Mixtec

The Mixtec (Nudzahui, people of Dzahui the rain god) hold La Mixteca, the rugged country of Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero divided into the high Alta, the hot Baja and the humid Costa. Their civilisation runs from about 1500 BCE to the Spanish conquest of 1523: first urban centres in the Formative, then a Classic florescence, then the Postclassic world of competing city-states like Tilantongo and Tututepec, ruled by dynastic couples whose genealogies, wars and marriages fill the painted codices, the finest historical books of ancient America. Mixtec goldsmiths, turquoise mosaics and polychrome pottery set the luxury standard from the Valley of Mexico to the Maya area; Mixtec scribes and brides carried the style into Zapotec and Aztec courts. The Aztecs subdued much of the Mixteca but never fully held it; Spain finished the work in 1523. Mixtec languages, spoken by hundreds of thousands today across Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero and the migrant north, make this one of the great living civilisations of Mesoamerica.