Laminas
The Mixtec Storyboard
Synopsis
What seems to be in the story is the arrival of original Mixtec tribes from a location called Atzlan, the Place of the Reeds. The Broken Tree is a place recorded by the Maya in the Popol Vuh during the great migration. The bearded story teller retells the tale of the great heat wave which helped to create the new strain of edible corn. But it was not until the year was reordered by the astronomers that the young volcano was conquered by a warrior-like Tlaloc. When the fountain broke through, Tlaloc became the God of the waters. Nevertheless, there was a meteorite fallout and again the migration left the caves but returned to the place of the ancestors, the maw (a different cave) of the earth. In the waters near the cave, people learned to placer mine the grains of gold. Mixtecs became known as the People of the Stone. The female serpent Tlaloc woman led the people to food and wealth. Mixtec men discussed the future of their year cycle at the smoking volcano over the stone scroll smoking mountain. Were the months and the days determined then or can one assume that the 260 day year was computed together with the 365 day year? After that conference, the Stone Mixtec people separated from the [Aztec] journey and returned to their homeland (where corn was plentiful).
The story board section of the Vindobinennses Codex has been very
informative. It seems that the Mixtec related both the story of the Popol Vuh, the Aztec migration to and from the caves and their involvement with the creation of the double calendar. Nevertheless, we do not yet know all the elements of the Vindobinennses. The above is just a suggested reading of what I see as a "storyboard" of the creation myth in this Mixtec Codex. The symbols I used in this iconographic tale are based on my readings of the Maya Popol Vuh and the Aztec journey
into Lake Texcoco.