Toponymy of the Ñuu Savi is an interactive activity designed to introduce the public to the use of the toponyms of the Ñuu Savi, that is, the names of places in the pictographic writing of pre-colonial Mixtec codices.
For the 68 Original Peoples who inhabit Mexico today, we continue to name our territories and communities in our native languages. Before the Spanish invasion, each community had its own codices where names were recorded in pictographic writing, meaning writing in images. Unfortunately, most of these codices were destroyed during colonization. However, some survived, allowing us to reconstruct the writing of place names and toponymic glyphs.
One of these Original Peoples is the Ñuu Savi, the People of the Rain, also known as the Mixtec people. We speak Tu’un Savi, the language of the rain, and we continue to inhabit our historical and cultural territory, now divided among the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla. Geographically, there are three Mixtecas: the Highland, the Lowland, and the Coastal.
The Ñuu Savi is one of the few peoples whose codices survived, enabling us to understand how toponymy worked, which we still preserve in our language. Here we explain how our ancestors wrote the names of places and communities.
This activity not only invites you to explore the history and meaning of place names in the Ñuu Savi but also to actively participate in creating your own toponym. Through this experience, we hope to bring the public closer to Original Languages, raise awareness of their importance, and revalue the rich cultural heritage they represent.
