Abstract: The presence of the yahui, the fire serpent of the Mixtec, in Codex Borgia 38, is discussed alongside Nowotny’s suggestion for phonetic glyphs in the same page, related to a cypress or ahuehuete represented with a tree and a drum (a-HUEHUE). It is argued here that the yahui glyph might be a tonal play for the word ‘plaza’ (yahui) in Mixtec, denoted by the crenelated enclosure that sorrounds this glyph, while the word play for ahuehuete, in Mixtec yutnu ñuu or ‘drum tree’, also seems to work in that language.
The exact provenience of the Codex Borgia, and of many of the manuscripts of the Borgia group in general, is mostly considered an unsettled question. Up to this day, the most authoritative overview of the question and the most reasonable hypotheses are to be found in chapter 8 of Elizabeth Hill Boone’s classic work, Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate, in which the author discusses the matter in great detail, summarizes previous scholarship, and presents a manuscript-by-manuscript list of hypotheses, where iconographic, cultural and stylistic considerations are naturally at the forefront (2007: 211-230). Indeed, given that the manuscripts of the Borgia group are completely logographic and pictographic, there seems to be no way to ascertain the presence of a particular language in the manuscript in order to confirm its definite provenience or that of its authors. However, at least one attempt to find phonetic glyphs in Codex Borgia has been made, which has been largely ignored despite its potential usefulness to help us ascertain the provenience of the manuscript or at least of its creators: that of the scholar Karl Anton Nowotny in his commentary to the Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanhaldt facsimile edition (1976). This entry will present both Boone’s and Nowotny’s arguments, and will add some arguments in favour not of a Mixtec geographic origin, but of a Mixtec hand behind this masterpiece of Mexican manuscript painting.
In first place, it is necessary to summarize Boone’s assessment: “The comparative evidence points to a Puebla-Tlaxcala provenience for the Codex Borgia, probably even Cholula, as Nicholson (1961:433, 1963: 71, 1966:153–154, 1994:113–114) has long affirmed. Although the Borgia painter worked in a style generally similar to the Mixtec historical manuscripts and used the AO year marker, he was probably not himself Mixtec” (Boone 2007: 227). Boone states that while there is a presence of Mixtec deities like 4 Serpent, 7 Serpent and the Tlazolteotls named 9 Reed and 1 Eagle, the Sun god dons Aztec facial painting rather than Mixtec painting, the Venus god wears a headdress with a Central Mexican style, and Tezcatlipoca, a non-Mixtec god, is rather prominent. Also, she notices the absence of the yahui, the Mixtec fire serpent (something that is actually not the case, as we will see). Interesting, and central to the discussion, are the small iconographic differences notices by the author: “the Borgia painter eschewed the Mixtec convention of designating stone by colored stripes; instead, he used colored stripes to qualify wood on occasion (as in the precious tree on p. 44; Fig. 117) and designated parched ground as being stony by means of black curls and gray clumps (pp. 2, 19, 54)” (Boone 2007: 227). Close stylistic parallels with Cholula ceramics, as well as the famous murals of Tizatlan, further strengthens the hypothesis of the Borgia having been produced in the Puebla-Tlaxcala region (Figure 1). As Boone mentions, the only counter argument is the fact that the colonial-era manuscripts from the area are painted in a different style, following the Aztec conventions of the centre of Mexico rather than the Mixtec ones; but she discards these differences as a product of colonial times. Of course, this assessment is rather strong, and there is little to disagree with: it essentially agrees with that of Nowotny (2005: 7), that the Codex Borgia is probably the book of a temple library in Cholula.
Curiously, another argument exists for ascertaining the provenience and manufacture of the manuscript as Poblano-Tlaxcaltec rather than Mixtec, that of a possible presence of phoneticism in Codex Borgia. This argument, advanced by Karl Anton Nowotny, is usually ignored in the literature, perhaps because it is to be found in the until this day untranslated German commentary to the magnificent Adeva facsimile edited by him (1976). There, while discussing the Tempelrituale (‘rituals of the temples’) or ‘cultic part’, the long, unique, narrative section spanning pages 29 to 46 of the manuscript, Nowotny notices the presence of a possible phonetic glyph in page 38 (Figure 2). It goes without saying that Nowotny’s detailed and grounded description of these pages remains the best commentary to this day:
“From the black among the to the two confronted temples, the black Xolotl walks towards a small pyramid above a celestial dragon and throws a weapon with the shape of a fire serpent. Then, he hurls himself towards a black underground enclosure whose upper view is at its feet. All of this is surrounded by cult events. Then, the black Xolotl lies within a pond in an underground temple which is filled by Tlaloc, and has an earplug with the shape of an ahuehuete tree (determined with the phonetic hieroglyphs for the skin-covered drum, huehuetl)” (Nowotny 1976: 27).
Of course, here Xolotl is to be understood as the nahualli or animal alter ego of Quetzalcoatl, as the so-called Legend of the Suns explains. Thus, it seems to be settled: Codex Borgia is most probably a Nahuatl manuscript painted in the Mixtec style in vogue in the Northern Mixteca-Puebla region, as the stylistic comparison with Tlaxcaltec murals and Cholula ceramics show; furthermore, its painters were not Mixtec, although they used their stylistic conventions. Until now, I was convinced by this asessment, but another glyph, present in the very same page, has made me reconsider: I am referring to the Mixtec yahui fire snake sign just right to the platform where the black Xolotl is hurling himself, referred by Nowotny with the words ‘celestial dragon’, which is accompanied by a personified tlachieloni, an emblem of Tezcatlipoca, which has a bag of incense and spines. This sign is definitely atypical for a Central Mexican manuscript: it consists on the Mixtec yahui serpent infixed within a crenellated enclosure. As it is known, the Mixtec yahui fire-snake is a mythological fire serpent which is also related to the idea of nagualism or sorcery (Lejarazu 2009) via a word-play related to the tonal nature of Mixtec, as we will see later; as Codex Vindobonensis shows, it is closely related to the Mixtec god 4 Snake[1]. It has been interpreted as being related to the Central Mexican xiuhcoatl, and it certainly is, but the ‘enclosure’ element in which it is affixed is iconographically difficult to explain from a Nahuatl perspective. As Ferdinand Anders, Marteen Jansen, and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez have noticed, this sign is also to be found in the Mixtec historical manuscripts, associated with ritual performances where it is usually censed with copal (1992: 117). It features prominently in Codex Zouche-Nutall (15, 17, 18, 19), where it is depicted as a compound of a yahui serpent, a crenelated enclosure, an altar-plaform and a ball-game emerging from the maw of the yahui, sometimes with a roof above all the compound (Figure 3). The glyph has been explained by Anders, Jansen and Pérez Jiménez as a temple dedicated to the yahui in the Zouche-Nuttall and as a ritual enclosure with xiuhcocoa or fire snakes in the Borgia (1993: 182); Robert Lloyd Williams interprets it as a Fire Serpent Ballcourt facing the temple of 9 Wind Quetzalcoatl, where diverse ceremonies led by Mixtec priests were performed.
While these assessments are certainly pertinent, this pattern departs from the usual representation of temples among the Mixtec, and it is unclear how or why this structure is to be found both in the Borgia and the Zouche-Nutall, specially since even Anders, Jansen and Pérez Jiménez, Mixtec experts, adhered to (and expanded upon) Nowotny’s theses of a Cholulteca origin in their own commentary to the Borgia, explaining this reappearance as a similarity in the layout of both temple complexes (1992: 117). I believe there is another explanation for the presence of the yahui sign in both manuscripts, as well as for the prominent featuring of a crenelated enclosure in it, that is grounded in the nature of Mixtec language and writing. Indeed, Mixtec is a tonal language: this is the reason why words that look the same in colonial documents could mean different things depending on their tone, which was regrettably not registered in colonial dictionaries. Hence the existence of different ‘tonal plays’ in Mixtec codices, where a word with a different tone could represent or substitute another, as well as complement it as a ‘phonetic determiner’ (Rodríguez Cano 2016: 6)[2]. Now, the word yahui had the following meanings in Alvarado’s colonial dictionary:
yahui: a fair, its location; fair, market, plaza, square, tianguez [market]
yahui: sorcerer, a deceiver that flew through the air (Alvarado 2009: 170).
As Evangeliana Arana and Mauricio Swadesh noticed, the word yahui has a further verbal meaning related to the idea of payment and commerce (which explains its ‘market’ connotations), and when it was combined with the word -nduvua (‘arrow’) it meant ‘comet’ (Arana Swadesh 132-133), in a similar way in which comets (xihuitl) were represented with a xiuhcoatl in Nahuatl writing. Thus, while indeed the yahui is a fire serpent related to the God 4 Snake in Mixtec codices, as well as the verbal equivalent to the Nahuatl concept of nahualli, the glyph itself could also simply mean ‘square’ or ‘plaza'[3], more specifically, a ritual plaza. Ritual enclosures were prominently represented in Mixtec codices with the same crenellated pattern (Figure 4):
It could be hypothesized that the fire serpent here works as a ‘phonetic determiner’ of the enclosure sign, which simply denotes a tonal play. This could explain its presence in both Zouche-Nutall and Borgia: the glyph doesn’t really mean a fire snake ballcourt/temple nor an enclosure covered by xiuhcocoa, but is merely a phonetic determiner or tonal play for a ritual square which contains those elements. In all cases the glyph would read YAHUI, yahui, ‘square'[4]: this would explain why this sign is accompanied by ritual regalia such as the tlachieloni, rich blankets with sacred images beneath them, and a couple of priests (Figure 5).
But what about Nowotny’s phonetic argument? Actually, the word play HUEHUE, (a)huehuetl, ‘cypress’ noted by him can also work in Mixtec. Indeed, the name of the cypress in Mixtec is yutnu ñuu, ‘drum wood tree’, literally ‘tree-drum’, ñuu being the word for the vertical, skin covered drum or huehuetl (Gómez Gómez and Corona Alcalde 2006: 99), so this compound can also be read as YUTNU-ÑUU, yutnu ñuu, ‘cypress’, making a much more adequate fit with the Borgia, where the Nahuatl syllabogram a, usually in the form of a stream, is missing. In this way, both glyphs can be explained (Figure 6). Thus, it could be argued that the painter of the Codex Borgia was effectively a Mixtec tay huisi tacu or ‘person who has the office of painting’.
However, is this truly enough to eschew all the stylistic, iconographic arguments of both Nowotny and Boone and argue for a fully Mixtec Borgia? Certainly not. The most reasonable hypothesis for me is that only one part of Boone’s assessment needs revision: the painters of the Codex Borgia were most probably Mixtec, but, as Nowotny asserted, the book reflects the religious rituals associated with Quetzalcoatl/9-Wind in Tollan-Chollollan, a deity that certainly surpassed ethnic barriers and was revered by both Nahua and Mixtec. This explains both the divergence with Mixtec mythology as presented in the Vindobonensis, the occasional presence of Mixtec gods, and the difference with the more ‘Aztec’ painting style of the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca. Probably the Mixtec painting tradition was rather prestigious, and the tlacuilos, or rather tay huisi tacu, tried the best that they could to stick to omit Mixtec glyphs in their endeavour, but slipped a couple of Mixtec glyphs in that ritual scene alone.
Thus, it can be concluded that, perhaps, Codex Borgia is a manuscript made by Mixtec hands under the patronage of the powerful priesthood of Cholula, which commissioned the book probably in account of the magnificent style of Mixtec artistry, something that could perhaps be sustained in the quasi-legendary affirmation that it was Mixtec painters from the Tlailotlaque tribe which taught the art of writing to the Chichimec newcomers (Robertson 1959: 13). This also weakens the argument for a Tlaxcaltec origin, given the central role of the multi-ethnical rituality of Quetzalcoatl/9-Wind that took place at Cholula, and explains the divergence with the style of both Chololteca and Tlaxcaltec colonial manuscripts, which probably reflected the style of Nahuatl tlacuilos. Furthermore, the presence in these pages of the ceremony of the piercing of the septum, first noticed by Nowotny (1976: 30), strongly associated with Cholula both in Mixtec historical codices (cfr. Hermann Lejarazu 2021) and the Historia Tolteca Chichimeca 2, further consolidates this idea.
Since the Borgia lacks any noticeable phoneticism except (perhaps) the aforementioned, it was probably meant to convey divinatory and ritual texts both in Nahuatl and Mixtec through logograms and pictography: a bilingual text, something that is not uncommon in Mesoamerican writing, as the example of Codex Cuaxicala (formerly Xicotepec), a Nahuatl-Huastec mixed document, shows. In any case, the logographic and pictographic nature of the divinatory manuscripts of Central Mexico force us to rethink the idea of writing present in them, perhaps suggesting a multiethnic public and a potentially multilingual reading; despite this multilingual public, little pieces of evidence could betray the actual ethnic origins of their creators, as is perhaps the case of Codex Borgia.
Notes
[1] The name of this deity seems to be written in Codex Vindobonensis 30 as 4-COO YAHUI-NDICANDI, Quicoo Yahui Ndicandi, ‘4 Snake, Sun Fire Snake’, a name that can be reconstructed via an identical glossed name glyph in Codex Muro 3 and 8 (cfr. Smith 1973). Sadly, the name of his companion 7 Snake, who appears in the Borgia too, is barely legible and has no extant glossed counterparts, but it seems to be something akin to ‘7 Snake, Descending Eagle’, which could mean that both are companions of the Sun God in the sunrise and the evening. Nowotny suggests they are, respectively, the companion of the sun and the moon ([1961] 2005: 48)
[2] For example, the place name ñoyhi ‘green place’ is denoted in Codex Egerton by a frieze (ÑUU, ñuu, ‘town’ in the Teposcolula variant), and a jaguarundi. The word yhi means both ‘green’ and ‘jaguarundi, fox’: thus, the jaguarundi is just a ‘phonetic determiner’ or tonal play for the reading ‘green’ (Rodríguez Cano 2016: 416).
[3] Notice the similarity of the ’round crenelated enclosure’ motif and some variants of the TIANQUIZ(TLI), tianquiztli, ‘market’ glyph in Nahuatl (López Luján and Olmedo 2010).
[4] As mentioned, extant glossed sources like Codex Muro 3 and 8 make it possible to confirm the reading of this glyph. Of course, it could be argued that the ‘enclosure’ element is the phonetic determiner, and the fire snake denotes a fire serpent temple like that depicted in page 46. While not impossible, the point of this note is that the juxtaposition of both elements only makes sense in Mixtec writing, but makes little sense in Nahuatl.
References
Alvarado, Fray Francisco (2009), Voces del Dzaha Dzavui, eds. Marteen Janden and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez, Mexico, CSEIIO.
Anders, Ferdinand; Jansen, Maarten, and Pérez Jiménez, Gabina Aurora. 1992. Crónica Mixteca: El Rey 8 Venado, Garra de Jaguar y la dinastía de Teozacualco-Zaachila. Libro explicativo del llamado Códice Zouche-Nuttall, Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Anders, Ferdinand; Jansen, Maarten, and Pérez Jiménez, Gabina Aurora. 1993. Los templos del cielo y de la oscuridad: Oráculos y liturgia. Libro explicativo del llamado Códice Borgia, Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Arana, Evangelina, and Swadesh, Mauricio. 1965. Los Elementos del Mixteco Antiguo, Mexico, Instituto Nacional Indigenista / Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.
Boone, Elizabeth Hill. 2007. Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
Hermann Lejarazu, Manuel A. 2009. “La serpiente de fuego o yahui en la Mixteca prehispánica: iconografía y significado” Anales del Museo de América 17: 64-77
Hermann Lejarazu, Manuel A. 2021. “Viaje a Cholula y ceremonia de tecuhtli”, Arqueología Mexicana, edición especial, núm. 97, pp. 46-55.
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Nowotny, Karl Anton, ed. 1976. Codex Borgia: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (God. Borg. Messican 1) Vollständige Faksimile-Ausgabe des Codex im Original-format. Commentary by Karl Anton Nowotny. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druek und Verlagsanstalt.
Nowotny, Karl Anton. (1961) 2005. Tlacuilolli: Style and Contents of the Mexican Pictorial Manuscripts, with a Catalogue of the Borgia Group, ed. de George A. Everett, Jr. y Edward B. Sisson. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Robertson, Donald. 1959. Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period: The Metropolitan Schools. Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press.
Rodríguez Cano, Laura. 2016. Los topónimos de la Mixteca Baja: Corpus y Análisis epigráfico y cartográfico. PhD diss., National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Smith, Mary Elizabeth 1973. “The Relationship between Mixtec Manuscript painting and Mixtec language: A Study of some Personal Names in Codices Muro and Sánchez Solis”, in Benson (ed.), Mesoamerican Writing Systems, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., pp. 47-98.
Tlacuilolli 