Zapotecs: characteristics of this Mesoamerican culture

These are the characteristics of the pre-Columbian civilization and culture of the Zapotecs.

Of all the cultures that inhabited what is now Mexico, the Zapotec is one of the most interesting. With origins dating back to at least 800 B.C., this culture has survived the influence of the Mexica and the Spanish conquest.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, it was one of the most flourishing and advanced cultures in Mesoamerica and even developed its own writing system, something rare 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..

Who were the Zapotecs?

The Zapotec were a very prosperous and developed civilization that inhabited what is now the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.. It is believed that its origins date back to the period between 800 and 250 B.C. and extended from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to Acapulco, having populated the region for at least 2500 years. Its cultural importance was so great that nearby cultures, such as the Mayan, Aztec and Teotihuacan, came to influence it.

Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Zapotec culture had as its neuralgic 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, it was characterized by a social hierarchy based on religion. The Zapotecs were also great warriors who were not afraid to confront other Mesoamerican peoples to ensure the dominance of strategic trade routes.

Origin of the name

Surprising as it may seem, the name "Zapotec" does not come from its language, but from that of its conquerors: the Mexica (Aztecs).. This word comes from the Nahuatl "tzapotécatl", which means "the people of the Zapotec". However, the Zapotecs do not call themselves that. The Zapotecs of the Isthmus region call themselves "ben'zaa" or "binnizá", meaning "the people of the clouds" or "people of the oak", while those of the south call themselves "Mèn diiste", meaning "the people who speak the ancient 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 in it.

1. Rulers

The rulers were high priests to whom divine powers were attributed. They formed the most powerful sector and governed the cities.

2. Elite

The elite consisted of warriors, chieftains and high-ranking government officials, along with their families.. They exercised important social and economic power.

3. Merchants

In the Zapotec culture, merchants had great prestige since, without them, merchandise 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, they were mostly farmers. They made up the broadest social group.

5. Slaves

Slaves were mostly prisoners of war or prisoners of war or criminals who had been condemned to hard labor.. This status was the labor force in Zapotec society and, also, slaves were used in human sacrifices to the gods.

Economy

As the majority of the Zapotec population was composed of farmers and artisans, agriculture and handicraft trade were the main economic engines of this society.. Farmers cultivated a wide variety of fruits of the earth: tomatoes, cacao, beans, corn, chili, and squash, and in fact, Zapotecs today continue to grow these vegetables. They also practiced fishing and hunting, although these were not very common activities.

Maize 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 gave sustenance to numerous villages. In fact, in their pantheon, there was a specific god for corn, Pitao CozobiIn order to have good harvests, they worshipped him, the sun, the rain and the earth.

The men and women who lived in the villages were obliged to pay tribute as taxes. Among these tributes, of course, was corn, as well as guajolotes, 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 villages 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 oak trees and that they were legitimate children of the gods. However, they did not believe they came from a great migration from elsewhere in the Americas, unlike other Mesoamerican peoples.unlike other Mesoamerican peoples who did have such myths.

But based on the archaeological and more earthly, it seems that the current region of Oaxaca began to be inhabited about 3500 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 B.C. in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries B.C. there was activity in the region and signs of a highly developed culture were already being shown, especially in present-day San Jose.especially in present-day San José Mogote.

The most accepted idea is that the Zapotecs must have arrived in Oaxaca from the north, around 1000 BC. When they arrived it seems that they did not try to subjugate or exterminate the people who were already there, accepting them as neighbors and, with the passage of time, the Zapotec ethnic group became the majority in the region.

Between 500 B.C. and 950 A.D., the Zapotecs would expand and develop significantly, establishing themselves in the valleys of the Zapotec valleys.They settled 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 splendorous city of Monte Albán. This city became the Zapotec cultural and ceremonial center, capital of the civilization.

The Zapotecs began to develop greatly, so much so that they became one of the most advanced cultures in the region, even creating their own writing system.. In their capital they built large ball game stadiums, tombs and buildings, which today still stand the test of time. Along with other Mesoamerican cities, Monte Alban was intensely inhabited for centuries, competing with Teotihuacan as the most flourishing of Mexico's southern cities.

However, like everything that rises, at some point it must fall, Monte Alban's prosperity and excellence declined between A.D. 700 and 800. It was not only in this city, since Teotihuacan and the Mayan cities also suffered economic and demographic losses. Despite the 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 A.D., long after the end of the Classic Mesoamerican period.

As time passed, power struggles between Zapotec, Mixtec, Mexica 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 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, which lasted until the arrival of the Spaniards and the fall of Tenochtitlan.

The Zapotec religion

The pre-Hispanic Zapotecs were polytheists, that is to say, believed in more than one god, something common in all Mesoamerican civilizations.. Among their main deities were Pitao Cocijo, Coquihani and an unnamed bat and jaguar combination god.

Pitao Cocijo was the god of rain and thunder and had a non-human head, usually represented by a fertility symbol that combined symbols of the earth (jaguar) and sky (snake). In the villages they had a special veneration towards this god since, according to the Zapotec vision, the people depended on the harvest, the harvest depended on the rain and the rain depended on Cocijo.

Coquihani was the god of sunlight, the sky and, perhaps, was seen as the king god in the Zapotec pantheon. The bat-jaguar god has been assumed to be the god of life and death, as is the case with the bat god Camazotz in the Maya pantheon.

Although Cocijo played a very important role in the pantheon, especially in the rural areas, he was not considered the main god in the whole Zapotec culture, but rather Xipe Totec, a god who was called by four names:

• Totec: the main god, the one who ruled them.
• Xipe: the creator god, the one who made everything.
• Tlatlauhaqui: The god of the sun.
• Quetzalcoatl: The feathered serpent.

Besides Pitao Cocijo, Xipe Totec and Coquihani, in the Zapotec pantheon we find the following gods:

• Pitao Cozobi: the god of tender corn.
• Coqui Xee: the uncreated.
• Xonaxi Quecuya: the god of earthquakes.
• Coqui Bezelao: god of the dead.

As for Zapotec traditions and beliefs, we find a very interesting one: the "tonal". This consists in that, every time a mother gave birth, on the same day of the birth, ashes were distributed in her hut, the same day of the birth, ashes were distributed in her hut and, the following day, the footprint of the animal that stepped on them would become the totem of the child.. This totem would represent the child and would mold its personality.

The cult was regulated by a hierarchy of priests and, sometimes, human sacrifices were made in the religious centers of Monte Albán and Mitla. The Zapotecs worshipped their ancestors and believed in paradise, which they demonstrated by paying numerous tributes and cults to their dead, in addition to praying to the gods of death (bat-jaguar) and of the dead (Coqui Bezelao).

Present-day Zapotecs and their language

Today, the Zapotec population is concentrated mainly 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 still speak some of their own language, although most also speak Spanish.The majority also speak Spanish as a second language.

There is not one Zapotec language, but several. The Zapotecs, before the arrival of the Spaniards, spoke 15 different languages, all of which are related and could constitute what could be called Zapotec languages. Today, many of them have survived and some 62 linguistic variants are classified, either dialects or independent languages, mostly called "Zapotec of" followed by the variant: northern, Isthmus, Mitla, San Pedro Quiatoni, Sierra de Juárez...

The Zapotec languages are tonal languages, with a verb-subject-object structure.. These languages have harvested 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.

• to
• chope
• shone
• tape
• gayo'
• xope
• gaze
• xono'
• ga
• chi

Writing System

The most fascinating cultural aspect of the Zapotec is that, unlike many other Mesoamerican cultures, they had their own writing system. This system was logo-phonetic, incorporating sounds and ideas represented in the form of hieroglyphics of animals or everyday scenes from the Zapotec culture. Each symbol represented a syllable of the language, similar to the Japanese writing system of today, which combines syllabaries with sinograms.

This writing system has become one of the main tools to know what the pre-Hispanic Zapotecs were like, in addition to archaeology. The most important documents about the culture are found in the Mixtec-Zapotec codices, documents written with hieroglyphs on deer skin and brightly colored. and brightly colored. There are epigraphic inscriptions dated between 400 BC and 900 AD.

It seems that this writing system influenced other cultures of the region, such as the Olmec, Maya, Mixtec and Mexica, as they tried to acquire and adapt it to their languages.

Bibliographical references:

• 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.