This image comes from a Mixtec pictorial manuscript made in what is now Southern Central Mexico before the region was conquered by the Spanish. It tells the story of the rise to power of a Mixtec king called Lord Eight Deer. This page depicts place names using aspects of the landscape and each toponym has an arrow embedded in it, indicating that the area was conquered.
Geographical representations in anthropology museums reinforce European perspectives of landscape and history. We have chosen images for our website that illustrate the multiple ways that time and space are represented by Latin American communities. Time can be shown as non-linear and multilayered, while land can be depicted as a dynamic space that includes culturally specific visual codes and cosmology.
