Ayotlán

Ayotlán is the seat of the municipality of the same name in eastern Jalisco, at about 1,600 m above sea level and not far from the borders with Guanajuato and Michoacán. The town had 13,810 inhabitants at the 2020 census. The name comes from Nahuatl ayotl, gourd or turtle, and is linked to the deep site ringed by hills that used to be largely flooded; a local spring feeds the valley and the Ciénega de Tlaxcala, a protected wetland of about 13 hectares. Until 1981 the town was called Ayo el Chico, a name the Spaniards gave it in the 16th century to tell it apart from a larger settlement near San Pedro Piedra Gorda, Guanajuato.

Before the conquest the Coinan valley lay under the lordship of Tototlán, and shrines to Ixtlacateolt stood on Cerro de las Villas. During the Mixtón War in 1541 the residents burned the church and their houses and withdrew to the Coinan peñol, where Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza defeated them on 26 October.

Today the economy mixes farming (maize, beans, chickpeas, maguey, barley), livestock, trade and clothing workshops, plus cold-cut packers and cajeta makers. The town has the Hacienda de San Vicente and several churches: the parishes of San Agustín, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe and Santa Rita, the Ermita de la Soledad and the Capilla del Santo Niño. The image of the Virgen de la Soledad was crowned on 15 November 1947, and her fiesta, 7 to 15 November, brings processions, a night-time castillo of fireworks and fairground rides around the plaza.

The best-known date is the Día de Campo, on the first and last Sundays of August, with a parade of floats and charros; on the last Monday of the month families go up Cerro del Caracol to eat, hire bands and watch rodeos. The custom may go back to the Augustinian friars and their feast on 28 August, though its exact origin is not known.