RITUELS ET SYMBOLISME Des MIXTE QUES En 2
Guillaume J.A. Bresso
2024
These etymological data have allowed us to establish a difference in values between the words and have allowed us to oppose the sensible appearance to the transposition of the animic fluid otherwise known as humor according to the pre-Hispanic vision of the world. Borrowing convenient expressions from the vocabulary of linguistics, we readily affirm that there existed between the sacred bundle, known around the terms [tnani], [ñoho dzucu] or [tlaquimilolli] corresponding to the notion of the eidôlon, and its model an identity of surface and signifier, while the relationship between the ñuhu espíritu, that is to say the eikôn and what its nomenclature represented, was located at the level of the deep structure and the signified. There were of course limited uses, where the differences were perpetuated in Orphism, where their substantial marrow escaped those who still used them, to perpetuate them and conform them to the newly constituted religious doctrines and practices. We then imagine myths to be linked to divine power in a figurative corpus of customs and traditions most often grouped together in the form of memorabilia. But, overall, these objects remained very distinct in Mixteca. And the image reflects the diverse fortunes of these two vocabularies and their later uses. For the visible cocoon form ended up being reduced to a pure appearance and applied to gods who existed only through their image, while Ñu/ ́u ended up being reserved for representations of divinity. We also understand why the quarrel over images, which tore Mexico apart during the colonial period, pitted iconoclastic European settlers against allochthonous idolatries, why the chieftains of Mixtecapán, as defenders of images, reproached the evangelical missionaries for destroying their icons, while they themselves found themselves accused by the terrible Inquisition of worshipping idols.
