Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2008
The structure and meaning of Mixtec codical symbolism is examined, based on data drawn from language, ethnography, and ethnohistory. The article is divided into three parts: (a) a discussion of Mixtec ideology and myth, with respect to codex symbolism; (b) a description of Mixtec poetics and symbolic correlates; and (c) an interpretive commentary of a brief mythological passage from the Vienna codex as a practical illustration of the first two parts of the article.