The 6 most important CONTRIBUTIONS of MIXTECA culture

When talking about the contributions made by the Mesoamerican peoples We usually focus on the major civilizations of these places, talking about Aztecs or Mayans, But we tend to forget that there are many other cultures that are very influential in the history of the humanity. To talk about one of the most forgotten and understand its relevance in this lesson from a teacher we must talk about the contributions of Mixtec culture.

The mixtec cultureis one of the cultures considered as pre-Columbian, because they existed before the arrival of Christopher Columbus to America, and Mesoamerican, because they inhabited the zone of cultural and territorial influence known as Mesoamerica for several centuries.

Its majority area of ​​influence is what was known as the Mixtec cultural zone, occupying a region surrounded by mountains and which are currently the Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Puebla.

As for its location, we can fix it in the southern part of what we currently call Mexico, the area being known such as the Mixteca, a region surrounded by mountains and located between the Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Puebla. Although this is the area that we usually consider as typical of the Mixtecs, we must bear in mind that the great importance of this civilization is based on its enormous extension over the years, so its area of ​​influence was much larger than we have commented.

Characteristics of Mixtec culture

To get to know the Mixtecs in depth, we must list their defining elements in order to understand their great importance and particularities. The main characteristics of Mixtec culture are as follows:

• There was a friendship and rivalry with Zapotec, which lived in very close areas and therefore both cultures influence each other.
• A particularity was inheritance, being a very strange case for the time in America that the children received the goods of the ancestors.
• Mixtec society was hierarchized by numerous social classes.
• The extension of the Mixtec civilization meant that they were divided into small cities each headed by a different political leader.
• As in most American regions, the central position of the economy was agriculture.
• Being a culture of hunters and gatherers, the passage to trade emerged at the end of its period of influence.
• They played Mesoamerican ball, serving as the basis for numerous rituals to the gods.
• His religion He was animist, so it was thought that natural objects and elements had souls.
• They were known for achieving very advanced war improvements for their time.

Image: Cultural History

To continue with this lesson from a teacher, we must talk about the contributions of Mixtec culture. understand the importance of all these elements of a civilization that in many ways was ahead of its weather.

Crafts

The great relevance of Mixtec crafts is demonstrated by having managed to cross the borders of their territory and reach other areas very far from their point of influence, this being very complicated in a world like the Mesoamerican where communication was very limited.

Another example of the great importance of Mixtec artisan talent is demonstrated when it was due to the growth of the fame of their artisan products that the Mixtecs changed their agricultural economy to one more focused on trade, since their products were very well regarded in these areas. The versatility of Mixtec artisan products means that they should be divided by their realization, being capable of making bone products, obsidian and especially the facility they had of making pictograms in their ceramics.

farming

The theme of modernity in Mixtec agriculture was very directed to the fact that the advances were characterized by being coupled to the new territories they occupied, it being common therefore that when arriving in an area with a different terrain or with a higher or lower altitude, Mixtecs will create different agricultural mechanisms which over time were taken over by other Mesoamerican and European peoples, therefore being a great contribution from the Mixtecs. Among the great contributions in this area we find complex irrigation systems, tools to work the land that the Mixtecs themselves invented and getting control of corn which was vital for the future Mesoamerican.

Day of the Dead

One of the greatest contributions of the Mixtecs to their Mexican successors was the creation of a festival that over the years would become known as the Day of the Dead. Death was not an end for the Mixtecs, but the passage to a new threshold of existence, which is why the Mixtecs created a great festival to honor the dead and remember them with their objects, being therefore the day that later would become one of the great festivities of the Mexicans.

Codices

The codices of the Mixtecs were very interesting for the time, mixing pictograms and writing in a system of its own that was imitated by later civilizations due to its great relevance. This writing system can be found in the numerous codices that help us to show the great importance of the Mixtec civilization and to compare its writing with that of later peoples.

Inheritances

Although in Europe the concept of inheritance could already be found in some areas in Mesoamerica, the Mixtecs were the first people to create something similar. Parents left their children land and other elements, showing a non-existent family line in other contemporary American cultures and thus seeing the great relevance of the family in this Mesoamerican culture.

Medicine

Like most Mesoamerican cultures, the Mixtecs have also contributed great elements of medicine to humanity, occupying a large part of its codices the relevant elements of the used herbs for great cures, being closely linked to witchcraft practices.

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Kearney, M. (1994). From indigenism to human rights: Ethnicity and politics beyond the Mixtec. New Anthropology, 14 (46), 49-67.

Lind, M. (2008). Archeology of the Mixteca. Contempt, (27), 13-32.

Hermann Lejarazu, M. TO. (2008). Religiosity and sacred lumps in the pre-Hispanic Mixtec. Desacatos, (27), 75-94.