The Sacred Red and White Bundles
or
Cross Identification of the Nuhu

The Selden Codex has a known history. It is a palimpsest. That is to say, it had been erased and a new story or history was drawn on top of the older manuscript materials. The Selden was then used in a post-conquest court battle to claim disputed land in and near Jaltepec.

The Selden codex was the sacrificed manuscript. But in this codex there was a beginning that may be part of the original manuscript. The first three pages of this codex shows the origin of the Mixtecs, so it is said. In actuality, it shows the origin of the gods of the Mixtec and their relationship to the various villages in the area of Jaltepec.

Yet, these drawings found in the beginning of the Selden are very similar to first pages of other codices. The symbolic representations of the "gods" may be altered slightly, or redrawn with different iconographic representations, but basically, they contain the same origin myth found all over Mesoamerica.

Several Mixtec codices, the Zouche-Nuttall, the Vindobonensis, the Bodley, and the Selden, even the Borgiaall seem to refer to the presence of a strange fanged creature called the "Nuhu." This creature is seen bodiless in the Selden on top of sacred Red and White Bundles, or on the shafts of spears in front of the Nuhu temples.

It is in the Borgia Codex that the origin of the Nuhu is fully illustrated. All personages in the Borgia have red and white eyes. The red and white eyes, like the red and white bundles help to identify the Nuhus as star entities. In the BorgiaL and the Zouche-Nuttall where most of the Nuhus are also clothed in red and white striped body paint.
In 1994, Dr. John Pohl, together with Dr. Bruce E. Byland, decided that Nuhu star-entities were strongly related to the Stone Men of the Mixtecs.(In the Realm of Eight Deer, p. 115 through 119) Click here for a Chart showing instances of the Stone Men and/or the Nuhus in the above-mentioned codices.

However, since the Stonemen only appear falling from the sky once in the Vindobonensis. I believe this indicates a later manuscript or a faulty copy by the Inquisition in Mexico who understood that stones (Nuhus or meteorites) fell from the sky. All other instances, the Stone Men appearing in the Vindobonensisresemble ordinary warriors or citizens of the land.

During the 1997 Maya Meetings at the University of Texas at Austin, Karl Taube showed us that meteorites falling from the heavens were also drawn and illustrated as spears. This agrees with the presence of the Nuhu heads on the shafts of the spears protecting the Nuhu bundles in the Jaltepec temples. The Nuhu spears in front of the temples containing the Nuhu bundles probably indicate that there was a second meteorite fallout. This second fallout (as spears) would have reinstated (and protected) the Sacred Bundles in the Jaltepec temples after a "Star" War which helped the dynasty of Jaltepec to regain its lost power.

To lump Stone Men with the Nuhu is to acknowledge that the information found in the Vindobonensisis correct: that the Nuhu or Stone Men were represented by the strange "phallic images" found on the Jaltepec mountainside; not as symbols of "fertility" but as solid three dimensional images of wispy comets or meteorites with fiery tails. These meteorites hit the mountains around the Mixtec villages and later when a search was made, strange stones were found. A product of igneous, volcanic rock (see Magnitite), these stones may have been uncovered by the meteorites or created in the mountain crevases by the heat of the meteorite strike.

In a short time, the magnetic magic of the Nuhus became known. The priests found that they became more important than the "old bundled totems." In the Selden the priests undid the old sacred bundles which represented the serpent god of the caves
and replaced them with the bones (stone meteorites)of the Nuhu. The serpent eye that remained on the year signs throughout the manuscript implied that the old calendar system was still in effect. This would not change with the "magic" of the Sacred Nuhu.

What kind of magic could be associated with meteorites from heaven? The Popol Vuh gives us a small clue:
The brujela. . . Maya power symbol was the stone of Nacxit (seer stone) called Giron-gagal. Balam Quitz gave this stone to children just before he died to help them find "The place in which we are going to settle."(Recinos, Popol Vuh 205, n. 3, 1953; 170, note 5)

The magnet was a Maya power symbol. A meteorite is usually a stone containing a lot of iron. Magnetized iron attracts other iron-ore, thereby acting "magically" to pull the other stone or metal to it without human hands. Such magnetized stone idols were demonstrated to a Chinese Emperor called in 1008 AD. One idol was dropped into the lake and the other, a goddess, was used to remove the first which floated over the water to the Sung Emperor named Chen Tsung. (Ferguson - Anesaki, p. 71) This is much too late for the supposed Chinese invention of the "Chariot Which Always Points South." The fact that the carriage always faced south tells us that the maps the Chinese recognize were actually very late Muslim maps with South located in the Northern position.

The tale of the Nuhu in the various codices may be an indication that the magnetic properties of metal-laced stone from the skies was first discovered (as magic) in the Americas.