Zapotecs: Characteristics Of This Mesoamerican Culture
Of all the cultures that lived in what is now Mexico, the Zapotec is one of the most interesting. With origins dating back to at least 800 BC, this culture has survived the influence of the Mexica and the conquest of the Spanish
Before the arrival of the Europeans, it was one of the most flourishing and advanced cultures in Mesoamerica and they even developed their own writing system, something unusual in the region.
In this article We are going to talk about who the Zapotecs were, their culture, their rituals, where they lived, and their origins
The Zapotecs were a very prosperous and developed civilization that lived in what is now the state of Oaxaca, Mexico It is believed that its origins date back to the period between 800 and 250 BC and it extended from the isthmus of Tehuantepec to Acapulco, having populated the region for at least 2,500 years. Its cultural importance was so great that it influenced nearby cultures, such as the Mayans, the Aztecs and the Teotihuacans.
Before the arrival of the Spanish, the Zapotec culture had as its nerve center and cultural center what today is the archaeological site of Monte Albán Their culture, like the rest of the pre-Hispanic peoples, was polytheistic and, in addition, was characterized by having a social hierarchy based on religion. The Zapotecs were also great warriors who were not afraid to confront other Mesoamerican peoples to ensure control of strategic trade routes.
Name’s origin
As surprising as it may seem, The name “Zapotec” does not come from their language, but from that of their conquerors: the Mexicas (Aztecs) This word comes from the Nahuatl “tzapotécatl”, which means “the town of Zapote”. However, the Zapotecs do not call themselves that. The Zapotecs of the Isthmus region are called “ben´zaa” or “binnizá”, which means “the people of the clouds” or “people of the oak”, while those of the south are called “Mèn diiste”, meaning “the people who speak the old word.”
Social organization
The Zapotec civilization was organized hierarchically, in the form of a pyramid This social pyramid had a very marked religious and military base. Five different classes can be distinguished.
1. Rulers
The rulers were high priests to whom divine powers were attributed. They made up the most powerful sector and governed the cities.
2. Elite
The elite was made up of warriors, chiefs and high government officials, along with their families They exercised important social and economic power.
3. Merchants
In the Zapotec culture, merchants had a lot of prestige since, without them, goods could not flow and the economy would collapse.
4. Artisans
Although they have been called artisans, it must be understood that they are not exactly that. Although some of the people who made up this social class were true artisans, such as weavers and potters, the majority were farmers. They made up the largest social group
Most of the slaves were prisoners of war or criminals who had been sentenced to hard labor This class represented the workforce in Zapotec society and, also, slaves were used in human sacrifices for the gods.
Economy
As the majority of the Zapotec population was made up of farmers and artisans, Agriculture and craft trade were the main economic drivers of this society Farmers grew a wide variety of fruits from the land: tomatoes, cocoa, beans, corn, chili and pumpkins and, in fact, today’s Zapotecs continue to grow these vegetables. They also practiced fishing and hunting, although they were not very common activities.
Corn was very important, not only for the Zapotecs, but also for the rest of the Mesoamerican cultures. It is a vegetable with which they could make bread and other derived products, being the main cereal that supported numerous villages. In fact, In his pantheon there was a specific god for corn, Pitao Cozobi and to have good harvests they worshiped him, the sun, the rain and the earth.
The men and women who lived in the villages were obliged to pay tributes in the form of taxes. Among these tributes, as could not be missed, was corn, as well as turkeys, honey and beans. Likewise, Zapotec farmers were not only dedicated to the land, since they were also excellent weavers and potters, and there are many sophisticated funerary urns that can be found in ancient towns of this culture.
History and development of this civilization
The Zapotecs believed that they were descendants of rock, sand and clouds. They also believed that they were born directly from the oak trees and that they were legitimate children of the gods. However, They did not believe they came from a great migration from another place in America unlike other Mesoamerican peoples who did have myths of this style.
But based on the archaeological and more earthly aspects, it seems that the current region of Oaxaca began to be inhabited about 3,500 years ago by a culture that could well be related to the Zapotec. Although it is a controversial idea, it seems that in the 14th and 15th centuries BC. C there was activity in the region and signs of a highly developed culture were already showing especially in the current San José Mogote.
The most accepted idea is that the Zapotecs must have arrived in Oaxaca from the north, around the year 1000 BC. When they arrived it seems that they did not try to subdue or exterminate the peoples who were already there, accepting them as neighbors and, with the passage of the time, the Zapotec ethnic group becoming the majority in the region.
Between the years 500 BC and 950 AD the Zapotecs would expand and develop significantly, settling in the central valleys of the state of Oaxaca. These were times of great development throughout Mexico, with Teotihuacan flourishing as an important Aztec city, several Mayan cities to the southeast and, to the south, the splendid city of Monte Albán. This city became the Zapotec cultural and ceremonial center, capital of civilization.
The Zapotecs began to develop a lot, so much so that they became one of the most advanced cultures in the region, even creating your own writing system In their capital they built large stadiums for playing ball, tombs and buildings, which today continue to stand the test of time. Along with other Mesoamerican cities, Monte Albán was intensely inhabited for centuries, competing with Teotihuacan as the most flourishing of the cities in southern Mexico.
However, like everything that goes up at some point has to come down, The prosperity and excellence of Monte Albán declined between 700 and 800 AD. c It was not only in this city, since Teotihuacan and the Mayan cities also suffered economic and demographic losses. Despite difficult times, the Zapotecs created new ceremonial centers, such as Cacaxtla and El Tajín. In fact, despite the decline, Monte Albán continued to dominate the Oaxacan valleys until 1200 AD, long after the end of the classical Mesoamerican period.
As time went by, the power struggles between Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Mexicas and other pre-Hispanic peoples would intensify. Monte Albán ended up being conquered by the Mixtecs, while the Zapotecs took Tehuantepec from the Zoques and the Huaves
In the mid-15th century, the Zapotecs and Mixtecs battled to prevent the Mexica from gaining control of the trade routes to Chiapas, Veracruz, and Guatemala. However, the Zapotecs were forced to establish an alliance with the Mexica in order to preserve their political autonomy, autonomy which lasted until the arrival of the Spanish and the fall of Tenochtitlán.
The Zapotec religion
The pre-Hispanic Zapotecs were polytheistic, that is, They believed in more than one god, something common in all Mesoamerican civilizations Among his main deities are Pitao Cocijo, Coquihani and an unnamed bat-jaguar combination god.
Pitao Cocijo was the god of rain and thunder and had a non-human head, usually represented by a symbol of fertility that combined symbols of the earth (jaguar) and the sky (serpent). In the towns they had a special veneration for this god since, according to the Zapotec vision, the town depends on the harvest, the harvest depends on the rain and the rain depends on Cocijo.
Coquihani was the god of sunlight, the sky and, perhaps, was seen as the god king in the Zapotec pantheon. It has been assumed that the bat-jaguar god could be the god of life and death, as happens with the bat god Camazotz in the Mayan pantheon.
Although Cocijo played a very important role in the pantheon, especially in rural areas, he was not considered the main god in all Zapotec culture, but rather Xipe Totec, god who received four names:
In addition to Pitao Cocijo, Xipe Totec and Coquihani, in the Zapotec pantheon we find the gods:
Regarding Zapotec traditions and beliefs, we find a very interesting one: the “tonal”. This is that, every time a mother gave birth, On the same day of birth, ashes were distributed in his hut and, the next day, the footprint of the animal that had stepped on them would become the child’s totem This totem would be the one that would represent the child and shape her personality.
The cult was regulated by a hierarchy of priests and, sometimes, human sacrifices were performed in the religious centers of Monte Albán and Mitla. The Zapotecs worshiped their ancestors and believed in paradise, who demonstrated this by paying numerous tributes and cults to their deceased, in addition to praying to the gods of death (bat-jaguar) and the dead (Coqui Bezelao).
Current Zapotecs and their language
Currently, the Zapotec population is concentrated, above all, in the southern state of Oaxaca and its neighboring states of Puebla, Guerrero and southwestern Veracruz. The current population of ethnic Zapotecs is around 800,000 people, many of whom continue to speak some language of their own although the majority also speak Spanish as a second language.
There is not one Zapotec language, but several. The Zapotecs, before the arrival of the Spanish, spoke 15 different languages, all of them related and which could constitute what we could well call Zapotec languages. Today many of them have survived and some 62 linguistic variants are classified, whether dialects or independent languages, mostly called “Zapotec de” followed by the variant: northern, Istmo, Mitla, San Pedro Quiatoni, Sierra de Juárez… .
The Zapotec languages They are tonal languages, with a verb-subject-object structure These languages have garnered literature, having great writers such as Andrés Henestrosa, Gabriel López Chiñas, Nazario Chacón Pineda, Macario Matus, Mario Molina Cruz and Esteban Ríos Cruz.
Some examples of words in Zapotec, specifically Northern Zapotec, are the following, corresponding to the numbers 1 to 10.
Writing system
The most fascinating cultural aspect of the Zapotecs is that, unlike many other Mesoamerican cultures, they had their own writing system. This system was logophonetic, incorporating sounds and ideas represented in the form of hieroglyphs of animals or everyday scenes of the Zapotec culture. Each symbol represented a syllable of the language, similar to how the Japanese writing system does today, which combines syllabaries with sinograms.
This writing system has become one of the main tools to understand what the pre-Hispanic Zapotecs were like, in addition to archaeology. We have the most important documents on culture in the Mixtec-Zapotec codices, documents written with hieroglyphs on deer skin and bright colors. There are epigraphic inscriptions dated between 400 BC and 900 AD
It seems that this writing system influenced other cultures in the region, such as the Olmecs, the Mayans, the Mixtecs and the Mexica, since they tried to acquire and adapt it to their languages.
Marcus, Joyce; Flannery, Kent V. (1996). Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. New aspects of antiquity series. New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05078-3. OCLC 34409496.
Marcus, Joyce; Flannery, Kent V. (2000). Cultural Evolution in Oaxaca: The Origins of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations. In Richard E. W. Adams; Murdo J. Macleod (eds.). The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Vol. II: Mesoamerica, part 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 358–406. ISBN 0-521-35165-0. OCLC 33359444.
