Chignahuapan

History

Totonac peoples lived in this part of the sierra from around the 7th century and controlled it until the 10th, sharing the region with Nahua, Otomí and Tepehua communities. The name comes from Nahuatl and is usually read as "over the nine springs".

During the Conquest, Hernán Cortés allowed a Chichimeca chief to settle here, and he founded a village called Tetehuitic. In 1527 the town of Santiago Chiquinahuitle was established, and Franciscan missionaries soon made it a center for teaching the faith. The community was granted in encomienda to Antonio de Carvajal and stayed in his family until 1604, under the authority of nearby Zacatlán. It became a municipality in 1837, a villa in 1840, and took the name Villa de Chignahuapan in 1874.

For most of its history the town lived from farming, livestock and, above all, timber from the surrounding forests, which remains important. The ornament trade that now defines Chignahuapan grew into an industry that turns out tens of millions of glass spheres each year, celebrated every autumn with the national Tree and Ornament Fair. The Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception, with its monumental cedar figure, opened in 1972.