Los dioses en los códices mexicanos del grupo borgia: una investigación iconográfica (Spranz, 1973)

Recently, I have been fortunate enough to read a book about the Mixtec codices in the Borgia group by an author named Bodo Spranz (Spranz, 1973). In this blog, we will explore his work for an English-speaking audience and describe its relationship with ongoing work in the UF Data Studio.

Introduction

Los dioses en los códices mexicanos del grupo borgia: una investigación iconográfica is an anthropological book written by Bodo Spranz and published by the Fondo de Cultura Económica Mexico, a publishing house in Mexico that typically specializes in publishing economic texts in the Spanish language. As the title and the publisher would suggest, the text is written in Spanish, limiting its reach among English-speaking academics; and I was quite lucky to have the opportunity and ability to read it when Dr. Grant checked it out on an interlibrary loan from Florida Atlantic University.

The book summarizes the functions and appearances of dozens of Mixtec deities appearing in the Mixtec Borgia group codices.

The codices considered by Spranz (1973) include:

• Codex Bolonia
• Codex Borgia (Cospi)
• Codex Fejérváry-Mayer
• Codex Laud
• Codex Vaticano B (Vaticano)

The primary thesis of the book, other than collating a volume about the iconography used to depict the deities, is that the deities in these codices appear in pasajes paralelos (parallel passages) that have roughly equal content across multiple codices in the group, although not always identical content. Spranz (1973) lists hundreds of examples of parallel passages in the book and offers reasons for why the deities frequently appear in very similar, albeit not uniformly identical, capacities throughout the Borgia group codices. Spranz (1973) explains that we can infer common theological tradition among the Borgia group authors through interpretation of their codices. On the other hand, he acknowledges there are differences in parallel passages that manifest likely as a result of adapting different versions of myths which attribute different functions to different deities.

The following section, Deities, will list the names and general descriptions of the deities discussed in detail by Spranz (1973), Thereafter, we will offer a discussion of the major findings in Spranz (1973) through the section called Parallel Passages. Finally, we will relate the contents of Spranz (1973) to work ongoing in the UF Data Studio in the Relationship with UF Data Studio Projects section.

Deities (Name : Description)

• Chalchiuhtlicue : The goddess of running water. Considered in Mixtec myth to be the lady of the fourth prehistoric, cosmic age (Spranz, 1973).

• Chantico : A fire goddess, also referred to as Cuaxólotl or Nine Dog, according to the usual naming system in Mixtec codices. According to legend, Cantico was turned into a dog by Tonacatecuhtli for violating the period of fasting required before a ritual sacrifice (Spranz, 1973).

• Cintéolt : The maize (corn) god. Appears as the fourth in a series of nine gods that are always depicted with day signs in the Codices Bolonia, Telleriano Remensis, Borbónico, and Tonalámatl (Spranz, 1973).

• Ilamatecuhtli : Also called Cihuacóatl or Coatlicue and often associated with Cihuateteo, or the spirits of women who died in child birth, Ilamatecuhtli is the mother of important deities including Huitzilopochtli; Tezcatlipoca; and Quetzalcóatl and the wife the old fire god (Spranz, 1973).

• Ilancueye : This goddess is very similar to Ilamatecuhtli. She is the wife of the old celestial god Iztac Mixcóatl (Spranz, 1973).

• Itzpapálotl : Known as the obsidian butterfly, Itzpapálotl is a goddess who is associated with Mixcóatl and an unnamed goddess of Tamoanchan, a place. All are deities of the Chichimecas (Spranz, 1973).

• Gods of the Macuilli Series : Atop two pages of the Codex Borgia five deities are presented in a row. These are a series of deities whose names all begin with the number five (macuil). They are Macuil Cuetzpalin or Five Lizard; Macuil Cozcacuauhitl or Five Vulture; Macuil Xóchitl or Five Flower; Macuil Tochtli or Five Rabbit; Macuil Malinalli or Five Grass (Spranz, 1973).

• Mayahuel : A goddess of the agave plant who symbolized fertility among the Mixtec. In the Codex Telleriano Remensis, it is written that she was transformed following her death into the agave plant which produces the raw sap required to produce pulque, a beverage the Mixtec produced by fermenting agave sap (Escalante et al., 2016; Spranz, 1973).

• Mixcóatl : A god of the Chichimecas who were nomadic hunter-gatherers residing in the area north and west of the Mixtec. He was said to be embodied in the stars of the northern sky, which were thought to be spirits of fallen warriors (Spranz, 1973).

• Patécatl : Another pulque god. Much parallel iconography in the Codex Borgia and Codex Vaticano relates Patécatl to Tlazoltéotl (Spranz, 1973).

• Quetzalcóatl : One of the most important figures in old Mixtec mythology, Quetzalcóatl was considered a benevolent god. His following diminshed over time, but he was considered the legitmate ruling deity who would someday return (Spranz, 1973). Spranz (1973) alludes to belief among the Mixtec, and Moctezuma himself, that the arrival of Cortés in 1519 was the fulfilment of this prophecy, but claims of this mistaken identification are discounted by modern authors. Although the adornment of Quetzalcóatl was presented to Cortés (Spranz, 1973; Hermann Lejarazu, 2021), it would have been presented to any Spanish leader who arrived after Juan Grijalva's voyage in 1518 such that we cannot say Cortés was personally identified with Quetzalcóatl (Hermann Lejarazu, 2021). Quetzalcóatl was most venerated in the Cholula region of Mexico and the god most often depicted in the Codex Borgia, and it is for this reason that the Borgia is thought to have originated in Cholula (Spranz, 1973).

• Tecciztécatl : The god of the moon. According to myth, Tecciztécatl was thrown into fire following a meeting of the gods at Teotihuacan and appeared thereafter as the sun and moon (Spranz, 1973).

• Tepeyóllotl : Literally, "the heart of the mountain," Tepeyóllotl appears in many forms, including as a jaguar, in a jaguar disguise, and human form with face pant similar to another deity: Tezcatlipoca (Spranz, 1973).

• Tezcatlipoca : Literally, "the smoking mirror", Tezcatlipoca was greatly feared and venerated by the Mixtec, more so than any other deity. Tezcatlipoca took many forms and is associated with more concepts than other gods in the Mixtec mythology. The Mixtec held that Tezcatlipoca was all-seeing, all-knowing and ever-present. In the codices, Tezcatlipoca is depicted in three distinct forms called Tezcatlipoca Negro, Tezcatlipoca Rojo, and Tezcatlipoca Azul. Occasionally, the three were depicted together with their eyes blindfolded. Tezcatlipoca is the lord of the first cosmic age in the Mixtec creation myth (Spranz, 1973).

• Tlazoltéotl : An earth goddess thought to originate from the atlantic coastal regions thanks to details of her appearance (Spranz, 1973).

• Tláloc : A god of rain and thunderstorms, Tláloc was considered the lord of the third cosmic age. The third cosmic age was destroyed in the rain of fire, and Tláloc is thought to be a lord of the rain of fire due to association with fire deities in many codices (Spranz, 1973).

• Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli : The Lord of the house of the dawn. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli was a god of the planet Venus (Spranz, 1973).

• Deities of Death : The god Mictlantecuhtli and corresponding goddess Mictecacíhuatl are deities of death depicted as decorated skulls or complete skeletons, and they were said to rule over the spirits of the dead. They were honored by the Mixtec through human sacrifice (Spranz, 1973).

• Tonacatecuhtli : Together with his wife, Tonacacíhuatl, Tonacatecuhtli was said to reside in the sky. He was the highest god of the Mixtec pantheon. Even though they did not manifest during the world's creation, Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacíhuatl were ancient gods of creation (Spranz, 1973).

• Tonatiuh : The sun god, said to be the lord of days with the sign of Rain in the Mixtec sacred calendar. The association with the Rain sign follows the same pattern as the rain god Tláloc. Tláloc was the ruler of the third cosmic age, which ended in a rain of fire (Spranz, 1973).

• Huehuecóyotl and Dancing Figures : Literally "the old coyote," per one interpretation of the Telleriano Remensis, Huehuecóyotl is a god of the Otomi people who originated from central Mexico in the present-day state of Querétaro de Arteaga (Schmal, n.d.; Spranz, 1973).

• Xipe Tótec : Literally "our flayed lord," is a deity from the coasts of Mexico (Spranz, 1973). Spranz (1973) cites Sahagún's analysis, saying Xipe Tótec was a god of the Spring and vegetation originating from the Zapoteca (Spranz, 1973).

• Xiuhtecuhtli : "The lord of turquoise," "the lord of the year," or "the old god," Xiuhtecuhtli is an old Aztec god of fire and one of the oldest gods in the Mixtec pantheon. Sahagún calls him the father of the gods. Offerings were given him over the fire after meals, and sacrifices were made to him before long journeys. Similar to Chantico; Tláloc; and Tonatiuh, who are associated with the Rain day sign, Xiuhtecuhtli is associated with the water day sign (Spranz, 1973).

• Xochipilli : The "prince of flowers," Xochipilli was a god of dancing, drinking, and love. Unlike other gods in the Mixtec pantheon appearing in the Borgia group, Xochipilli has no determinative forms (styles of drawing), meaning that his identification in the Borgia group codices is insecure. Particularly, face paintings in depictions of Xochipilli share features in common with the deities Tonatiuh and Cintéotl (Spranz, 1973).

• Xochiquétzal : A goddess of beauty and love known as the plumage of a quetzal. She was the matron of housework, domestic arts, women who died young, and the wives of fallen warriors (Spranz, 1973).

• Xólotl : The god of twins, of anything in pairs, or of deformed "creatures." Xólotl was also the god of the sacred ball game. Xólotl was represented in the Borgia group codices with the figure of a dog. He is depicted as a dog in two pages of the Codex Vaticano and as a dog with twisted feet in the Codex Borgia. Xólotl carried some influence over the god of death Mictlantecuhtli because a dog with an arrow stabbed through its jaws was said to accompany the dead on their journey to the underworld (Spranz, 1973).

Parallel Passages

As a preface for the long collection of Mixtec iconography and symbolism summarized in the section above, Spranz (1973) refers the reader to his previous work: Spranz (1958). He explains that he reviewed the forms of dress and decoration on Mixtec figures and showed that they present formas personalmente ligadas (determinativas) or personally bound determinative forms.

Spranz (1973) expands the analysis to the other works in the Borgia Group and acknowledges that the dress of human figures in the Mixtec codices are not the only factor, nor a conclusive factor, that can be used to identify deities. Instead, the pasajes paralelos or parallel passages offer another avenue of comparing and identifying figures.

In Los dioses en los códices mexicanos del grupo borgia: una investigación iconográfica, Spranz (1973) shows through numerous examples the existence of parallel passages with equal or near-equal content throughout the codices in the Borgia group, and most of the book is a compilation of them with a summary of known Mixtec deities.

After reviewing the known Mixtec deities in the Borgia group, Spranz (1973) utilizes the parallel passages he compiles in the previous section to investigate the character of several unnamed gods: The Bat God, the God With an Opposum's Head, the God With a Serpent's Jaws, and the God With a Bundle of Flint Knives. Additionally, he uses parallel passages to summarize the relationships of the known gods.

Significance to the UF Data Studio Mixtec Projects

Spranz (1973) investigates the Mixtec Borgia group codices, which are theological in genre. Work published by the UF Data Studio thus far has focus primarily on the genealogical Codex Zouche Nuttall (Webber et al., 2024; Williams, 2013), but the two intellectual pursuits are joined by the common medium of Mixtec Codices.

Webber et al. (2024) investigate classification of details of human figures in the Codex Zouche Nuttall. It is conceivable that a future investigation can expand on their work to classify the gods and goddess in the Codex Borgia according to the determinative forms identified by Spranz (1973) and other authors. We already have an ensemble of classifiers for human figures in the Zouche Nuttall (Webber et al., 2024), and these classifiers can be applied, along with novel ones, in a future work about the Borgia group.

Further, work is ongoing to interpret the Mixtec codices from raw images. While we presently rely on human pre-processing to form a stream of tokens for the parser and interpreter, future work will allow us to scan images of the codices and output a natural language interpretation in English, Spanish, Nahuatl, etc. The current work in this vein focuses heavily on the genealogical Zouche Nuttall, but we expect that future versions of the parser and interpreter will need to handle other genres as well. In this light, the Borgia group, as a collection of Mixtec codices in a deeply theological genre (Spranz, 1973), enjoy amplified importance to the UF Data Studio's investigation into the Mixtec codices. The theological content present in the Bogia codices, together with the illuminating exegesis Spranz (1973) and similar works contribute, will doubtless play great part in expanding the capabilities and reach of our Mixtec interpretation to theological texts.

Both directions of the UF Data Studio's Mixtec work will benefit from reading and understanding the Borgia group codices. I reiterate that I was fortunate having the privelege to read Spranz (1973) in the Spanish and feel that it and other works examining the Borgia group codices will be vital to fleshing out a wholistic understanding of the Mixtec codices and how to automatically interpret the medium's diverse genres.

See Also

Thank you for reading this blogpost. To read about the ongoing projects in our lab related to the Mixtec codices, please help yourself to the project pages below.

• Mixtec NLP
• Formal Machine Interpretation

References

Escalante, A., López Soto, D. R., Velázquez Gutiérrez, J. E., Giles-Gómez, M., Bolívar, F., & López-Munguía, A. Pulque, a Traditional Mexican Alcoholic Fermented Beverage: Historical, Microbiological, and Technical Aspects. Frontiers in microbiology, 7, 1026. 2016. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01026

Hermann Lejarazu, M. A. Quetzalcóatl-Cortés: la esperada llegada de un dios según las fuentes históricas. Arqueología Mexicana, núm. 167, pp. 86-87. Available: https://arqueologiamexicana.mx/mexico-antiguo/quetzalcoatl-cortes

Schmal, J. Indigenous Querétaro de Arteaga: Land of the Otomies. n. d. Accessed: July 9, 2025. https://www.indigenousmexico.org/articles/indigenous-queretaro-de-arteaga-land-of-the-otomies

Spranz, B. Los dioses en los códices mexicanos del grupo borgia: una investigación iconográfica. Fondo de Cultura Económica Mexico. 1973

Webber A., Sayers Z., Wu A., Thorner E., Witter J., Ayoubi G., Grant C. Analyzing Finetuned Vision Models for Mixtec Codex Interpretation. Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Indigenous Languages of the Americas (AmericasNLP 2024). 2024. https://aclanthology.org/2024.americasnlp-1.6/

Williams, R. L. The complete codex Zouche-Nuttall : Mixtec lineage histories and political biographies / by Robert Lloyd Williams ; foreword by Rex Koontz. eng. 1st ed. Linda Schele series in Maya and pre-Columbian studies. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780292744387.