POST4 Zapotec Religion

    The Zapotec people are a group of indigenous people that mainly live in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Most are subsistence agriculturalists that grow maize. A few do cultivate coffee beans as cash crops as well as a kind of sugarcane they call panela. Today, we are looking over the Zapotec's mythology(773), various sacred objects and places (778), and their spirits and gods (776).

    In modern times, the Zapotec people follow catholicism, due to Spanish colonization of Mexico during the 1500s. In catholicism, the Zapotec believe Jesus Christ is their one and only god. However, what makes Zapotec catholicism unique to them is their worship of saints, some being recognized saints such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, also known as the Virgin Mary. The Zapotec also worship local saints such as Santa Muerte, the saint of death and the afterlife. The Zapotec form groups devoted to the worship of one saint, these are called cofradías.

    A prominent Zapotec myth is their belief in the afterlife. Flowers and rosaries are laid with the dead when they are buried. They believe that doing this lets someone die "well" and that their transition into the afterlife, which they call mas allá. They believe that someone who is dead is still live through their living relatives. The Zapotec perform ceremonies and rites on a regular basis in order to honor their dead so their lives in mas allá is well.

    Another interesting Zapotec myth surrounds snakes. In most catholic traditions, snakes are seen as a bad sign as the Devil once took on that form. In the Zapotecs' version of catholicism, snakes can be seen as either good or bad. In one story a large snake defends the town of Cerro Pelon from the Spanish. In another, a snake is depicted as a horned demon who causes rain to go away, hurting local agriculture. Snakes can also be seen as a sign of good luck or future fortunes to be made, but they can also cause fright and ruin religious pilgrimages.

    Many sacred places to the Zapotec seem to be rocky formations such as caves and mountains. They also see places with water sources, such as rivers and streams as sacred places. The Zapotec associate these places with the characteristics of fertility, life, and health. It is in these places wherein many Zapotec stories saints performed miracles or creatures of either good or evil live. The gigantic snake that defended Cerro Pelon lived on a mountain while the horned demon snake lived in a river.

      A set of sacred objects to the Zapotec are a candle and a figure made of wax. These wax figures are burned as offerings to saints such as the Virgin of Guadalupe. Women will usually perform this offering in hopes of being blessed with a child. The wax figures are made to be either male or female to show if the woman wants a son or daughter. In addition, the candle is seen as a form of a deed or contract made between the woman and the saint she burned the wax figure for.  

  

Works Cited

Cohen, Jeffrey H. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10, no. 4 (2004): 948–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3803903.

Norget, Kristin. 2021. “Popular-Indigenous Catholicism in Southern Mexico.” Religions 12 (7): 531. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=151588874&site=eds-live.

Parsons, Elsie Worthington Clews. 1970. “Mitla, Town of the Souls and Other Zapoteco-Speaking Pueblos of Oaxaca, Mexico.” In The University of Chicago Publications in Anthropology ; Ethnological Series, 19, 590 , 51 plates. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://ehrafworldcultures-yale-edu.northernkentuckyuniversity.idm.oclc.org/document?id=nu44-003.

Raber, Rebecca. “Rare 18th Century Mexican Texts Acquired by Haverford Libraries.” Haverblog, 20 Nov. 2015, https://haver.blog/2015/11/20/rare-18th-century-mexican-texts-acquired-by-haverford-libraries/.