Mixteca genealogies . Dynastic history? Mythology? or cosmology? The case of Lord 8-Deer

Abstract

This essay overviews the interpretations of the narrative of a character called 8-Mazatl from Mixtec codices. While there has been a recent interpretation that tried again to understand this narrative as a historical source, more traditional interpretations linked the narrative to mythological characters and events. This paper explores the possibility of using the mythological interpretations of celestial bodies to link the story to the long scale cycles related with eclipses.