The Country of the God of the Rain
Since immemorial years the Fourth Sun, Nahui-Atl, had given way to the Fifth, Nahui-Ollin, in the place where the gods were born, Teotihuacan, the culture that permeated and spread Mesoamerica for hundreds of years and widely would influence peoples who followed them: Toltec, Mixtec, Mexica…
Inin tonatiuh itoca naollin ye tehuantin totonatiuh / in tonnemi axcan auh inin inezca in nican ca inic tlepanhuetz in tonatiuh / in teotexcalco in oncan in Teotihuacan (This Sun, its name Four Movement, it’s the sun we live in now. And here's its sign, how it fell in the Fire of the Sun, in the divine stove, there, in Teotihuacan) *
Four centuries had to pass by after the decline of the empire of the Fourth Sun. Then, long in the distance further south, where now are the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla in Mixtec territory, those peoples worshiped Dzahui, god of the rain. In Tilantongo saw the light the son of the Heaven Shrine high priest, Five Lizard Dzahui Ndicahndíí, Rain’s Sun, and his consort Nine Eagle Cocoa Flower.
Iya Nacuaa Teyusi Nana, Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, was born on the day his name suggests: day Eight Deer in the year of Twelve Cane. In our calendar was the year of grace 1063. The new rule would extend a new Empire that occupied about forty thousand square kilometres in Mixtec lands.
Eight Deer being out of the line of succession to the lordship of Tilantongo (Ñuut Noo). He moved south when he was just a kid until arrived to Tututepec (Yucu Dzaa), where he received religious and military education. Eight Deer learned to read the books, watch the stars and understand the sequence and meaning of the days on the calendar.
In our year 1083, he took control of the Mixteca coast and its financial resources. Also established commercial and military alliances with Toltecs, those who had eyes burned, from Place of Reeds, particularly with Lord Four Jaguar, who, as narrated in the old codices, was perpetuated as witness to the ritual of nose cartilage piercing, in which a jewel of turquoise was grafted. All these facts happened on the 7 House day of the 13th Lizard year. This entitled him as Tecuhtli, officer and gentleman, linking him to the royal house Tolteco-Chichimeca. This relationship legitimized his aspiration to the throne of Tilantongo once Two Rain, its last ruler died. Diplomatically, Eight Deer, slaughtered one by one all the heirs of Two Rain preventing further claims to Tilantongo’s throne. Until day 12 Monkey of 11 House. Then Eight Deer defeated Xipe Bulge Place, ruling this way more than a one hundred Mixtec lordships.
Probably diplomacy didn’t work properly. In the year 1115 a rebellion started headed by Four Wind, brother of the first wife of Eight Deer. Concluded with the sacrificial death of the powerful, so far, Mixtec chief. He was 52 years old. Eight Deer Jaguar Claw was buried in a cave in Chalcatongo province where it was Ñuu Ndaya, Death’s Town.
His story was thoroughly recounted in four of the few codices survived the destructive and incendiary efforts of the Spanish clergy, who saw in the colourful designs pagan gods worthy of purifying fire.
Those same codices, particularly the Migration Strip, also tells Aztlan mythical land saga and its seven tribes exodus to reach Lake Texcoco to found Technochitlán. It was the Aztec capital until August 13, 1521, when Spanish seized the city. Technotchitlán had previously occupied the former territories of Eight Deer, except Tututepec Lordship lands.
Ten years before Spanish landing, Moctehuzuma and Technotchitlán dwellers would wonder at the weird incidents that prophesied the arrival to Veracruz. Evil portents collected by Fray Bernardino de Sahagun and reported in his Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España (General History of the Things of New Spain). Flames of fire in the sky, and shooting flash fires, boiling water and strange fishing on Lake Texcoco, monstrous people…
In the days of Spanish rule, an Eight Deer Jaguar Claw offspring named Seven Mono, became Christian, adopting the name of the Dominican Order’s founder: Domingo de Guzmán. Seven Mono contributed to preserving the Columbian legacy codices that he carefully kept, although, by this reason, he was accused, in 1544, of idolatry.
Today, driving along Paseo de la Reforma, it’s impossible to have the feeling of rolling over the ancient Aztec city water channels. Perhaps with a little bit of imagination it’s possible to ease the sensation in Tlatecoco or Three Cultures square, or a few kilometres further, along the Mexico-Pyramids highway to Teotihuacan-Arista, in San Martín of the Pyramids up to way to Teotihuacan, there, where the Fifth Sun was born once, the one destined to disappear with the arrival of the western monsters who had to erase its race. They mistook the cardinal point.
© J.L.Nicolas
*Chimalpoteca Codex text quoted by Walter Lehman.
