280 Mon feudal serf in status As in any hierarchy the upper strata had privilege and power, hence more than one wife and control of natural resources, although gender did not play a strong part in social structure Bilateral kinship lines determined lineage, which was more important to the Mixtec Macehuale women as well as men could own land Their language had unique symbols representing sounds as compared to other written languages that used glyphs and rebuses to communicate The names of animals figured prominently in titles of their rulers such as Eight Deer, Three Alligator, Four Tiger, or Jaguar Claw because of their symbolic significance Births, deaths, marriages, and land conquests are documented Rank, occupation, and social status were defined by special ornamentation The best known and powerful ruler, Eight Deer, had five wives, and his life is elaborately documented in the Codex Nuttal By 1350 c.e the Mixtec had intermarried and taken control of the Zapotec sites At the time of the conquest, great wealth and high culture abounded Tombs attested to kings with their courts buried with gold, silver, turquoise, amber, coral, pearls, and carved jaguar bones Unconquerable by their neighbors, they survived until the Europeans arrived See also Mesoamerica: Postclassic period Further reading: Boone, Elizabeth Hill Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztec and Mixtec Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000; Coe, Michael Mexico New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992; Edmonson, Munro S Linguistics Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984; Flannery, Kent, and Joyce Marcus “The Changing Politics of a.d 600–900.” In K Flannery and J Marcus, eds The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Mixtec and Zapotec Civilization Clinton Corners, NY: Percheron Press, 2003 Lana Thompson Mon The Mon may have been the first human inhabitants of Myanmar, better known as Burma The Mon are also known as the Taliang people They migrated, perhaps pursued by enemies, to South Burma, where they lived near the Salween River, which empties into the Bay of Bengal, not far east of the border with Thailand Their population spread into Thailand as well In 573 two Mon brothers named Prince Samala and Prince Wamala created the kingdom of Hongsavatoi, which is located near the modern city of Pegu The Mon realm enjoyed independence for several centuries However by the middle of the 11th century, the Mon peoples came under the influence of those we now call Burmese, who had formed the kingdom of Pagan A Buddhist monk of the Mon people converted the first king of Pagan, Anawratha (r 1044–77), to Theravada Buddhism This religion was common in Southeast Asia, so the Pagan takeover may have been less of a conquest, and more assimilation Both the Mon and the Burmese were under the strong influence of India and used Indian Sanskrit in some of their writings The Pagan kingdom refused to pay tribute to the conquering Mongols, believing their distance from Mongol-controlled China would provide protection In 1287 Kubilai Khan, the founder of China’s Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), sent an army south, which virtually destroyed Pagan in revenge At this time the Mon, with the reduction of Pagan, came under the rule of an adventurer from the Thai people, who established the Mon kingdom of Râmaññadesa, which was formed from the three provinces of Bassein, Pegu, and Martaban; the city of Pegu became the new kingdom’s first capital The Râmaññadesa kingdom was brutally attacked in 1540 by the Burmese from Taungu, who went on to virtually unite all of modern Burma With this invasion, Mon political independence was extinguished, but their cultural and nationalist identity remained strong, as it has until today In the 18th century the Mon temporarily threw off Burmese rule, only to invite a brutal repression in return At the same time as Robert Clive was expanding British rule in India, the Burmese ruler U Aungzeya began a genocidal invasion of the Mon heartland As Dr George Aaron Broadwell writes, the invasion “devastated the Mon kingdom, killing tens of thousands of Mon, including learned Mon priests, pregnant women, and children Over 3,000 priests were massacred by the victorious Burmans in the capital city alone The surviving priests fled to Thailand, and Burman priests took over the monasteries Most of the Mon literature, written on palm leaves, was destroyed by the Burmans Use of the Mon language was forbidden, and Burman became the medium of instruction Mon people were persecuted, oppressed, and enslaved, and countless people were burned in holocausts, like the Jews before the Nazis Mon properties and possessions were looted and burned throughout Burma Mons