A Fuego y Sangre: Early Zapotec Imperialism in the Cuicatlán Cañada, Oaxaca

235 Pages·1983·30.609 MB·English

by  by Elsa M. Redmond

A Fuego y Sangre:
Early Zapotec Imperialism
in the Cuicatlan Canada, Oaxaca
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MEMOIRS OF THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
NUMBER16
Studies in Latin American
Ethnohistory & Archaeology
Joyce Marcus, General Editor
Volume I
A Fuego y Sangre:
Early Zapotec Imperialism
in the Cuicatlan Canada, Oaxaca
by
Elsa M. Redmond
ANN ARBOR
1983
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ofM ichitgharno,tu hgeehff oorfoftr sm eDri reRcitcohrIa F.ro dr d.
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ISBN 978-0-932206-97-8 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-951538-11-8 (ebook)
iv
An Introduction to the Series and to Volume 1
by
Joyce Marcus
With this Memoir, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan begins publication of a new
series of monographs entitled "Studies in Latin American Ethnohistory and Archaeology." For some time
since coming to the University of Michigan, I have felt that investigators who combined archival and
documentary research with archaeological data needed an outlet for their monograph-length studies.
Ethnohistory and archaeology can be used as two independent lines of primary research; the results from
these two lines of information may agree, may conflict, or may not even overlap. However, when ethnohistory
and archaeology are well integrated, these two sub-disciplines can produce results that are more powerful
and impressive than either, alone, could have contributed.
Some scholars consider ethnohistory "documentary ethnology" or the collection of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century "ethnographic" data obtained through the efforts of the first European eyewitnesses
(e.g., Spores 1973:25). In the New World, ethnohistory is our bridge to the past (Marcus 1978:173). For a
whole series of topics-including religion, ritual, political strategies in warfare and alliance, ancient place
names, meaning of iconographic elements in ancient writing systems, tribute quotas-the ethnohistoric
record serves as our interpretive key.
Ethnohistory's strength is that it often permits a detailed synchronic reconstruction involving the interplay
of multiple events and factors at one point in time, or over a short period of time. On the other hand, the
strength of archaeology is that it allows us to document process, change, and evolution over very long spans of
time. If we combine ethnohistory's detailed view of synchronic developments with archaeology's diachronic
record, we are often in a better position to weigh, interpret, and explain the various transformations that we
can detect in the evolution of ancient societies.
Ethnohistory may be used to develop testable models about past behavior. Just how far back these
ethnohistoric patterns and models can be projected or extended will vary significantly from region to region
and from ethnic group to ethnic group. There are certainly some areas of Latin America where ethnic and
linguistic groups show long-term stability in their geographical location and in boundary maintenance. In
such areas, it seems likely that certain beliefs, customs, and practices recorded in sixteenth-century
dictionaries of indigenous languages and in ethnohistoric documents constitute long-term adaptations that
over time may have been readapted or modified in degree, rather than in kind. In other words, ethnohistory
may sometimes record strategies, beliefs, and practices that are legacies from earlier epochs.
The first volume in this series is an example of model-building from the ethnohistoric sources, and it is also
an example ofhow various models can be evaluated against archaeologically-derived (survey and excavation)
data. The degree of "fit" between two epochs-archaeological and ethnohistorical-and two data sets can
then be assessed. Oaxaca is a very good place to attempt such integration and such evaluation of degree of
v
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES AND TO VOLUME 1
"fit," because we have reason to believe that many Otomanguean populations have been in the southern
Mexican highlands for several thousand years, occupying virtually the same territories in the sixteenth
century as they did in Prehispanic times.
In her study of the Cuicatlan Canada, Elsa Redmond seeks to evaluate the applicability of a sixteenth
century model from ethnohistorical sources-based on Zapotec militaristic strategies, presence of military
"orders," use of frontier garrisons, exaction of tribute after subjugation-to earlier times. One of her
conclusions is that the ethnohistoric model of Late Postclassic Zapotec expansion into tierra caliente for the
purpose of exacting tribute in the form of tropical fruits and nuts also fits the archaeologically-documented
expansion of the Zapotec state centered at Monte Alban during Period II, around the birth of Christ. At that
time Monte Alban apparently sought to expand its territory by implementing a strategy of raiding, conquest,
and subjugation oflocalities outside the Valley of Oaxaca. Evidence for this model comes from the Zapotec
capital, Monte Alban, in the form of more than 40 inscribed slabs set in the walls of Building J, slabs which
record the names of those regions or locales dominated by Monte Alban. While we do not know all the
motives behind this expansion, Redmond believes that the subjugated peoples supplied some of the goods,
services, and labor that were necessary to maintain Zapotec garrisons and fortified sites on the frontier. So far
all of the places tentatively identified among the "subjugated places" lie outside the Valley of Oaxaca proper,
and one of these subjugated places is believed to be Cuicatlan (Marcus 1976, 1980).
Redmond's model views some of the sixteenth-century militaristic practices of the expansionist Zapotec as
analogous to militaristic practices of the earlier Monte Alban II state. Her perspective was to view the
strategy of the state's center from its frontier. The focus of Redmond's attention is the Cuicatlan Canada, a
narrow canyon that serves as the main corridor linking the Valley of Oaxaca with the Valley ofTehuacan. At
the time of the Spanish Conquest, the Canada was inhabited by Cuicatec speakers who were closely related
to the highland Mixtec, and more distantly related to the Chocho-Popolocan speakers of the Tehuacan Valley
(Hunt 1972:166-176).
After developing an ethnohistorically-derived model delineating some of the causes, preconditions, and
consequences of a Zapotec conquest of the Cuicatlan Canada, Redmond begins her archaeological story with
settlement pattern data from the Middle Formative (ca. 650-300 B.C.). Redmond reconstructs Middle
Formative society in the Canada as a series of small, autonomous, ranked societies whose chiefly elites were
participating in interregional exchange networks, linking the elites of neighboring or adjacent polities over
much of southern Mesoamerica. Redmond's systematic survey recovered 12 Middle Formative sites, two of
these being chiefly centers. All sites at this time were located in close proximity to the low alluvium; the sites
were all on high alluvial terraces except in areas with no high alluvium, where they were situated on the
lower part of the piedmont slope. The sites display a two-level size hierarchy that may represent a simple
chiefdom composed of a senior lineage at the chiefly cente1; with lower-ranking cadet lineages at the smaller,
newer sites. Her proposed chiefly centers were larger, with more public architecture, more imported Valley
of Oaxaca pottery, more marine shell, and more obsidian than the smaller communities. In exchange for
these imported items, the Canada chiefs may have been sending tropical fruits and nuts (e. g., black zapote,
coyol nuts, ciruela) to the Valley of Oaxaca.
In the succeeding period (Lomas phase, ca. 300 B.C.-A.D. 200), the Valley Zapotec expanded into the
Canada region (as well as other regions outside the valley). Twenty-one newly-established settlements were
now located on the piedmont spurs and on ridges that overlooked the canyon floor. The largest settlements
were established in the Quiotepec region, with sites so large that the population could not have been
supported exclusively with the yields available from the Quiotepec alluvial fan. Redmond presents convinc
ing evidence that this sudden concentration of settlement in the Quiotepec region represents the location of
military forces in fortified sites on both sides of the critical mountain pass along the northern boundary of the
Canada; here on the Quiotepec frontier, the Zapotec state stationed its troops to guard and defend the state's
frontier, and to regulate the flow of goods and people across those boundaries. Significantly, Quiotepec is the
northern limit of both local Lomas phase pottery and imported Monte Alban Ic-II pottery.
If the Zapotec state was interested in controlling the Quiotepec pass and extracting tropical goods from the
region, they would have placed military personnel in the Quiotepec area and relocated the local people away
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INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES AND TO VOLUME 1
from their alluvial sites so that that land could be devoted exclusively to orchards and fields. In support of this
reconstruction Redmond presents the following evidence: (I) alll2 of the Middle Formative Perdido phase
sites (all located close to the low alluvium) were abandoned by Late Formative times; the new Lomas phase
communities were located on piedmont spurs, thereby freeing the high-quality alluvial land for extensive
fields of desired agricultural products; (2) during the Lomas phase the high alluvium was brought under canal
irrigation for the first time; (3) a disproportionate number of people were concentrated in fortified sites in the
northern frontier zone, presumably placed there to control the pass connecting the limits of the Zapotec state
with the Tehuacan Valley; and (4) a significant amount of the Canada agricultural produce may have been
used to provision the Zapotec troops at the Quiotepec frontier.
Perhaps the most dramatic physical evidence for the Zapotec subjugation of this area was the discovery of a
toppled-over skull rack, composed of 61 skulls, in the main plaza atop Lorna de la Coyotera (Spencer
1982:236-239). The presence of this skull rack agrees well with the "terror tactics" practiced by the Postclassic
Zapotec in newly-subjugated regions.
In the succeeding Trujano phase (A.D. 200-1000) the Zapotec apparently withdrew their forces from the
Canada and turned their attention to the Valley of Oaxaca proper, as well as to long-distance diplomatic
relationships with major centers such as Teotihuacan. The Trujano phase had a two or three-level hierarchy of
settlement size; each of the four alluvial fans in the Canada had one large settlement (8-12 ha) with smaller
sites around it. Redmond suggests that the autonomous cacicazgo may have arisen in the Canada at this time
and endured until the Spaniards arrived in the sixteenth century.
At the time of the Spanish Conquest, each alluvial fan supported a cacicazgo. The three major Cuicatec
cacicazgos were focused on the Atlatlauca, Dominguillo, and Cuicatlan fans; a Mazatec cacicazgo was located
on the Quiotepec alluvial fan (Hunt 1972: 167). Each cacicazgo delimited its territory with natural landmarks
such as painted boulders, barrancas, and so forth. These cacicazgos were linked by an exchange network as
well as strategic marriage alliances between ruling elites.
Redmond discovers that the fit between sixteenth-century ethnohistoric data on the Cuicatec cacicazgos
and archaeological data from the Trujano (A. D. 200-1000) and Iglesia Vieja (A. D. 1000-1520) phases is close.
Near each alluvial fan she found a major settlement on a hilltop with sizable public buildings, surrounded by
residential terraces. These hilltop centers presumably correspond to the cabeceras the Spaniards described.
The autonomous cacicazgo was apparently the most stable and long-term adaptation made in the
Cuicatlan Canada. Without the temporary Zapotec takeover, however, the story of the Canada probably
would have been one of slower evolution from simple ranked society to complex chiefdom. In Redmond's
study, therefore, the ethnohistoric data on the Zapotec provide us with a description of the strategies of the
expansionist state, while the ethnohistoric data on the Cuicatec provide us with local integrative strategies
such as exchange and marriage alliances between members of chiefly lineages.
Bibliography
Hunt, Eva V.
1972 Irrigation and the Socio-Political Organization of Cuicatec Cacicazgos. In The Prehistory of the Tehuacan Valley. Vol. 4:
Chronology and Irrigation, edited by Frederick Johnson, pp. 162-259. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Marcus, Joyce
1976 The Iconography of Militarism at Monte Alban and Neighboring Sites in the Valley of Oaxaca. In The Origins of Religious Art
and Iconography in Preclassic Mesoamerica, edited by Henry B. Nicholson, pp. 123-139. Los Angeles: Latin American
Center, University of California at Los Angeles.
1978 Archaeology and Religion: A Comparison of the Zapotec and Maya. World Archaeology 10(2): 172-191.
1980 Zapotec Writing. Scientific American 242:50-64.
Spencer, Charles S.
1982 The Cuicatlan Canada and Monte Alban: A Study of Primary State Formation. New York: Academic Press.
Spores, Ronald M.
1973 Special Problems in Methodology. In Research in Mexican History, edited by Richard E. Greenleaf and Michael C. Meyer,
pp. 25-48. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
vii

Contents
Tables..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Figures ....................· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Plates..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Monte Alban as a Militaristic State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Role of Militarism in Early State Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Toward an Interregional Perspective on Militarism and the Monte Alban State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2. The Cuicatlan Canada: A Model of its Proposed Subjugation by Monte Alban. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Cuicatlan Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Selecting the Cuicatlan Canada for Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Proposed Subjugation of the Cuicatlan Canada by Monte Alban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Selection of the Conquest Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Zapotec Militarism and Frontier Administration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Framework for Evaluating the Conquest Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Preconditions of Conquest in the Cuicatlan Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
The Transformation of the Cuicatlan Canada into a Frontier Tributary Region. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Effects of the Conquest Strategy upon the Emerging Zapotec State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
The 1977-78 Cuicatlan Canada Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The Cuicatlan Canada Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
A Catchment Analysis of the Cuicatlan Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
A Ceramic Chronology for the Cuicatlan Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Dating of Surface Collections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Neutron-Activation Analysis of Ceramics from the Oaxaca Valley and the CuicatLin Canada . . 60
3. The Cuicatlan Canada During the Perdido Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Perdido Phase Settlements and Regional Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Perdido Phase Settlements and their ~ighland Neighbors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4. The Cuicatlan Canada During the Lomas Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
The Structure of a Frontier Region. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
TheQuiotepecFrontier............................................................ 91
Military Control and Administration at the Quiotepec Frontier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Civil Administration of the Central and Southern Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
ix