Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty ... - Yale University

case study: food sovereignty in the mixteca alta
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Case Study: Food Sovereignty in the
Mixteca Alta
Phil Dahl-Bredine
One day I was walking up the steep, dusty road to Santiago Tilantongo, the central
village of the Mixteca Alta (Upper Mixtec), in Oaxaca, Mexico. I work near here, in
this primarily indigenous region, with the Centro de Desarrollo Integral Campesino
de la Mixteca (CEDICAM). Santiago Tilantongo was the ancient capital of the Mixtec
kingdom, which reached its political and artistic peak around 1000 A.D. For hundreds
of years the village was called simply Tilantongo.
As I walked, I encountered two Mixtec women walking down from the village.
We stopped to talk, and I asked them why the town was called
Santiago Tilantongo. “We were told,” they responded, “that the Spaniards
stole the gold crown of the king of Tilantongo long ago, and, being a somewhat
stubborn people, we sent a delegation to Spain to look for the crown.
The delegation looked all over Spain but couldn’t find the crown. However,
as they were preparing to leave to return to Tilantongo, they encountered a
beautiful statue of Santiago in a Spanish church, and they stole it in
exchange for the crown.” As I was able to verify, the statue is still in the
church of Tilantongo, where it sits upon the ruins of a Mixtec temple.
As a Mexican friend pointed out to me, this story of one of the early encounters
between a European civilization and an indigenous civilization of the Americas is full
of interesting symbols and meanings. I often find myself contemplating its
significance. The story shows that the first encounter of cultures was not ideal. So
now, flush in the middle of a new encounter between these civilizations – which we
call “globalization” – I find myself wondering whether we can avoid making similar
mistakes.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies