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The Mixtec Codices: Painted Histories of Conquest and Survival
Description
Before the Spanish arrival, the Mixtec people of Oaxaca recorded their genealogies, conquests, and myths in beautiful screenfold books made from deer hide. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the surviving codices — especially the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, Codex Vindobonensis, and Codex Bodley — and what they reveal about Mixtec politics, religion, and resistance to Aztec expansion. They discuss the Ñuu Dzaui (Mixtec) lords, the great warrior-king Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, his alliance with Toltec refugees, and his dramatic death. The conversation also covers how friars and collectors preserved these manuscripts after the conquest, and how modern scholars decipher them. A fascinating look at one of the few pre-Columbian writing systems we can still read.