Mixtec People

Hello! We are the Ñuu Savi. This is our name for ourselves, and in our language, it means the "People of the Rain." Rain has always been very important to us, as it helps our crops grow strong and gives life to our homeland. For thousands of years, our home has been a beautiful and mountainous region in southern Mexico. We call this special place La Mixteca. Imagine a land of high peaks and sloping valleys covered in clouds. This is where we built our communities, raised our families, and learned everything we know about living with the earth and sky.

Living in the mountains meant we had to become very skilled and clever farmers. Finding large areas of flat ground for planting was not possible, but we needed to grow food to feed everyone in our towns. We developed a wonderful way to turn steep hillsides into productive gardens for our communities. We carefully cut into the side of a mountain and built strong walls to create a series of flat steps, almost like a giant staircase reaching for the sky. These special, human-made gardens are called terraces.

Building terraces was hard work, but it was incredibly important. Each terrace created a perfectly level spot where we could plant our seeds safely. On a steep, bare hill, heavy rains can easily wash away all the good soil and the tiny new plants. Our terraces solved that problem by holding the rich earth in place. They also caught the rainwater, allowing it to soak into the soil and give our crops a good, long drink instead of running down the mountain. In these carefully built gardens, we grew healthy corn, beans, and squash. These foods were central to our meals and helped our communities grow and thrive.

We have always been a people who love to create beautiful things and share our history. We expressed our creativity through many kinds of art. We are especially famous for our amazing folded books, which are called codices. A codex is very different from a book with a spine that you turn pages in. It is made from a long strip of paper or specially prepared animal skin that is folded back and forth, like a fan or an accordion. On these long, foldable pages, we carefully recorded our history for future generations.

We wrote our history not with letters and words like you might be used to, but with detailed pictures and colorful symbols. These drawings were our form of writing. They told the important stories of our ancestors, the histories of our rulers, and the great events that shaped our communities. Through these codices, our history could be remembered and passed down from one generation to the next. We also showed our artistic skill by making beautiful jewelry, another important art form for our people.

Our journey as the Ñuu Savi continues today. Our culture did not end or disappear long ago; it is still alive, strong, and vibrant. Many of our people still live in our beautiful homeland, La Mixteca, in southern Mexico. We walk the same mountains and valleys that our ancestors called home. We continue to honor our past by celebrating our important traditions and by speaking our Mixtec languages. Being the ‘People of the Rain’ is a proud part of who we are, and we continue to share our long history and our living culture with the world.