Lady Six Monkey (11th century) was a Mixtec warrior queen whose story is known from the Mixtec Group Codices. She and her arch nemesis, Lord Eight Deer, loomed large in the legends of Oaxaca for many centuries. (People were named after their birthdates, by the way.) Mixtec society was remarkably gender-equal, and both males and females could inherit the throne. The Spanish were astounded by the high status of Mixtec women; they reported that a Mixtec man would typically defer to his wife as the brains of the family and official spokesperson.
Our costume is inspired by the awesome Angus McBride illustration above, which in turn is based on the images in the codices (inset). McBride shows Six Monkey in the traditional dress of a Mixtec noblewoman: a blue wrap skirt and a quechquemitl (a fringed cotton poncho-like garment). The trickiest bit is the headdress, which consists of two major components: a yarn turban similar to the turbans still worn in Oaxaca, plus a crown of quetzal feathers mounted in gold. This is actually much easier to rig up than it sounds; we give you instructions below.
The pieces we suggest, from left to right:
1. Chevron-patterned poncho. Also available here, here, and here. Chevrons indicate war in Mixtec iconography, which is why McBride put the warrior queen Six Monkey in a chevron-patterned quechquemitl. We chose this chevron-patterned poncho as a good substitute. If you have a genuine quechquemitl, then by all means use that; otherwise a poncho will work fine—just as long as it has the point in the front. If you want to try sewing your own quechquemitl, Mexicolore has a good page with instructions.
2. Navy blue wrap skirt (sarong)
3. Chunky gold necklace and earring set. The Mixtecs were famous for their wonderful gold and turquoise jewelry. The earrings that come with this set are nice, though of course if you happen to have giant ear spools, that would be even better. You could also pile on a bunch of blue and green beads to match the rest of the outfit.
4. A pair of gold cuff bracelets combined with two stretch turquoise bracelets
5. Gold gladiator sandals. Women in the Mixtec codices are actually shown barefoot, but we’re thinking you might need shoes. Mixtec men appear to be wearing a thong-style gladiator-type sandal situation, so we went with that. If you don’t already have gladiators, these sandals are a good choice: they’re inexpensive and the big quartz-like jewels seem appropriately regal. Gladiators with more of a tie-on effect at the ankle would also be good.
6. Headdress. Not as hard as it looks! First you need to make the yarn turban, or really a yarn doughnut. Here are two pictures of a modern Oaxaca version (a petob)—what it looks like being worn and what it looks like off the head:
Getting this effect is as simple as buying some skeins of different colored yarn and twisting them together. And you can be creative, since there’s no reason to suppose that Lady Six Monkey, who lived a thousand years ago, was wearing exactly the same kind of headdress as a modern woman. For the costume, we chose yarn in mariana blue, sea glass green
, and pitch black
. When you get the skeins, just remove the labels and let them relax into a ring. Then twist them together to get the effect you want. Use short pieces of the black yarn to tie the rings together at key points.
To make the inner crown part, all you need is a gold cylinder, some greenish feathers, and Scotch tape. For the gold cylinder, we found that those weird little miniature top hats work well. You just need to cut off the top so you can tape the feathers inside (and of course pull off the extra decoration—dice, bows, etc.) We chose peacock sword feathers
; these are side feathers that don’t have eyes, so they can serve to represent quetzal feathers (there were no peacocks in pre-Columbian Mexico). Arrange them around the inside of the little top hat, taping the quill of each feather to the inner plastic. You’ll end up with a cool-looking feather crown.
Then take your yarn doughnut and center it around the gold feather crown. The brim of the little top hat comes in handy for anchoring it all together, but you’ll need to experiment depending on how you’re wearing your hair. A boatload of bobby pins may be in order to keep the whole thing on your head.
What to wear under your poncho/quechquemitl: Lady Six Monkey may not have worn anything at all under hers, but you may wish to be more covered. You could just do a tube top, but a huipil-style blouse would be more historically accurate. If you already have one, great; this store also usually has a fairly inexpensive selection.
