2-667-983 - © CM Dixon/Heritage Images

Camazotz, Bat-God, pottery with red paint, Zapotec culture, Mexico, 300-900. The cult of Camazotz began around 100 BCE among the Zapotec Indians in what is the modern-day Mexican state of Oaxaca. In Zapotec culture, the bat was associated with night, death, and sacrifice. The Zapotec civilization, a branch of Aztec culture, was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mesoamerica.