Zapotecs
The Zapotecs or Zapoteca belong to the indigenous population of Mexico and inhabit the Mexican state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. They speak Zapotec and called themselves Be'ena'a zaa or Peni zaa 'cloud people', but the later dominant Aztecs referred to the competing Mixtecs, who lived to the west of the Zapotecs, as Mixtecapan 'people from the cloud country' or Mixtecatl 'cloud people'.
The name Zapoteca is derived from the Aztec language, Nahuatl . These referred to the Zapoteca as Tzapotēcah (singular: Tzapotēcatl ) 'residents of the place where sapote grows'.
history
In pre-colonial times, the Zapotecs (zapotecas) were the bearers of a highly developed culture in southern Mexico ( Oaxaca state ). The first traces of settlement can be found around 1500 BC. Prove. The center of their cultural development was Monte Albán . Already in the first development phase of Monte Albán, characters and numerals appeared. Olmec influences can be seen in relief art and ceramics . There are numerous steles with images of strangely twisted human figures, the so-called danzantes , the 'dancers', on which sacrificial ceremonies can be seen.
In the heyday of the Zapotec culture (300 to 900) (Monte Alban III), suggestions from Teotihuacán were taken up and further developed independently. In ceramics, the Zapotecs made masterful figural vessels (picture urns) that were used as sacrificial containers. Furthermore, they had acquired a high level of skill in processing metal, stone and feathers. Colored wall paintings have been preserved in burial chambers.
In the post-classical period (10th – 15th centuries) the Zapotecs lived in conflict with the Mixtecs , who had brought parts of their settlement area under their control. Before the Spanish conquest, the seat of the Zapotec ruler was in Zaachila , while Mitla was important as a cult center and residence of the high priest.
Probably the most important Zapotec is the former President of the Republic of Mexico, Benito Juárez , who fought against the French under Napoléon III in the 1860s . and against the Habsburg Maximilian I - whom France had persuaded by false statements to ascend the Mexican throne - led and successfully ended.
present
According to an estimate from 1997, 785,000 Zapotecs live in Mexico. Their language, Zapotec or Diidzaj, which in its seven idiomatic variants is still spoken today on the isthmus of Tehuantepec and in the state of Oaxaca , belongs together with the language of the neighboring Mixtecs to the Otomangue language family.
literature
- Joseph Whitecotton: The Zapotecs: Princes, Priests, and Peasants ( The Civilization of the American Indian Series 143) 1977
