The legend of Eight-Deer
“Nearly a thousand years ago a fierce cheftain named Eight-Deer Ocelot-Calw ruled a large area in what is now southern Mexico. Born in 1011 A.D. in Tilantongo, a small town that still stands inb the state of Oacxaca, Eight-Deer became chief of his people at the age of 19upon the death of his father. He was a Mixtec, a member of a proud race also known as the “Cloud People” wfhose ancestors, according to one legend, came from the skies. Through conquest, strategic marriage and sacrifice to the gods, Eight-Deer expanded his realm. The tile pictograph is illustrated in the “Nuttall Codices”, a collection housed in the Huntington Library.
