Mazamitla (La Capital De La Montaña) is a town and municipality of the Mexican state of Jalisco. It is located 124 km south of Guadalajara in the Southeast Region and is a popular resort destination for travelers from Guadalajara. Its name comes from the Nahuatl and means “place where arrows to hunt deer are made”; its territorial extension is 177.18 km2. According to Count II Population and Housing, the municipality has 11671 inhabitants who are devoted mainly to the tertiary sector. For its natural beauty is considered by the federal Secretariat of Tourism as a Pueblo Mágico.

Etymology

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The name comes from the Nahuatl language and is the union of the words “Mazatl” (deer), “Mitl” (arrow) and “tlan” (place). Its meaning has been interpreted in different ways:

“Where deer are hunted with arrows”

“Where deer hunting arrows are made”

“Deer-hunting fletchers’ place”

History

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Mazamitla was founded by the Aztecs in 1165. It belonged to the manor of Tzapotlán and paid tribute to the chieftain of Tamazollan. In 1481 the area was invaded by P’urhépecha to seize the Laguna de Sayula. they held dominance for only a few years until they were defeated at the end of The War of Salitre in 1510.

This place was discovered and conquered by Cristobal de Olid together with Juan Rodriguez Villafuerte, early in the year 1522, Their party was sent by Hernan Cortes to explore the region of western Mexico. Upon conquest of the lordship of Tzapotlán people who belonged to him were automatically awarded to Hernán Cortés who appointed Anton Salcedo encomendero. Being named president of the Audiencia of Mexico, Nuno Beltran de Guzman moved to Cortez of these parcels.

It said that Miguel Hidalgo, when he was pastor of internal held a mass in Palo Gordo. He used the trunk of an oak that is saved as a relic (where) to serve as the altar for the mass. In the slope of Zapatero clashed insurgents and realistic in 1812. The insurgents were captained by Francisco Echeverria, who despite having emerged victorious was seriously injured, dying in Mazamitla. During The French intervention, the invaders burned files. After the The French intervention the Mexican locals of mazamitla captured a French officer named Jonny Fuentes and was hung in the year 1815 in the town square.

Since 1825 belonged to 4 ° canton of Sayula until 1878 in what happens at 9 canton of Ciudad Guzman. On April 19, 1894 was erected in town by decree of the state congress.

Physical Geography

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Location

Mazamitla is located in the south-central area of Jalisco, south of Lake Chapala at coordinates 19 º 47′30 “19 º 59′00″ north latitude and 102 º 58′35 “to 103 º 10′45″ west longitude, at an altitude of 2200 meters above sea level.

The town abuts the north by the town of La Manzanilla de La Paz, the state of Michoacan and the town of Valle de Juárez, on the east by the town of Valle de Juárez, on the south by the municipalities of Valle de Juárez and of Tamazula de Gordiano; on the west by the municipalities of Concepción de Buenos Aires and La Manzanilla de La Paz.

Orthography
Its surface is composed of hilly areas (35%), with hills occupied by forests, with heights ranging from 2200 to 2800 meters. Land semiplane (40%) are hills and slopes, with heights ranging from 2000 to 2200 meters above sea level and flat areas (25%), with elevations ranging from 200 to 1800 meters above sea level. The maximum heights are Cerro El Jackal and Cerro del Tigre.

Floor
The territory is made up of land belonging to the tertiary period. The land is hilly and broken, its composition is prevalent types luvisol, feozem háplico and litosol. The municipality has a land area of 17718 hectares, of which 3495 are used for agriculture, livestock in 3095, 10516 were from forest use, urban land are 206 hectares and 442 hectares have another use. As far as ownership is concerned, an area of 6432 hectares is private and another ejido 11286 is not exist communally owned.

Hydrography
Its water resources are the rivers: La Pasion, Rio de Gomez, Los Cazos, Ponche Grande and la media luna; streams: El Salto, Barranca Verde, El Ruido, Cuate, Barranca, Los Puentes and La Cuesta;The Springs: Barranca los Hoyos, Paso Blanco, La Pasión y Boca de Tinieblas.

The climate is semiseco, with dry winter, and mild winter without heat exchange well-defined. The average annual temperature is 21 °C with maximum of 25.7 °C and minimum of 7.1 °C. The rainfall recorded between June and September, with an average rainfall of 982 millimeters. The average annual number of days with frost is 52.6. The prevailing winds are heading south.

Flora and Fauna

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Its flora is composed mainly of pine, oak, arbutus, huizache, mesquite, palo dulce, nopal, granjeno, and some fruit species.

The wildlife includes deer, porcupine, wild cat, rabbit, squirrel, the eagle, the sparrowhawk, chachalaca and guajolote wild.

Culture

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Clothing typical: to man the charro suit and clothing for women of china poblana.

Crafts: objects are developed quarry, sarapes, huaraches and wooden objects.

Eating Out: the highlights of their food jocoque, the mole, tacos, gorditas, Birria, and barbecued meat in marinade; their desserts, Capirotada and cajeta; their beverages atole,mezcal, pulque, ponche and vino.

Sites of Interest

Spa Temazcal Las Jaras
La Garita, Tamazula de Gordiano, Jalisco Mexico.

Located about halfway between Mazamitla and Tamazula de Gordiano on the Jiquilpan-Manzanillo Road.
This site with hot springs offer a wide variety of services for the entire family. From an entertaining water park for the kids to relaxing and theraputic massage therapies.

Jardín Encantado.

Parroquia de San Cristóbal.

Bosque La Zanja.

Bosque Las Charandas.

Bosque El Chacal.

Cerro El Tigre.

La Cañada.

Cascada El Salto.

Los Cazos.

Monteverde.

Bosque El Tabardillo.

Bosque Las Peñitas.

Torre de los Lumbreros.

Bosque Pinos de Mazamitla.

Mirador Las Peñitas.

La casa de los fuentes.

Fiestas

Feast of San Cristobal (patron saint of people) in the second week of July.

Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe: from 4 to 12 December.

Patriotic Fiestas: September 15 and 16.

Festival de las flores Weekends of October

Celebrations of the founding of Mazamitla: from 27 to 30 March.

Feast Taurine: from 14 to 24 February.

External Links

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Mazamitla Mountain Air and a Crackling Fireplace

The little town of Mazamitla, Jalisco lies nestled in the heart of the Sierra del Tigre, in western Mexico, 2,240 meters above sea level and 28 kilometers due south of Lake Chapala. The name of the town comes from a Nahuatl word meaning “the place where arrows are made for hunting deer” and even today mountain lions, deer and golden eagles can still be found among the pine and oak-covered hills which have been called (at least in the tourist brochures) “the Switzerland of Mexico.” …

Mazamitla: its scenery, kitchens and customs

One of the prettiest towns in the state of Jalisco is Mazamitla, set high in the pineclad mountains near the Michoacan border. Among its many attractions are some fine restaurants specialising in Mexican food, more of which later, as well as waterfalls and gardens. …

Tepotzotlán is a city and a municipality in Mexico State in Mexico. It is located 115 km northeast of Mexico City about a 45 minute drive along the Mexico City-Querétaro at marker number 41. In Aztec times, the area was the center of a dominion that negotiated to keep most of its independence in return with being allied with the Aztec Triple Alliance. Later, it would also be part of a “Republic of the Indians,” allowing for some autonomy under Spanish rule as well. The town became a major educational center during the colonial period when the Jesuits established the College of San Francisco Javier. The college complex that grew from its beginnings in 1580 would remain an educational center until 1914. Today this complex houses the Museo del Virreinato (Museum of the ViceRegal or Colonial Period), with one of the largest collections of art and other objects from this time period.

The name Tepotzotlán is of Nahuatl origin and means “among humpbacks,” referring to the shape of the hills that surround this area. The oldest surviving Aztec glyph for this area is found in the Ozuna Codex, which features a humpbacked person sitting on top of a hill. This is now the symbol of the municipality. Another version of the glyph shows a humpbacked person defending a “teocalli” or sacred precinct. The municipality also has a lesser-known European-style coat-of-arms. This contains the officially adopted version of the glyph in the upper part, a representation of the Arcos del Sitio, the facade of the Church of San Francisco Javier and chimneys and a tractor representing both the agriculture and industry found here. Underneath these are written the words “Libertad, Cultura y Trabajo” (Liberty, Culture and Work).

History of the city and municipality

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The first ethnic group was most likely the Otomi, who settled here between 2,500 B.C.E. and 100 C. E. (pre-classic period). At about 100 C. E., the Teotihuacan became ascendant, with the Otomis here subject to Teotihuacan until about 700 C.E. During the period that Teotihuacan was in decline, a Nahua-Chichimeca tribe headed by Chicontonatiuh, took control of this area, along with what is now Maxuexhuacan, Chapa de Mota, and Huehuetoca. After the death of Chichontonatuih, nine other chiefs ruled this same area until 1174. After this time other Nahua and Chichimeca people began to arrive here and the rest of the Valley of Mexico. The area then came to be ruled by a chieftain named Xotlotl, who explored the valley’s lakes and took the first census ever here, counting about a million people living in the Valley of Mexico. Rule over this area passed from father to son peacefully for a number of generations until the early 14th century. Conflict with neighboring Xaltocan and Texcoco led to a number of political intrigues, including the assassination of one of the few female lords in the Valley of Mexico, Ehuatlicuetzin in 1372. In the first part of the 15th century, the Aztec Empire began to consolidate and extend its power north. At this time the area was ruled by Ayactlacatzin and the area was called Xaquintehcutli. Ayactlacatzin negotiated an alliance with Moctezuma I to allow this dominion, renamed Tepotzotlán, to remain semi-independent after Azcapotzalco fell to the Triple Alliance in 1460. This arrangement stayed intact until the fall of Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521.

Macuilxochitzin was governor of Tepotzotlán when the Spanish arrived here in 1520. This dominion opposed the Spanish invasion. When the Spanish subdued the main city, they destroyed everything in their path.

Evangelization work was begun here in 1525 by friars Alonso de Guadalupe and Alonso de Herrero, who built a hermitage over the ruins of the old city in Tepotzotlán in the same year. The Church of San Pedro Apostol sits on the site of the hermitage today. These were followed by Toribio de Benavente Motolina and Jerónimo de Mendieta of the Franciscans. By 1547, Tepotzotlan had become a center of the spread of the new faith, with surrounding villages under its jurisdiction.

Diego Nequametzin, son of Macuilxochitzin, succeeded his father and ruled under the Spanish from 1534 to 1549, but severe economic problems as well as epidemics of typhoid and smallpox decimated the population here. Eventually, the area became completely under the control of an encomienda under Juan de Ortega. When Ortega died, the land became property of the Spanish Crown, who created a “corregimiento” under the dominion of the nearby city of Cuautitlán. The Indians here were granted limited autonomy in the way of a “Republic of the Indians”, with Pedro de San Agustín as the first governor.

In 1580, the first of the Jesuits arrived, eventually established three schools; one for the training of Jesuit priests in indigenous languages, a school for Indian boys called San Martín to teach Spanish, reading, writing, religion, music and trade skills, and last a college to train novice Jesuit priests. The first two were founded completely in Tepotzotlán but the third and largest was due to the movement of priest training from the College of San Pedro y San Pablo in Mexico City to here in 1585. It was named the College of San Francisco Javier and all three would be housed in the same complex, bringing Tepozotlán fame as one of the most important educational centers of New Spain. This college would produce a number of famous Jesuit evangelists such as Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Francisco Javier Clavijero, Francisco Javier Alegre and Eusebio Francisco Kino.

These Jesuit schools, along with the large number of haciendas and ranches that the Jesuits owned in this area, pushed both the cultural and economic development of this region north of Mexico City and would continue to do so until the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767. After the expulsion, the school complex was ceded to regular clergy for the training of priests under the name of Real Colegio de Instrucción Retiro Voluntario y Corrección para el Clero Secular until it was abandoned permanently in the early 20th century. Tepozotlán became a municipality in 1814, patterning itself after the precepts contained in the Cadiz Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of Apatzingan. The municipality remained rural and quiet until the Mexico City-Querétaro highway was built in 1954. This highway would have a profound impact on the economic development of Tepotzotlán, making it a part of the fast-growing Mexico City Metropolitan Area from the mid-20th centuy on.

The city

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The city of Tepotzotlán is located very close to the Mexico City-Querétaro highway, which cuts across the municipality. It is made up of the neighborhoods of San Martín, Tlacateco, Texcacoa, Capula, Las Animas, El Trébol, Ricardo Flores Magón and Puente Grande. Because of the highway and the growth of the Mexico City metropolitan area, the city is experiencing rapid growth. Population is growing an average of 3.5% annually. The highway has provided a route for commuters since it was built in the 1950’s enticing people to move out of the city to here. This movement of people has accelerated since the 1985 Mexico City earthquake as the Tepotzotlán area is far less prone to violent shaking than Mexico City proper.

The parts of town closest to the highway are the most developed, hosting industrial parks and housing developments. However, the center of town has maintained it colonial-era appearance with cobblestone alleys, arcades and plazas. There is a small, secular plaza in front of the main church, which contains a kiosk at which many cultural events take place. The municipal market is known for its food stands selling traditional dishes as quesadillas, sopes, pambazos, and tacos as well as barbacoa, and carnitas. More elaborate dishes here include cabrito, chapulines, snails and escamoles (ant eggs) which are generally available in the restaurants in town like Hostería del Convento. On weekends, tianguises pop up all over the center of the town, selling food, crafts, artwork, handcrafted furniture, tile, baskets and leather items. Festivals in the town and municipality include the Festival of Flowers in March, the Feast of Saint Peter (patron saint of Tepotzotlan) in June, the Festival of the Señor del Nicho (Preciosa Sangre de Cristo) in September and the International Festival of Music in September.

The city had a population of 39,374 as of 2005 and is 2300 meters above sea level. Tepotzotlán has been named one of the Pueblos Mágicos of Mexico, mostly due to the town’s center, which not only has conserved its colonial look despite its proximity to Mexico City, but also because it is the home of the Church of San Francisco Javier and the Museo de Virreinato (Museum of the Viceroyalty). Since being named a Pueblo Magico, much effort has been put into rescuing and restoring much of the buildings of the town’s past.

Museo de Virreinato

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The Museo de Virreinato, or Museum of the Viceregal (Colonial) Period, is housed in a complex that was built by the Company of Jesus or Jesuits in the 1580s. Here they established three schools. The first was dedicated to training Jesuit missionaries the indigenous languages of Mexico, the second was to provide education to Indian boys. The third was the movement of the training of Jesuit priests from the College of San Pedro y San Pablo in Mexico City to a new facility called the College of San Francisco Javier. These schools would make Tepotzotlán one of the most prestigious educational centers in New Spain.

The school complex continued to grow during the 17th century, and the adjoining Church of San Francisco Javier was begun in 1670. The school continued to grow in prestige and size until 1767, when the Jesuits were expelled from all Spanish-held territory, and the Spanish Crown took possession of all Jesuit-held properties. The college was turned over to regular priests who renamed it the Real Colegio de Instrucción Retiro Voluntario y Corrección del Clero Secular. This institution not only trained new priests, it also served as a retirement community for old or disabled priests. It also served as a place to send priests who had “commited some kind of error.”

The monastery (school complex) was confiscated by the government after the Reform Laws, although the college and Church of San Francisco Javier continued to function until the Mexican Revolution. The college was abandoned by the Jesuits for good in 1914 and the church was opened to the public. The complex was declared a national monument in 1933. The complex is one of the few in Mexico that has been preserved completely intact, including its altarpieces and artworks.

In 1961, restoration work was begun on the church and college complex by then president Adolfo López Mateos and in 1964 it was inaugurated. Most of the museum’s collection came from the old Museum of Religious Art which was part of the Mexico City Cathedral. Other pieces were eventually donated by other museums and by private individuals.

Most of the complex is taken up by the Museo del Virreinato situated in what used to be the College of San Francisco Javier. The Museo is considered to be one of the most impressive in the country due both to its collection and to the aesthetics of the building that houses it. The complex contains a number of interior courtyards, such as the Aljibes and the Naranjo, as well as a domestic chapel, library, dormitories, refectory, and kitchen. A wide arched passageway in the back of the complex leads to the extensive gardens area of more than 3 hectares, filled with gardens, sculptures and the original Salta de Agua fountain, which marked the end of the old Chapultepec aqueduct.

Much of its collection is made of liturgical pieces from the old Museum of Religious Art which was part of the Mexico City Cathedral. These are distributed among the many cloisters of the college complex. There are pieces done in ivory, wood and a paste made from corn stalks among other materials. It now houses important artworks and other objects relating to the colonial period of Mexico. It contains twenty paintings by Cristóbal de Villalpando, as well as creations by Juan Correa, Martín de Vos, Miguel Cabrera, the Rodríguez Juárez brothers and José de Ibarra. The collection is one of the largest from the Mexican colonial era. These paintings exhibit a variety of techniques and are almost all of religious themes. There are exhibits of non-religious everyday items from the colonial period such as silverware and other objects of precious metals, textiles and tools. The book collection of about 4,000 volumes is concentrated in the old college library. The volumes date from the 16th to the 19th centuries, written in various languages with different types of binding.

The Church of San Francisco Javier was begun in 1670 and finished in 1682. The layout of the church is of typical Latin cross design with a cupola and groin vaults. The facade of the church of San Francisco Javier was constructed between 1760 and 1762 of grey stone and covered the original facade from the 17th century. The facade summarizes the themes that are presented in the altarpieces inside. The most prominent image is of the Virgin Mary as the Great Patroness of the Jesuits. The ornamentation of its facade continues up through the bell tower which dates from the 18th century.

The Church of San Francisco Javier is no longer used for religious services and is now part of the museum. This church contains one of the most important collections of Churrigueresque altarpieces in Mexico. These feature the Baroque estipite column and were done in the 18th century by Higinio Chavez. All were done in white cedar and covered in gold leaf. The main altar and the side altars are related thematically. The main altar is dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Company of Jesus. Those on the presbytery side are dedicated to two of the most important Jesuit saints (Saints Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Joseph) and the altars on the other side are dedicated to those of the Third Order of the Company of Jesus, such as Saint Francis Borgia, shown with a crowned skull, Saint Aloysius Gonzaga and Stanislav of Kotska. One other altarpiece is dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe and was completed in 1756.

In the second section of the nave is the Chapel of the Virgin of Loreto, which has a portal that is a replica of the house of Loreto. In the back of the temple are the Alcove of the Virgin and the Chapel of the Relic of Saint Joseph. The Church of San Francisco Javier, the Loreto Chapel and the Alcove of the Virgin of Loreto are considered to be works of art in themselves.

The municipality

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As municipal seat, the city of Tepotzotlán has governing jurisdiction over the following communities: Cañada de Cisneros, Colonia los Dolores (Ex-hacienda los Dolores), San Mateo Xoloc, San Miguel Cañadas, Santa Cruz, Santiago Cuautlalpan, Las Cabañas, Barrio de Texcacoa, Arcos del Sitio, La Concepción, El Jagüey, Lanzarote, La Pedrera (La Mina), Ex-hacienda San José la Teja, Peña Colorada, Casas Hogar Fidel Velázquez, Lumbrera Número Diez, La Luz, La Pedrera, Ejido Santiago, Santiago el Alto, Fraccionamiento Club Virreyes, Ampliación los Potros (Tres Piedras), Colonia Guadalupe, Barrio de la Luz, Rancho el Arroyo, El Puerto de los Huizaches, Las Lechuguillas, Barranca de la Pila, La Estancia II, Rancho la Joya and El Gavillero. After the seat, the largest communities in the municipality are San Mateo Xóloc, Santa Cruz, Santiago Cuahutlalpan and Cañadas de Cisneros. The total municipal population was 67,724 as of 2005. While very few in number, indigenous groups still represented here are Nahuas and Otomis. There is also a community of Triques, who arrived here from Justrahuacan, Putla, Oaxaca and still speak the Trique language.

The municipality, founded in 1814, is bordered by the municipalities of Huehuetoca, Coyotepec, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Nicolás Romero, Teoloyucan and Villa del Carbón as well as the State of Hidalgo with a total area of 208.83 km². The municipality varies in altitude from 2,250 to 2,900 meters above sea level. The municipality has a mostly temperate climate with most rain falling in the summer and freezing temperatures common in the winter months. Predominant winds are from the northeast. 91% of the municipality is rural with about 9% developed. Much of the rural area is comprised of the Sierra de Tepotzotlán mountain range, which extends into neighboring Huehuetoca. There are two rivers here, the Hondo de Tepotzotlán and the Lanzarote, with a number of fresh-water springs and streams. There is one large dam called La Concepción along with a number of small ones, which are primarily used for the raising of fish.

Most of the rural land consists of forest (47%) with agriculture and fish production next at about 20% each. Agriculture and fish farming account for over 40% of the economic activity of this municipality. Industry is a growing part of the economic base, with over ninety factories dedicated to the production of metals, processed meats, car parts, textiles and dyes. In third place is tourism which is mostly limited to the town center, the Arcos de Sitio and the ecological park. Much of the valley here is still dedicated to agriculture but this is being replaced by urbanization. Much of this urbanization is in the way of industrial parks, such as the Parque Industrial El Convento I and the Parque Industrial FRISA San Jose, which is of recent construction. Both are located very close to the Mexico City-Querétaro highway. Another impetus to urbanization is the building of housing developments to handle the influx of people moving here from Mexico City.

The Aqueduct of Xalpa, better known s the Arcos del Sitio is a monumental aqueduct that carried water from the Oro River to Tepozotlán. The aqueduct was built between the 18th and 19th centuries. It was begun by the Jesuits to bring water to their monastery and college but it was not finished because the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767. It would not be finished until the 19th century by Manuel Romero de Terreros. The site that gives the aqueduct the name “Arcos del Sitio” is the deepest gorges through which it passes. Here the aqueduct reaches 61 meters in height, with four levels of arches. The total length of the aqueduct is 41,900 meters. It is the highest aqueduct in Latin America. This gorge is at the site of the old La Concepcíon Hacienda, which was one of many owned by the Jesuits. In 1780, it was acquired by Pedro Romero de Terreros and was in the family until 1980. In 1993, restoration work was begun, ending in 1997. It was a farming hacienda that provided much of the foodstuffs for the Jesuit monks. Today, the hacienda is open to the public by appointment and can host guests as well as special events. Also here is the Centro Ecoturístico y de Educación Ambiental. It is now home to the Centro Ecoturistico y de Educación Ambiental Arcos del Sitio. It contains 54 hectares and hosts sports such as hiking, mountain biking and camping. The area is filled with reptiles, amphibians and birds. Annually, about 750,000 visit this park.

The Parque Ecológico Xochitla is located three km outside the city of Tepotzotlán, which used the be a hacienda known as La Resurrección. It is operated by the non-profit Xochitla Foundation. It is about 70 hecatres of parkland with about 7,000 species of trees and other plants . It also has workshops, playgrounds, expositions, a greenhouse and a lake with a wide variety of aquatic plants. It also contains a very large and very old Gingo Biloba tree from China.

The Sierra de Tepotzotlán state park is comprised of 13,175 hectares over the municipalities of Tepotzotlán and Huehuetoca. It was declared a state park and ecological preservation zone in 1977. However, since then, much of the park was decommissioned to establish Military Base 37C. Since then much of the sierra has been decommissioned as a park to create the Military Base 37C. The sierra contains forests of holm oak, strawberry trees and kermes oak, with areas of scrub and meadows. In the low-lying areas cactus and agave can be found. Along the river that runs through here are ash trees, trees of heaven, willows and others. Wildlife consists of small mammals such as coyotes and squirrels as well as a large number of birds and reptiles. Sports that can be practiced here included hiking, camping, swimming, rock climbing and rappelling.

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Taxco de Alarcón (usually referred to as simply “Taxco”) is a small city and municipality located in the Mexican state of Guerrero. The name Taxco is most likely derived from the Nahuatl word tlacheco, which means “place of the ballgame.” However, one interpretation has the name coming from the word tatzco which means “where the father of the water is,” due to the high waterfall near the town center on Atatzin Mountain. “De Alarcón” is in honor of writer Juan Ruiz de Alarcón who was a native of the town. Like many municipalities in central Mexico, the municipality’s coat-of-arms is an Aztec glyph. This glyph is in the shape of a Mesoamerican ballcourt with rings, players and skulls, derived from the most likely source of Taxco’s name.

The city is heavily associated with silver, both with the mining of it and other metals and for the crafting of it into jewelry, silverware and other items. This reputation, along with the city’s picturesque homes and surrounding landscapes have made tourism the main economic activity as the only large-scale mining operation here is coming to a close.

Taxco is locate d the north-central part of the state, 36 km from the city of Iguala, 135 km from the state capital of Chilpancingo and 170 km southwest of Mexico City. The city was named one of Mexico’s “Pueblos Mágicos” (Magical Towns) due to the quality of the silverwork, the colonial constructions and the surrounding scenery.

History

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Before the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico, the indigenous community known as “Taxco” was not located where the modern city is now. The name referred to a village about ten kilometers to the south, which is now referred to as Taxco El Viejo (Old Taxco). In pre-Hispanic times, this village was the most important in the area as it was the seat of the Aztec governor who presided over tribute collection in the surrounding seven districts. The modern Spanish town of Taxco was founded by Hernán Cortés in an area previously known as Tetelcingo, because of the abundance of silver here. In pre-Hispanic times, this village was the most important in the area as it was the seat of the Aztec governor who presided over tribute collection in the surrounding seven districts.

Mining here began in the pre-Hispanic period with natives extracting a number of stones for decorative and ritual purposes. Mining operations in the area during the early colonial period was carried out mostly by mining haciendas such as the Hacienda El Chorillo and the Hacienda San Juan Bautista, established by Cortés or soldiers of Cortés. In the mid 18th century, José de la Borda arrived to Taxco and started more modern operations in mines called Pedregal, El Coyote, San Ignacio and Cerro Perdido.

For most of the colonial period, the area was sparsely populated, including the town of Taxco itself. For this reason, it was governed as a dependency of Mexico City. When the modern state of Guerrero was created in 1850, Taxco was chosen to be the seat of the municipality of the same name. Since it was the only town of any size in the area, the town was taken a number of times during a number of different conflicts. During the Mexican War of Independence, it was taken by Hermenegildo Galeana in 1815. During the Reform Wars, it was taken by Porfirio Diaz in 1865. During the Mexican Revolution, it was taken by Jesus Moran and Margarito Giles in 1911, and occupied by Carranza’s forces in 1916.

The city

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The city of Taxco, with over 50,000 people, lies on very rugged terrain. At the center of the town is the Parish of Santa Prisca y San Sebastián, which is surrounded by a sea of Spanish-style, red-tile roofs. The streets are very irregular, ascending and descending quickly. They are also narrow, with most lacking sidewalks. This makes the streets picturesque but dangerous at the same time. Adding to the charm is that most streets are paved with dark stones, adorned with lines, pictures and even murals of white stone. Some of the pictures in the street are from the Zodiac and meant to indicate certain commercial activities in times past. One example of this is the sign of Taurus near the Church of Santa Prisca, which used to indicate the area of butcher shops.

Silverwork and tourism related to Taxco’s status as a silver town is the mainstay of the economy. There is one major mining operation on the outskirts of town, Industrial Minera México S.A., but this enterprise announced in 2007 that it will phase out operations here due to the depletion of reserves and labor problems- Most commercial activity related to silver is the production and sale of silver jewelry, silverware and other goods. Silversmithing was reinvigorated here by American William Spratling, who moved to Taxco in the 1920s, creating silver design workshops and exported items, mostly to the United States. With its fame for silversmithing, tourism became a major economic force for the town. Commerce in silver here is both regional and international. Just under half of the municipality’s population is involved in the tourism trade. Streets in the town are filled with silvershops selling jewelry, silverware and other goods.

Parish of Santa Prisca y San Sebastián
The Parish of Santa Prisca y San Sebastían, commonly referred to as the Santa Prisca Church, is located on the east side of the main plaza of Taxco, and is one of the few Baroque constructions in the state of Guerrero. It was built between 1751 and 1758 by José de la Borda who made his fortune in the silver mines around the town. Despite his wealth, however, the opulence of the church nearly bankrupted him. The church is narrower than most due to the lack of flat land on which to build in the area. It is built with pink stone, flanked by two towers which are plain in the lower half but highly decorated in the upper bell portions. The crown overlooking the main portal has a representation of the Assumption of Mary. The cupola is covered in colored tile. Inside, there are a number of altarpieces that reach from floor to ceiling, all covered in gold. The main altarpiece is dedicated to the church’s two patron saints.

There is a legend associated with the Santa Prisca Church. While it was in construction, José de la Borda left Taxco on business to Guanajuato, leaving construction work to the builders. Soon after Borda left, the sky filled with black clouds and cold winds struck the streets, whistling through the towers of the unfinished church. The dark and cold terrified the workmen as the large storm approached. Suddenly a large bolt of lightning struck showing an undefined black sileuhette that was swooping down on the church. Then it struck the cupola of the church, lighting it brilliantly. All of the tile covering the cupola began to shine with strange lights, allowing the inscription “Gloria a Dios en las alturas y paz en la tierra a los hombres de buena voluntad” (Glory to God in the Highest and peace on earth and good will towards men) to be seen clearly. The whole town got down on their knees to pray, fearing that angry demons would destroy the church. Floating around the church were flashes of light and above the church appeared a beautiful woman who, smiling and with a peaceful face, caught the following lightning bolts in her hands.

Other attractions
They say that “everything Borda comes first in Taxco.” The main plaza of the town has the official name of “Plaza Borda” but it is commonly referred to as the Zócalo. On the north side of this plaza is The Borda House (Casa Borda) and is the most important non-religious construction in the city. The front facing the Zócalo has two stories, but the back, facing the Plaza de Bernal, has five. This is due to the uneven ground on which the house was built. Much of the house is now dedicated to the Casa de Cultura (Cultural Center) where classes in languages, fine arts and sports such as judo are taught. The rest of the main plaza is surrounded by silver shops, restaurants and bars.

Near the main plaza are two museums, the William Spratling Museum and the Museum of Viceregal Art. The Spratling Museum contains 293 archeological pieces that were part of William Spratling’s personal collection. There are bone and shell pieces, objects made with semi-precious stones, as well as jars and figurines, all from various parts of Mesoamerica. The most outstanding pieces are a skull covered in jade and a stele. There is a collection of counterfeit artifacts as well. Another area is devoted to the silverwork designs and the workshops that Spratling created in Taxco and Taxco el Viejo. The Museum of Viceregal Art is located in the “Humboldt House,” named so because German writer Alexander Von Humboldt spent a night here in 1803. This house was restored in 1991 to become the Museum of Viceregal Art and contains colonial period art and artifacts, some of which belonged to José de la Borda.

Two other churches of note are the Church of the Ex-monastery of San Bernadino de Siena and the Church of Veracruz. The Church of the Ex-monastery of San Bernadino de Siena is the oldest in the area, constructed at the end of the16th century and restored in the 19th after a fire. This convent’s orchard is now the garden of the Posada San Javier Hotel. The Church of Veracruz is located on the Plazuela de la Veracruz on Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. Its principal attraction is an image of Christ which is nicknamed “The General.” This plaza is one of three that house monuments to the playwright Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, who was born in a house near here.

On the northside of town is one of the major colonial period silver haciendas, called Hacienda de El Chorrillo. The hacienda was constructed by soldiers of Hernán Cortés and is one of the oldest in the region. It was built to take advantage of the area’s abundant water supply to extract silver from ore. The aqueduct built in 1534, and part is still preserved. During the colonial period, this hacienda passed through a number of hands, including those of the Almeida-Carbajal and Ruiz de Alarcón families. In the early 20th century, it was bought by American William Spratling. In the 1980’s it was acquired by the State of Guerrero, who converted it in to the Center of Fine Arts of the Institute of Culture of Guerrero. In 1992, the state leased the property to UNAM to create the Centro de Estudios para Extranjeros (Learning Center for Foreigners) and a campus of the Fine Arts School of UNAM. In exchange for use of the grounds, UNAM pays for its maintenance. The main building houses studios and classroom for painting, sculpture, languages and more. In addition to this building, there are a number of gardens, a swimming pool and a volleyball court for students. It is also the base for the cable car that runs up to the top of Taxco Mountain (Monte de Taxco).

Another colonial silver mining hacienda lies nearby in Taxco El Viejo and is called the Ex hacienda de San Juan Bautista. The first thing that makes it notable is that the main structure is built in the style of a medieval castle. This structure was built in 1543 and was ordered by Hernán Cortés, but he never saw it built as he returned to Spain for good in 1540. His son, Martín Cortés, 2nd Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, inherited it but he probably never set foot in it as he arrived to Mexico in 1563 and was practically deported back to Spain in 1566. Like the El Chorrillo, it used large quantities of water and mercury to extract silver from mined ore, but this method eventually contaminated the large reserves of groundwater in this part of Guerrero. The estate is now the home of the Regional School of Earth Sciences on the Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero. This facility has a small museum with fossils and geological specimens.

Holy Week in Taxco

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In Taxco, the processions and ceremonies of Holy Week are elaborate and have gained international fame. Between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, there are ten major processions, six during the evening and four during the day. Most processions are about two and a half kilometers long and take about two hours to complete. These commemorations date back to at least 1622 when they were begun in the atrium of the Church of the Ex monastery of San Bernadino de Siena. Now these processions and ceremonies center of the Santa Prisca Church.

They begin on Palm Sunday, when vendors, mostly from the small outlying village of Tlamacazapa, crowd around the church to sell palm leaves woven into intricate designs. Most designs are variations of a crucified Christ but there are others, like floral designs, as well. A wooden carving of Christ on a donkey leaves another outlying village, Tehuilotepec, and marches into Taxco to arrive to the Santa Prisca Church with much fanfare. The first sign of the procession is a large number of children on bicycles, each with palm leaves attached to the front. Next come drummers and people dressed as the Twelve Apostles, walking barefoot. Last comes the sculpture of Christ, with a canopy of flowers and palms, which is surrounded by a crowd of people waving palms to be sprinkled by holy water by the priests.

Processions occur each day of the week and grow more solemn as Good Friday approaches. The conquistadors brought the old medieval practice of painful and bloody self-penitence to Mexico from Spain about 500 years ago. Since this concept was very similar to Aztec blood rituals, this practice was easily adopted. Despite efforts by authorities in most parts of Mexico to suppress this tradition, it still reappears. However, in Taxco, this practice is not only not suppressed; it has evolved into forms unique to the city. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week is dedicated to processions made by three major religious cofradias, or brotherhoods, who spend this week doing penance, and thus called “penitentes.” There are three main cofradias in Taxco, Animas, Encruzados and Flagelentes. All penitentes wear long black robes cinched at the waist with a horsehair belt, and a black fabric hood with only eyeholes. These penitentes are never seen in public without the hood as to remain anonymous.

Animas penitentes have chains attached to their ankles that rattle as they walk. These walk bent at the waist 90 degrees carrying small crosses or lighted candles. Because of this, members of this cofradia are referred to as the “bent ones.” If the procession stops, they are allowed to rest only by going down on hands and knees. This is the only cofradia that permits women as members, who drag individual chains in the procession. The men are chained together in groups of twenty. Since they must always face the ground, these penitentes have attendants which guide them during the procession.

The Encruzados walk in procession, not nailed to a cross but rather with a bundle of thorned blackberry canes tied across their bare back and outstretched arms. The bundles typically weigh between 40 and 50 kilos. In each hand, the penitente carries a lighted candle. The weight and position of the bundle forces the penitente to stoop slightly. The only rest is through attendees who help with the weight for the periods when the procession does not move.

The Flagelantes walk they entire procession shirtless and carry a large wooden cross, which can weigh over 100 pounds in the crook of their arms. In their hands they carry a rosary and a whip with metal points on the end. At certain times and places, they hand the crosses to attendees, kneel and swing the whips over and onto their backs. This is done on alternating sides, creating two bloody areas. This is repeated every night during Holy Week, reopening the wounds from the night before.

Another type of “penitente” are those who carry the large wooden statues of the major figures of Holy Week. In other parts of Mexico, these personages are played by townspeople, but in Taxco, they are represented by large wooden statues that are kept in various neighborhoods and villages in and around Taxco. These statues are carried in processions on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

The morning is Maundy Thursday is dedicated to a recreation of the Garden of Gethsemane in the front atrium of the Church of Santa Prisca, done with laurel branches, flowers, caged birds and a statue of Jesus. In the afternoon, the quiet is broken by men dressed as Roman soldiers looking for Jesus, as he has been sentenced to death. A townsperson playing Judas Iscariot also roams the streets, with greasy hair, a yellow tunic and rattling thirty pieces of silver. The Jesus statue in the Garden is replaced by one depicted blindfolded and with hands bound behind its back. This statue is taken to a “jail.” Penitentes and the Roman soldiers watch over this Christ statue all night rattling chains. The “Procession of the Christs” also happens this night with over 40 representations of the crucified Christ wandering the streets until morning.

On Good Friday, the Christ statue is taken from the “jail” and brought to the Santa Prisca Church for a reenactment of the Crucifixion. Inside and outside the church, the penitentes continue the penance they started earlier in the week. After the crucifixion, the statue is taken for its “sacred interment” which is a very solemn procession through the streets. That night, hundreds move through the streets carrying candles. Saturday is quiet until the mass of the resurrection late in the evening at the Santa Prisca Church. The church overflows with people. Outside in the main plaza are the Roman soldiers. When they receive word from the Church that the Christ has risen, they fall to the ground en masse, becoming believers. Most of Easter Sunday is a day of recovery from the events of the past week. Some youths will sing and walk through the streets accompanied by the “Savior Shepherd” However , most people spend the day at home.

The municipality

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The city of Taxco de Alarcón is the seat and the governing authority for 141 other communities, the largest of which are Tlamacazapa, Acamixtla, Acuitlalpan and Taxco el Viejo. The total population of the municipality is 98,854, and the territory measures 347km2. Less than 3% of the population of the municipality is of pure indigenous ethnicity according to the Census. The two indigenous languages spoken here are Nahuatl and Zapotec. It borders with the municipalities of Tetipac, Iguala, Teloloapan, Buena Vista de Cuellar, Pedro Ascencio Alquisiras and Ixcateopan as well at the state of Puebla.

The terrain has an average altitude of 1,752 meters, which ranges from 1,000 meters to 2,300 meters. Seventy five percent of its territory consists of rugged mountains, twenty percent is semi-flat and only five percent is flat. The flatter lands are in the lower elevations. The major rivers here are the Taxco and the Temixco, with a number of arroyos that feed into them during the rainy season. There is a lake that is filled only part of the year and a small dam called San Marcos. The climate ranges from hot and relatively moist in the flatlands to warm and relatively moist in the higher mountainous areas. Average temperatures for the year range between 18 and 20 C. Most of the municipality is covered in semi-tropical foliage which has a tendency to drop leaves during the dry season from October to May. In the highest elevations, pine and oak forests can be found.

Most of the municipality’s natural resources lie underground in the form of gold, silver, lead, copper, and zinc deposits. Above ground a number of species of timber trees exist as well as areas for agriculture and livestock. Principle crops grown in the municipality are corn, peanuts, luffa sponges, beans and tomatillos. Livestock consists of pigs, goats, horses and some fowl. Most of the industry here revolves around mining precious metals as well as the manufacture of drywall and masonry materials.

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The Tepehuán (Tepehuanes or Tepehuanos) are an indigenous ethnic group in northwest Mexico, whose villages at the time of Spanish conquest spanned a large territory along the Sierra Madre Occidental from Chihuahua and Durango in the north to Jalisco in the south. The southern Tepehuán community included an isolated settlement (Azqueltán) in the middle of Huichol territory in the Bolaños River canyon. The southern Tepehuán were historically referred to as Tepecanos.

The Tepehuán languages are part of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family, within which it is grouped with O’odham to form the Piman family.

The name is pronounced [tepe'wan] in Spanish, and is often spelled Tepehuan without the accent in English-language publications. This can cause confusion with the languages called Tepehua ([te'pewa] in Spanish) and collectively referred to as Tepehuan in English. These are spoken on the other side of Mexico, and are closely related to Totonac and not at all to Tepehuán. The names of both groups come from Nahuatl and mean ‘mountain dwellers’ or ‘mountain people’.

La Gran Chichimeca was a term used by the Spanish conquistadores of the 16th century to refer to an area of the northern central Mexican altiplano (plateau), a territory which today is encompassed by the modern Mexican states of Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Nayarit, Guanajuato and Zacatecas. They derived the term from the Aztec who referred to the nomadic tribes of the area as “chichimeca”.

The Nahuatl name Chichimecah (plural; singular Chichimecatl) means “inhabitants of Chichiman”; the placename Chichiman itself means “Area of Milk”. It is sometimes said to be related to chichi “dog”, but the i’s in chichi are short while those in Chichimecah are long, a phonemic distinction in Nahuatl. The word could either have a negative “barbarous” sense, or a positive “noble savage” sense.

Seventy years after the 1521 fall of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City), the Spaniards had failed to subdue the north of New Spain, La Gran Chichimeca. This meant they were unable to exploit the rich silver deposits in the region. Recruiting auxiliaries from among the local tribes led by the warlords of Tlaxcala the Spanish were eventually able to subdue the region.

During the 1920s and 1930s archaeologists, anthropologists, and cultural geographers began to devise the boundaries of what was thought to be Mesoamerica, the Southwest, and the area between known as the La Gran Chichimeca. Based upon language groups, iconography, trade items, and re-examinations of Mesoamerican architecture, the boundaries have moved around over the years as a result of new evidence. Adding to this confusion not all researchers agree the specifics of the boundaries. However, the participation of the cultures of La Gran Chichimeca in overall Mesoamerican traditions, even if peripherally and occasionally, has led a number of researchers to include the region in the overall Mesoamerican framework.

Chichimeca was the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to a wide range of semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited the north of modern-day Mexico and southwestern United States, and carried the same sense as the European term “barbarian”. The name was adopted with a pejorative tone by the Spaniards when referring especially to the semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples of northern Mexico. In modern times only one ethnic group is customarily referred to as Chichimecs, namely the Chichimeca Jonaz, although lately this usage is being changed for simply “Jonáz” or their own name for themselves “Úza”.

Overview and identity

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The Chichimeca peoples were in fact many different groups with varying ethnic and linguistic affiliations. As the Spaniards worked towards consolidating the rule of New Spain over the Mexican indigenous peoples during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the “Chichimecan tribes” maintained a resistance. A number of ethnic groups of the region allied against the Spanish, and the following military colonization of northern Mexico has become known as the “Chichimeca Wars“.

Many of the peoples called Chichimeca are virtually unknown today; few descriptions mention them and they seem to have been absorbed into mestizo culture or into other indigenous ethnic groups. For example, virtually nothing is known about the peoples referred to as Guachichiles, Caxcanes, Zacatecos, Tecuexes, or Guamares. Others like the Opata or “Eudeve” are well described but extinct as a people.

Other “Chichimec” peoples maintain a separate identity into the present day, for example the Otomies, Chichimeca Jonaz, Coras, Huicholes, Pames, Yaquis, Mayos, O’odham and the Tepehuánes.

Word origin

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The Nahuatl name Chichimecah (plural; singular Chichimecatl) means “inhabitants of Chichiman”; the placename Chichiman itself means “Area of Milk”. It is sometimes said to be related to chichi “dog”, but the i’s in chichi are short while those in Chichimecah are long, a phonemic distinction in Nahuatl. The word could either have a negative “barbarous” sense, or a positive “noble savage” sense.

The word “Chichimeca” was originally used by the Nahua to describe their own prehistory as a nomadic hunter-gatherer people and used in contrast to their later, more “civilized,” urban lifestyle that they identified with the term Toltecatl. In modern Mexico, the word “Chichimeca” can have pejorative connotations such as “primitive”, “savage”, “uneducated” and “native,”.

Ethnohistorical descriptions

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The first descriptions of “Chichimecs” are from the early conquest period. In 1526, Hernán Cortés writes in one of his letters of the northern Chichimec tribes who were not as civilized as the Aztecs he had conquered, but commented that they might be enslaved and used to work in the mines.

This approach was followed by Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán whose attempts to enslave the indigenous populations of northern Mexico provoked the Mixtón Rebellion where Chichimec tribes resisted the Spanish forces.

In the late sixteenth century, an account of the Chichimecs was written by Gonzalo de las Casas who had received an encomienda near Durango and fought in the wars against the Chichimec peoples — the Pames, The Guachichiles, the Guamari and the Zacatecos who lived in the area which was called “La Gran Chichimeca.” Las Casas’ account was called “Report of the Chichimeca and the justness of the war against them”, and contained ethnographic information about the peoples called Chichimecs. He wrote that they did not use clothes (only to cover their genitalia), painted their bodies and ate only game, roots and berries. He mentions as further proof of their barbarity that Chichimec women having given birth continued travelling on the same day without stopping to recover. While las Casas recognized that the Chichimecan tribes spoke different languages he saw their culture as primarily uniform.

In 1590, the Franciscan priest Alonso Ponce commented that the Chichimeca had no religion because they did not even worship idols such as the other peoples – in his eyes another symptom of their barbarous nature. The only somewhat nuanced description of the Chichimeca is found in Bernardino de Sahagún’s Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España in which some Chichimec people such as the Otomi were described as knowing agriculture, living in settled communities, and having a religion devoted to the worship of the Moon.

The image of the Chichimecas as described by the early sources was typical of the era; the natives were “savages” – accomplished at war and hunting, but with no established society or morals, fighting even amongst themselves. This description became even more prevalent over the course of the Chichimec wars as justification for the war (the Chichimec area was not entirely under Spanish control until 1721).

The first description of a modern objective ethnography of the peoples inhabiting La Gran Chichimeca was done by Norwegian naturalist and explorer Carl Sofus Lumholtz in 1890 when he traveled on muleback through northwestern Mexico, meeting the indigenous peoples on friendly terms. With his descriptions of the rich and different cultures of the various “uncivilized” tribes, the picture of the uniform Chichimec barbarians was changed – although in Mexican Spanish the word “Chichimeca” remains connected to an image of “savagery”.

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Nahuatl is a group of related languages and dialects of the Nahuan (traditionally called “Aztecan”) branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Collectively they are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua people, most of whom live in Central Mexico. All Nahuan languages are indigenous to Mesoamerica.

The Classical Nahuatl word nahuatl is thought to mean “a good, clear sound”. This language name has several spellings, among them Náhuatl (the standard spelling in the Spanish language), Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua.

Nahuatl has been spoken in Central Mexico since at least the 7th century AD. It was the language of the Aztecs, who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology. During the preceding century and a half, the expansion and influence of the Aztec Empire had led to the variety spoken by the residents of Tenochtitlan becoming a prestige language in Mesoamerica. With the introduction of the Latin alphabet, Nahuatl also became a literary language and many chronicles, grammars, works of poetry, administrative documents and codices were written in the 16th and 17th centuries. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl and is among the most studied and best documented languages of the Americas.

Today Nahuatl languages are spoken in scattered communities mostly in rural areas. There are considerable differences among varieties, and some are mutually unintelligible. They have all been subject to varying degrees of influence from Spanish. No modern Nahuatl languages are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. Under Mexico’s Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas (”General Law on the Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples”) promulgated in 2003, Nahuatl along with the other indigenous languages of Mexico are recognized as lenguas nacionales (”national languages”) in the regions where they are spoken, enjoying the same status as Spanish within their region.

Nahuatl is a language with a complex morphology characterized by polysynthesis and agglutination, allowing the construction of long words with complex meanings out of several stems and affixes. Nahuatl has been influenced by other Mesoamerican languages through centuries of coexistence, and with them forms the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.

Many words from Nahuatl have been borrowed into Spanish and thence have diffused into hundreds of other languages. Most of these loanwords denote things indigenous to central Mexico which the Spanish heard mentioned for the first time by their Nahuatl names. English words of Nahuatl origin include “avocado“, “chili“, “chocolate“, “coyote” and “tomato“.

The place of Nahuatl within Uto-Aztecan

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Main articles: Nahuatl dialects and Pochutec

In the past the branch of Uto-Aztecan to which Nahuatl belongs was called “Aztecan”. From the 1990s on, the alternative designation “Nahuan” has been frequently used as a replacement especially in Spanish language publications. Since the monograph of Lyle Campbell and Ronald Langacker (1978), the Nahuan (Aztecan) branch of Uto-Aztecan is widely accepted as having two divisions, “General Aztec” and Pochutec.

General Aztec encompasses the Nahuatl and Pipil languages. Pochutec is a scantily attested language which went extinct in the 20th century. The notion that Pochutec should not be considered a variety of Nahuatl was already several decades old, but Campbell and Langacker adduced new arguments for it. Other researchers maintain that Pochutec should be considered a divergent variant of the western periphery.

“Nahuatl” denotes at least Classical Nahuatl together with related modern languages spoken in Mexico. The inclusion of Pipil (Nawat) into the group is slightly controversial. Lyle Campbell, who has worked intensively with the Pipil language, classifies Pipil as separate from the Nahuatl branch within general Aztecan, whereas dialectologists like Una Canger, Karen Dakin and Yolanda Lastra prefer to include Pipil in the General Aztecan branch, citing close historical ties with the so-called eastern peripheral dialects of General Aztec.

History

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Pre-Columbian period

On the issue of geographic origin, linguists during the 20th century agreed that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in the southwestern United States. Evidence from archaeology and ethnohistory also supports the southward diffusion thesis, specifically that speakers of early Nahuan languages migrated from the northern Mexican deserts into central Mexico in several waves. But recently, the traditional assessment has been challenged by Jane H. Hill, who proposes instead that the Uto-Aztecan language family originated in central Mexico and spread northwards at a very early date.

The purported migration of speakers of the Proto-Nahuan language into the Mesoamerican region has been placed at sometime around AD 500, towards the end of the Early Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology. Before reaching the central altiplano, pre-Nahuan groups probably spent a period of time in contact with the Coracholan languages Cora and Huichol of northwestern Mexico (which are also Uto-Aztecan).

The major political and cultural center of Mesoamerica in the Early Classic period was Teotihuacan. The identity of the language(s) spoken by Teotihuacan’s founders has long been debated, with the relationship of Nahuatl to Teotihuacan being prominent in that enquiry. While in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was presumed that Teotihuacan had been founded by speakers of Nahuatl, later linguistic and archaeological research tended to disconfirm this view. Instead, the timing of the Nahuatl influx was seen to coincide more closely with Teotihuacan’s fall than its rise, and other candidates such as Totonacan identified as more likely. But recently, evidence from Mayan epigraphy of possible Nahuatl loanwords in Mayan languages has been interpreted as demonstrating that other Mesoamerican languages may have been borrowing words from Proto-Nahuan (or its early descendants) significantly earlier than previously thought, bolstering the possibility of a significant Nahuatl presence at Teotihuacan.

In Mesoamerica the Mayan, Oto-Manguean and Mixe-Zoquean language families had coexisted for millennia. This had given rise to the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area (a linguistic area being one where a set of language traits have become common among the area’s language by diffusion and not by evolution within a set of languages belonging to a common genetic subgrouping). After the Nahuas migrated into the Mesoamerican cultural zone, their language too adopted some of the traits defining the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Examples of such adopted traits are the use of relational nouns, the appearance of calques, or loan translations, and a form of possessive construction typical of Mesoamerican languages.

A language which was the ancestor of Pochutec split from Proto-Nahuan (or Proto-Aztecan) possibly as early as AD 400, arriving in Mesoamerica a few centuries earlier than the main bulk of speakers of Nahuan languages. Some Nahuan groups migrated south along the Central American isthmus, reaching perhaps as far as Nicaragua. The moribund Pipil language of El Salvador is the only living descendant of the variety of Nahuatl once spoken south of present day Mexico.

Beginning in the 7th century Nahuan speakers rose to power in central Mexico. The people of the Toltec culture of Tula, Hidalgo, which was active in central Mexico around the 10th century, are thought to have been Nahuatl speakers. By the 11th century, Nahuatl speakers were dominant in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, with settlements including Azcapotzalco, Colhuacan and Cholula rising to prominence. Nahua migrations into the region from the north continued into the Postclassic period. One of the last of these migrations to arrive in the Valley of Mexico settled on an island in the Lake Texcoco and proceeded to subjugate the surrounding tribes. This group was the Mexica (or Mexihka), who over the course of the next three centuries founded an empire named Tenochtitlan. Their political and linguistic influence came to extend into Central America and Nahuatl became a lingua franca among merchants and elites in Mesoamerica, e.g., among the Quiché (K’iche’) Maya.

Colonial period

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With the arrival of the Spanish in 1519, the tables were turned on the Nahuatl language: it was displaced as the dominant regional language. Nevertheless, due to the Spanish making alliances with first the Nahuatl speakers from Tlaxcala and later with the conquered Aztecs, the Nahuatl language continued spreading throughout Mesoamerica in the decades after the conquest, when Spanish expeditions with thousands of Nahua soldiers marched north and south to conquer new territories. Jesuit missions in northern Mexico and the southwestern US region often included a barrio of Tlaxcaltec soldiers who remained to guard the mission. For example, some fourteen years after the northeastern city of Saltillo, Coahuila, was founded in 1577, a Tlaxcaltec community was resettled in a separate nearby village, San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala to cultivate the land and aid colonization efforts that had stalled in the face of local hostility to the Spanish settlement. As for the conquest of modern day Central America, Pedro de Alvarado conquered Guatemala with the help of tens of thousands of Tlaxcaltec allies, who then settled outside of modern day Antigua. Similar episodes occurred across El Salvador and Honduras, with Nahuatl speakers settling in communities that were often named after them. In Honduras for example, two of these barrios are called “Mexicapa”; another in El Salvador is called “Mejicanos”. (The postconquest presence of Nahua peoples well inside present day US territory is well documented. For example, a map of Santa Fe, New Mexico drawn ca. 1768 by José de Urrutia shows a pueblo (”village”) or barrio named Analco spread along the southern bank of the Santa Fe River, opposite to the Spanish town. This settlement of Analco, labelled “E” on the map, is accompanied by the text: “Pueblo ò Barrio de Analco que debe su origen à los Tracaltecas que acompa[ña]ron à los primeros E?pañoles que entraron à la Conqui?ta de e?te Reino” (”village or quarter of Analco, which owes its origins to the Tlaxcaltecs who accompanied the first Spaniards who entered into the conquest of this region”).)

As a part of their missionary efforts, members of various religious orders (principally Fransciscan friars, Dominican friars, and Jesuits) introduced the Latin alphabet to the Nahuas, who were eager to learn to read and write both in Spanish and in their own language. Within the first twenty years after the Spanish arrival, texts were being prepared in the Nahuatl language written in Latin characters. Simultaneously, schools were founded, such as the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco in 1536, which taught both indigenous and classical European languages to both Indians and priests. Missionary grammarians undertook the writing of grammars of indigenous languages for use by priests. The first Nahuatl grammar, written by Andrés de Olmos, was published in 1547—three years before the first French grammar. By 1645 four more had been published, authored respectively by Alonso de Molina (1571), Antonio del Rincón (1595), Diego de Galdo Guzmán (1642), and Horacio Carochi (1645). Carochi’s is today considered the most important of the colonial era grammars of Nahuatl.

In 1570 King Philip II of Spain decreed that Nahuatl should become the official language of the colonies of New Spain in order to facilitate communication between the Spanish and natives of the colonies. This led to the Spanish missionaries teaching Nahuatl to Indians living as far south as Honduras and El Salvador. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Classical Nahuatl was used as a literary language, and a large corpus of texts from that period is in existence today. Texts from this period include histories, chronicles, poetry, theatrical works, Christian canonical works, ethnographic descriptions, and administrative documents. The Spanish permitted a great deal of autonomy in the local administration of indigenous towns during this period, and in many Nahuatl speaking towns Nahuatl was the de facto administrative language both in writing and speech. A large body of Nahuatl literature was composed during this period, including the Florentine Codex, a twelve-volume compendium of Aztec culture compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún; Crónica Mexicayotl, a chronicle of the royal lineage of Tenochtitlan by Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc; Cantares Mexicanos, a collection of songs in Nahuatl; a Nahuatl-Spanish/Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary compiled by Alonso de Molina; and the Huei tlamahuiçoltica, a description in Nahuatl of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Grammars and dictionaries of indigenous languages were composed throughout the colonial period, but their quality was highest in the initial period. The friars found that learning all the indigenous languages was impossible in practice, so they concentrated on Nahuatl. For a time, the linguistic situation in Mesoamerica remained relatively stable, but in 1696 King Charles II issued a decree banning the use of any language other than Spanish throughout the Spanish Empire. In 1770 another decree, calling for the elimination of the indigenous languages, did away with Classical Nahuatl as a literary language.

Modern period
Throughout the modern period the situation of indigenous languages has grown increasingly precarious in Mexico, and the numbers of speakers of virtually all indigenous languages have dwindled. Although the absolute number of Nahuatl speakers has actually risen over the past century, indigenous populations have become increasingly marginalized in Mexican society. In 1895, Nahuatl was spoken by over 5% of the population. By 2000, this proportion had fallen to 1.49%. Given the process of marginalization combined with the trend of migration to urban areas and to the United States, some linguists are warning of impending language death. At present Nahuatl is mostly spoken in rural areas by an impoverished class of indigenous subsistence agriculturists. According to the Mexican national statistics institute, INEGI, 51% of Nahuatl speakers are involved in the farming sector and 6 in 10 receive no wages or less than the minimum wage.

From the early 20th century to at least the mid-1980s, educational policies in Mexico focused on the “Hispanification” of indigenous communities, teaching only Spanish and discouraging the use of indigenous languages. As a result, today there is no group of Nahuatl speakers having attained general literacy in Nahuatl; while their literacy rate in Spanish also remains much lower than the national average. Even so, Nahuatl is still spoken by well over a million people, of whom around 10% are monolingual. The survival of Nahuatl dialects as a whole is not imminently endangered, but the survival of certain dialects is, and some dialects have already become extinct within the last few decades of the 20th century.

The 1990s saw the onset of diametric changes in official Mexican government policies towards indigenous and linguistic rights. Developments of accords in the international rights arena combined with domestic pressures led to legislative reforms and the creation of decentralized government agencies like CDI and INALI with responsibilities for the promotion and protection of indigenous communities and languages. In particular, the federal Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas ["General Law on the Language Rights of the Indigenous Peoples", promulgated 13 March 2003] recognizes all the country’s indigenous languages, including Nahuatl, as “national languages” and gives indigenous people the right to use them in all spheres of public and private life.

In February 2008 the mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, launched a drive to have all government employees learn Nahuatl. Ebrard stated he would continue institutionalizing Nahuatl and that it was important for Mexico to remember its history and its tradition.

Geographic distribution

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Main articles: Nahuatl dialects, List of Nahuan languages, and Nahua peoples

A spectrum of Nahuatl dialects is currently spoken in an area stretching from the northern state of Durango to Veracruz in the southeast. Pipil (also known as Nawat[51]), the southernmost Nahuan language, is spoken in El Salvador by a small number of speakers. According to IRIN-International, the Nawat Language Recovery Initiative project, there are no reliable figures for the contemporary numbers of speakers of Pipil / Nawat. Numbers may range anywhere from “perhaps a few hundred people, perhaps only a few dozen.”

Based on figures accumulated by INEGI from the national census conducted in 2000, Nahuatl is spoken by an estimated 1.45 million people, some 198,000 (14.9%) of whom are monolingual. There is gender disparity in monolingualism, with females representing nearly two thirds of all monolinguals. The states of Guerrero and Hidalgo have the highest rates of monolingual Nahuatl speakers as a proportion of the total Nahuatl speaking population, calculated at 24.2% and 22.6%, respectively. The proportion of monolinguals for most other states is less than 5%. Put another way, more than 95% of the Nahuatl speaking population in most states speaks at least one other language, usually Spanish; nationally, the figure is about 86% of the total.

The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and Guerrero. Significant populations are also found in Mexico State, Morelos, and the Federal District, with smaller communities in Michoacán and Durango. Nahuatl became extinct during the 20th century in the states of Jalisco and Colima. As a result of internal migrations within the country, Nahuatl speaking communities exist in all of Mexico’s states. The modern influx of Mexican workers and families into the United States has resulted in the establishment of a few small Nahuatl speaking communities in that country, particularly in New York and California.

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