User:Dallas831/Mixe people

Culture

The Mixe in part live from subsistence agriculture of corn, beans, squash and potatoes, complementing with hunting of small game and fishing on the smaller rivers and streams. However, in the past century the midland Mixe have begun to commercialize coffee, usually as small producers who sell their roasted beans to buyers from outside the Mixe area. The Mixe are well known in Oaxaca for their large brass bands – every Mixe town has a band that performs in their local festivals. In some towns traditional weaving is practiced on backstrap looms whereas other towns mainly produce ceramics.

Religion

Ritual practices include prayers and sacrifice to a non-human entity called ‘The One Who Makes Being Alive (yë’ yïkjujykypyëjkp),’ which gives vitality. Rituals are also performed to entities such as the Rain, the Wind, and the Earth. In Life as a Making, Perig Pitrou asserts that humans use technological activities to understand vital processes such as growth, reproduction, aging, and death. For example, the building of the earth in the Mixe origin story is a sequential process similar to that of pottery making. Mixe newborns are given ritual baths to make them strong and hard, similar to the hardening of pottery in a kiln. Human life is seen as being built and shaped by the Creator.

In addition to and in modification of the Catholic system, the Mixe maintain a pantheon of gods representing certain aspects. These include:

• Poj 'Enee ("Thunder wind"), a fertility and rain god who is also the protector of Mixe towns
• Naaxwiiñ ("Earth Surface"), an earth and fertility goddess
• Yuuk, the "owner of the animals" and the deity of wild animals and the hunt
• Hɨgɨñ, a goddess of rivers and springs, venerated by fishermen
• Mɨjku, a god of wealth, luck, hurricanes, death and the underworld, who is often equated with the Catholic devil.

The Mixe are among the few contemporary indigenous communities of Mesoamerica to still use the 260-day ritual calendar which was in use throughout Mesoamerica in pre-Columbian times. The Mixe use the ritual calendar for divination, planning of rituals and in order to determine the names given to children. Mixes have two names: a calendrical name in the Mixe language given at birth and a Spanish-Catholic name given at baptism.

Nagualism also forms a part of Mixe religious beliefs: the Mixe believe that every person is born simultaneously with an animal which becomes their Tso'ok (Nahual/animal counterpart) – the animal carries part of the human's soul and the two beings will share a common destiny.