Lynn Stephen
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Oral testimony: Refers to a person's account
of an event or experience as delivered from
the lips of a person through a speech act. It is
an oral telling of a person’s perception of an
event through seeing, hearing, smelling and
other sensory information. It signifies
witnessing., from the Latin root, testis or
witness. Testimonials are also performative
and public.
Testimonials are events that join
together memory and
knowledge replication.
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The archive includes, but is
not limited to, written text.
The repertoire contains
verbal performances—songs,
prayers, speeches—as well as
non-verbal practices…. The
repertoire, whether in terms
of verbal or nonverbal
expression, transmits live,
embodied actions. As such,
traditions are stored in the
body through various
pneumonic methods, and
transmitted “live” in the here
and now to a live audience. …
(Diana Taylor 2003: 24).
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“Mixtec books represent
sacred texts or scripts for
the performance of elite
histories, including the
ancient, mythic past,
especially the
genealogy-based stories
with which we are all
most familiar. These
scripts were written in
what was thought of as
an ancient elite-class
dialect” (King 1994)
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According to Fray
Fransisco de Burgoa’s
description of Mixtecos
during the 1600s, Mixtec
elites would recite from
the lienzas in assemblies.
“And they used to hang
some of these papers
extended as tables of
cosmology in their main
rooms as a sign of
greatness and vanity,
honoring themselves by
dealing in their assemblies
with such matters...
“Codex Bodley begins with Lady One Death's birth from a tree
(1). The tree is surmounted by a flame suggesting that this
particular tree was probably located at Place of Flame or
Achiutla. Although we often attribute tree birth legends with
Apoala, Friar Francisco de Burgoa tells us that there were at
least three different creation places for the Mixtec royal
ancestors, and Codex Zouche-Nuttall suggests the existence of
several more (Pohl, Mesoamerica website, Codex
Bodleyhttp://www.famsi.org/research/pohl/jpcodices/bodley/
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The experience of testifying,
and also of witnessing others as
they testify (directly and
indirectly), is an important part
of how political identities
develop in individuals, how
those individuals seek to provide
others with the knowledge and
confidence to analyze the world
from their particular social
locations, and how groups of
people participate in the
ideological work of shifting
public political discourses and
perceptions.
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People raise their hands and begin to
interject testimonials, often speaking for
five to ten minutes at a time. While this
appears to disrupt the process of naming
the individuals who will assume the
positions of municipal police, no one seems
to mind. Instead, the process opens up a
broad conversation about crime, safety,
and what the police actually are able to do.
This continues for more than an hour.
When it seems all who wanted to have
spoken, the síndico moves back to the
process of naming new police. The
assembly goes on until about one in the
morning. At different points in the meeting
people stand one after another to offer
testimonials about what they have
experienced and how they feel in relation
to different themes of discussion. This style
of interaction produces an assembly that
often lasts for three, four, or five hours, and
sometimes even longer.
ASAMBLEA EN SANTA ANA ZEGACHE, OAXACA
AUGUST 2012
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In this community assembly speakers
anchor themselves as legitimate
members of a shared community by
locating themselves in a specific place
(in the community assembly as part of
a particular neighborhood in Teotitlán
del Valle, by identifying themselves
with their names, and by describing
experiences that they have shared
with those they are speaking to). Once
they are located, testimonial speakers
proceed to deploy their rights to speak
and to be heard by a larger public. The
ways that testimony functions in
assemblies can also be reflected in
community radio stations.
Testimonios en Radio
Comunitaria
Indigenous community radio—
which can mirror the process of
decision-making and the
culture of participation —
provides one of the most
important forums for realizing
local aspirations for a public
culture of participatory
democracy.
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The testimonial positions the speaker as one who
is speaking from a personal perspective within the
context of larger, shared structural, political,
economic, and cultural circumstances. Its synthetic
ability to simultaneously profile a distinct
perspective and opinion within a larger context of
shared circumstances makes the testimonial a
natural vehicle of expression in cultures of
participatory democracy.
______________________
Radio Mixe Jënpoj,

Adán López Santiago, one of the
founders of Radio Zaachila, and
elected as presidente municipal
(mayor) in 2010.
Adán: The radio really emerged as a
part of the movement. We
conceptualized the radio as a
medium which was necessary to
accompany the social movement…
 We brought a transmitter to
Zaachila and we began to
broadcast… In the beginning we
didn’t have fixed times for our
programming. It was itinerant. Our
main idea was to inform people
about what was happening every
day, what actions were planned.
Later, when there were not as many
activities in the city from the
movement, we decided we needed
to provide regular programming and
give our listeners a specific
orientation.
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Asambleas en Zaachila
…The assembly is a historical
element here in how we
organize ourselves in
Zaachila….Right now we are
thinking that the assembly
model is fundamental to the
way we make decisions in
Zaachila. When we arrive at
agreements, anyone who does
not agree with the outcome
has to consider the fact that
the decision was made by the
entire assembly. If people
disagree, they have to share
their point of view in the
assembly. So for us, the model
of the assembly is
fundamental.
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Adán Lopez:

We are convinced that our territory is a historical
construction created by our ancestors… When our
territory is being invaded, we go out and we
defend it. Recently the state government has
wanted to trespass on our territory with a new
highway which is called the Libramiento Sur. So
we got together and we went and pulled up the
stakes that were marking the topography of
where the road was supposed to go. We began to
work with others and started a group of
organizations that allowed us to stop the
Libramiento Sur. We started an organization that
we call the Consejo de Pueblos en Defense de la
Tierra y el Territorio, which is against the
Libramiento Sur.
We defended our territory with mobilizations,
press conferences, and seeking legal injunctions
for the process. We have made a national
campaign about this and the radio has played a
very important part of this process and in creating
consciousness about defending our territory.

Integrantes del Consejo de Pueblos en Defensa de
la Tierra resguardarán sus ejidos Foto Octavio
Vélez A. Photo from La Jornada. 21 February, 2010.
Testimony, Oral
Performance, Knowledge
Production and Rap
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The performances of
codices—the broadcast of
their information as
suggested by Monaghan
(1990:133)—offers a
testimonial version of a
particular person’s
perspective in an attempt to
communicate with a larger
audience and situate and
legitimate the speaker’s
words.
This person’s truth is
communicated through their
oral performance.
If we accept the relationship
between performed oral and
visual repertoires and the
archiving of knowledge and
histories , we also have to
consider the performances
of indigenous youth such as
trilingual rapper Miguel
Villegas and Zapotec hip-hop
artist Mare from Advertencia
Lirika as historical sources of
information

Advertencia Lirika in
Oaxaca Zocalo in the
fall of 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5VwOIQDZ2A&fea
ture=related
La moneda que domina pero no domina mi
vida.
Intenten aplastarnos pero no doblejaran
nuestra ira.
Piensen que nuestro tesoro ya ha sido
robado.
No dejemos que eliminen también nuestro
pasado.
Peliemos no dejemos que eliminen lo que
hemos logrado.
Hay que rescatar nuestra agricultura nuestro
legado
Coro
Es la fuerza que nos une la que viene de la
tierra
el maíz es la semilla por la que la gente pelea
la injusticia de los hombres solo trae mas
violencia
el maíz me dio la vida y ahora yo le doy
conciencia.
Cuando Una Mujer
Avanza
I was born a woman
in the time of breast cancer,
when sexism killed many sisters,
when lesbians were hunted like
witches,
among secret abortions, AIDS,
and sex slavery.
I am one, among so many and the
few
Who like me have suffered the
failures
Always so the same and so
different from the others
We are the majority only when it
comes to statistics.
What are you waiting for to tell
your truth?
Life itself is going extinct in the
middle of darkness.
What are you waiting for to stop
waiting?
Do it for yourself and for all
women.
Take a step forward.
Boligrafo (Miguel
Villegas), Mixteco,
Trilingüe Rapero
Yo levanto la cabeza con
orgullo de Benito Juarez
El respeto al derecho
ajeno es la paz y ya lo
sabes.
I got so much to give
so much to change
with this gift
of my roots with the
map working off the
mentally oppressed.
http://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=TnVDjn1beEA&feature=yo
utu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnVDjn1beEA&feature=yout
u.be
Promover la cultura, por el
rap porque es algo ya sabes
muchas culturas se están
perdiendo el lenguaje, el
conocimiento y a través del
rap quiero preservar eso, lo
que es la cultura.
Promoting culture with rap
because it is something,
you know, that a lot of
cultures are losing their
language, the knowledge,
so that is what I want to do
is preserve culture through
rap.

More than an epistemology—
which it may well be—my discussion
here suggests that testimony and
oral performance is a consistent
indigenous strategy that can
successfully navigate systems of
colonialism, nationalism, and
modernity. If Miguel Villegas is
rapping in Mixteco, English, and
Spanish in Fresno and is being heard
and talked about in multiple
languages, medium, and sources,
then the historical record and
archives continue to expand and
reconnect to the telling and singing
of histories to audiences in the past
by Mixtec, Zapotec, Nahua, and
other performers
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. One of the Cantares Mexicanos
recorded in the sixteenth century
quotes a Nahuatl scholar as saying:
I sing the pictures of the book
And then see them spread out;
I am an elegant bird
For I make the codices speak
Within the house of the pictures.
(Boone 1994:71, originally from
León Portilla 1969:11)
Let the singing continue.