The yahui is a little studied creature depicted in Mixtec codices, sculpture and relief. The present study catalogues, categorizes and analyzes yahui imagery in order to ascertain its forms and functions. The following chapters provide formal, historical and linguistic analyses of yahui symbolism. My study concludes that there are three types of yahui imagery. The first type depicts an animal occurring in cosmological sequences. The second type of imagery is the nahual yahui imagery, in which the yahui is depicted as a half man, half animal figure performing ritual and ceremonial acts of sacrifice. The third type has linguistic connections, in that the main yahui symbolism, or the yahui motif, is attached to objects, place names and curanderos, or priestly human figures, in order to identify those objects and people as related to sacrifice. The involvement of yahui symbolism in sacrificial imagery is consistent with the Mesoamerican practice of sacrifice and supports the argument that sacrifice is a predominant theme Precolumbian Mixtec pictorial manuscripts. Additionally, the usage of yahui symbolism to signify objects, people and places indicates that Mixtec artists used it as a form of writing. My research suggests that there is probably a greater link between Mixteco, the language of the Mixtecs, and that codex imagery probably served a somewhat literary purpose / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_23133 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Contributors | Pierce, Danielle L (Author), Boone, Elizabeth Hill (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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