Quiabelagayo
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Quiabelagayo (alternatively written Guiebelagayo or Quiepelagayo) is a Zapotec name associated particularly with the Oaxacan Valley pre-Columbian site of Dainzu (known also as Macuilxochitl or Macuilsuchil). In Zapotec mythology and religion, Quiabelagayo has been interpreted by some researchers such as Alfonso Caso and Ignacio Bernal as a local Oaxacan equivalent of the central Mexican deity Macuilxochitl, or "Five Flower".
In post-conquest censuses and maps of the region, particularly the Relacion geografica de Macuilxochitl , Quiabelagayo is marked as the indigenous Zapotec toponym for the town San Mateo Macuilxochitl, the settlement adjoining the site of Dainzu.[1]
The derivation of the name is uncertain. John Paddock deconstructs the name Quiabelagayo as composed of the Zapotec word-stems for "rock", "serpent", and "five".[2] Pictographically the Relacion geografica de Macuilxochitl translates or associates the name as "five flower". Joseph Whitecotton suggests that quia- should be read as "rock" or "hill" instead of "flower", and proposes that bela or pela means "reed"; therefore quiabelagayo can with justification be interpreted as "Hill of 5-Reed".[3]
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- Faulseit, Ronald (2008). "Cerro Danush: An Exploration of the Late Classic Transition in the Tlacolula Valley, Oaxaca" (PDF online publication). The Foundation Granting Department: Reports Submitted to FAMSI. Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. [FAMSI]. Retrieved 2008-12-23.
- Mundy, Barbara E. (1996). The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones Geográficas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-55096-6. OCLC 34544665.
- Whitecotton, Joseph W. (1990). Zapotec Elite Ethnohistory: Pictorial Genealogies from Eastern Oaxaca. Vanderbilt University publications in anthropology, no. 39. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University. ISBN 0-935462-30-9. OCLC 23095346.
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