Page 291 - The Secret Museum

THE LIENZO OF TLAPILTEPEC IS a long piece of cloth covered in glyphic drawings and

tiny black footprints that was created by the Mixtec people. The word ‘lienzo’ comes
from the Spanish word meaning ‘painted cloth’, and the one I saw, in a back room at
the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) comes from the village of Tlapiltepec in the
Coixtlahuaca valley, Oaxaca State, Mexico. It tells the story of the rulers of the
illustrious city of Coixtlahuaca, from their mythological beginnings to around the time
the Spanish arrived in Mexico (1519–21).

The lienzo lives in the archives of the museum in Toronto, folded up, cushioned by
pillows and carefully tucked up inside a drawer. It can’t be exhibited because it is

very sensitive to light. The once vibrant colours of the drawings have already been
burned almost to oblivion by the hot Mexican sun during the years it hung in the
Mixtec equivalent of the village hall in Tlapiltepec. The ROM, of course, wishes to
preserve what is left of its colours by keeping it out of the light, behind the scenes.

The day I visited the ROM, Arni Brownstone, who curates the museum’s Latin
American collection, had woken the lienzo up. He unrolled the entire history of the
Mixtec people and laid it out on a long table for me to see. It’s 3.97 × 1.7 metres, so
stretched the length of the room we were in. It is made from three pieces of cloth –

each one the breadth of the weaver’s shoulders – that have been sewn together. It is
covered in glyphs which represent people, towns, landmarks, Christian churches and
historical dates in the native Mixtec calendar, with black and red lines and little
black footprints linking the pictures together. We walked from one end to the other,
looking at the images, and Arni told me the story of the precious lienzo.

The tale begins inside the cave of origins known as Chicomostoc. In the drawing,
the first one on the lienzo, the cave looks like the open jaws of a monster. Out of the
cave appears the god of the Mixtec people, Quetzalcoatl, an Earth-bound snake

covered with the feathers of a skysoaring bird. The next drawing is of a kneeling
priest twirling a stick on a bone to start a fire. This scene symbolizes the bringing of
the cult of the god Quetzalcoatl to the Coixtlahuaca valley and the founding of the
valley’s ruling lineages.

Smoke rising from the point of the turning stick leads the eye to the first lords and
ladies. Then, from this first couple run lines of couples, along the length of the lienzo.
There are 21 generations of ruling couples drawn in total, and these are the actual
rulers of Coixtlahuaca from the eleventh to the early sixteenthth centuries. Their

names are written alongside their picture. The names are the same as their date of
birth in the ancient Mexican calendar – each birth date is made up of the name of the
day plus a number. The numbers are represented by coloured circles, which look a
bit like a sign for traffic lights you might draw if you were writing down directions
for a friend.

The red lines and black footprints run across the lienzo in lots of directions; they
show rulers’ movements, their spheres of influence and their genealogical ties. One
ruling couple’s power was felt all the way to Tenochtitlan, the heart of the Aztec