General information
Mixtec society is primarily agricultural, and the people of Mixtepec live from their harvests.
They mainly plant corn and beans, but also squash, coreander, onion, garlic, and other vegetables.
Corn tortillas are the staple of their diet; they eat them with
chile sauce, beans, eggs, coreander and other herbs and vegetables such as
“pozole”, beef, chicken, “mole”, rice or “tamales”.
Traditional houses consist of one big room and a smaller construction that is used for cooking.
Nowadays the houses are built of cement blocks, but in the past they were made of
wood or of adobe.
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How Mixtepec got its name
According to the people of Mixtepec there was a very tall evergreen cypress tree in their village,
which was taller than any other tree. Its trunk was divided in two main branches.
It was so tall that the clouds gathered around its crown.
In Mixtec the town is called Xnuviko,
which means “clouds are lowering”.
(Others call it Xini Viko
or Yoso Nuviko.)
An eagle came to the crown of the cypress and built its nest there.
Water sprang out from underneath the tree and formed a lake.
A red-painted gourd bowl was floating in circles on the lake, and
many children fell into the lake and drowned because they tried to grab the bowl.
Finally the people decided to cut the tree down.
When they began to cut they couldn't finish within one day because the tree was too thick,
so they decided to continue the next day.
But when they came back the next day they saw that the tree was whole again.
So they decided to work day and night,
and finally they managed to cut the giant evergreen down.
One of the halves of its crown fell into a village called Tixitu,
which means ‘long top’;
and the other half fell into a village called Yuku Xitu,
which in Spanish is called “El Retoño” (‘The Shoot’).
The eagle had to leave the tree.
It flew away and perched on a nopal (prickly-pear cactus) at the place where Mexico City was founded.
That is why some elders say that San Juan Mixtepec would have become the capital of the country.
The eagle on a nopal became the symbol of Mexico; it appears on the Mexican flag.
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Versión en español
