Yodzo Coo

Yodzo Coo, the Mixtec name for Coixtlahuaca, meant Plain of Snakes. This multi-ethnic state of the Mixteca Alta was home to Chochos and Mixtecs and ruled Cuicatecs. Its great market traded with central Mexico and the Pacific coast.

In the mid-fifteenth century its ruler Atonal II had central Mexican merchants killed and their goods seized. Moctezuma I sent his armies; the Mexica took Coixtlahuaca and executed Atonal in 1458. It became the seat of an Aztec tributary province with a Mexica garrison and governor. Its envoys surrendered to Hernan Cortes in 1520.