. Urcid pieces together the circumstances that led to the vessel being commissioned. He also goes into a lot of detail about how chocolate pots were crucial to marriage ceremonies and their ensuing political alliances. I based the chocolate pot in my picture on this vase, but replaced the imagery with a scene from the Codex Añute showing Lord 3 Rain and the Sacred Bundle.
Codex Añute
The Bodleian Library has digitized the Codex Añute, so you can see it for yourself in all its glory! Iyadzehe Sicuaa appears on page 5, directing her daughter to go to Añute and perform the Sacred Bundle ritual. Sicuaa is also depicted in the Codex Tonindeye, and you can find that here digitized by the British Museum. For my illustration, I combined her appearances in each codex - Tonindeye had more detail in the outfit, but depicted her in what I think is royal regalia, so I went for a mix of the two.
Encounter with the Plumed Serpent: Drama and Power in the Heart of Mesoamerica by Maarten Jansen and Gabina Pérez Jiménez
This book, which is available for free online, lays out the story of 10 Deer and 8 Wind in chapter 5, "The Rise of Ñuu Tnoo." Jansen and Jiménez have authored many other publications about the Mixtec codices which were helpful for my research. Their chapter "Chronological Correlations in Aztec and Mixtec History" lays out the chronology of the life of 10 Deer's grandfather 10 Reed and points out that 9 Wind's marriage date honoured her mother. In the same book, they have another chapter called "Reading Mixtec Manuscripts as Ceremonial Discourse: Historical and Ideological Background of Codex Añute (Selden)." This chapter goes into detail about the making of the Codex Añute, highlighting its significance as an anti-colonial document int he 16th century. Jansen and Jiménez have published two other books about the Mixtec codices: The Mixtec Pictorial Manuscripts: Time, Agency and Memory in Ancient Mexico and Historia, literatura e ideología de Ñuu Dzaui: El Códice Añute y su contexto histórico-cultural.
"Marital Alliance in the Political Integration of Mixtec Kingdoms" by Ronald Spores
This article highlights just how important royal marriages were to the functioning of Mixtec politics in the Postclassic period. I like how he focuses on the rights women maintained to their hereditary titles during marriage. This is also just a great article for an overview of the Mixteca Alta in the Postclassic period, talking about the imports and exports of different regions.
In the Realm of 8 Deer: The Archaeology of the Mixtec Codices by Bruce E. Byland and John M. D. Pohl
Byland and Pohl write in this book about how the place-names of the Mixtec codices and the stories that they tell are illuminated and confirmed by the archaeological record. What I love about this book is that the authors did extremely thorough ethnographic research talking to local people in the course of their archaeological work. They learned so much about the place-names that helped them to understand the codices. It's also really cool how they showed that the societal shifts around AD 1000 recorded in the codices are reflected in the archaeological record. My main criticism of the book is that they attribute the strategy behind 9 Wind's marriage to her father 8 Wind instead of her mother 10 Deer, in spite of the fact that the Codex Añute clearly shows that 10 Deer is the one ordering it. They call 8 Wind the "mastermind" behind this plan, but I've reassigned most of this to 10 Deer in my write-up.
"Royal Palaces and Painted Tombs: State and Society in the Valley of Oaxaca" by Ernesto González Licón
This chapter in the book Palaces of the Ancient New World compares the architectural history of the Zapotec in the Valley of Oaxaca with their Mixtec neighbours. I found great information here about what Postclassic Mixtec architecture was like. There were loads of diagrams, reconstructions and floorplans that helped me visualize what the Mixtec world looked like in the Postclassic. Licón also cites a book where I found additional Mixtec architectural images, Reyes y reinos de la Mixteca by Alfonso Caso.
The True History of Chocolate by Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe
For a more general look at the history of chocolate in Mesoamerica, this book is a fun read. The Coes were Mayanists and their bias certainly shows, but the book also looks at the use of chocolate among other Mesoamerican groups such as the Olmec and Aztec. They then investigate the development of chocolate from the colonial period up to the present day, though I haven't read that part. You can learn more about ancient Mesoamerican chocolate on Mexicolore, which even has some traditional recipes!
"Mythical Past and Historied Present: Another Interpretation of a Polychrome Vessel from Nochixtlan, Oaxaca" by Javier Urcid
This article dives into the history of the Nochixtlán Vase, one of the finest surviving pieces of Mixtec art. Urcid pieces together the circumstances that led to the vessel being commissioned. He also goes into a lot of detail about how chocolate pots were crucial to marriage ceremonies and their ensuing political alliances. I based the chocolate pot in my picture on this vase, but replaced the imagery with a scene from the Codex Añute showing Lord 3 Rain and the Sacred Bundle.