Copala

Copala (also written Cópala) is a village in the municipality of Tolimán in southern Jalisco, at about 1,420 metres above sea level with the Nevado de Colima for a neighbour. The name comes from Nahuatl and refers to a place where copal, a tree resin, is plentiful. The 2010 census counted 2,709 people. The climate is semi-dry and temperate, with a mean temperature of 17.5 °C and about 676 mm of rain a year, mostly from June to October, and the hills carry pine, cedar and oak.

Before the Spanish arrived the region was home to Toltec, Otomí and Nahua peoples, within the Amula domain. In 1533 the Franciscan friar Juan de Padilla began evangelisation and founded the village of San Pedro, which an earthquake destroyed in 1539. A plague in 1575 and 1576 killed many residents, and the 1576 eruption of the Volcán de Fuego flattened Amula, whose people moved to Zapotitlán and Jiquilpan.

The biggest event in village life is the fiesta of San Martín de Tours, which opens on the penultimate Sunday of October with the handing out of décimas, starts the fair on the last Sunday and ends on 11 November with a mass attended by the bishop of Colima. Around the village are a cave about 2 km to the west, a ravine with petroglyphs of spirals, circles and stylised figures, the hermitage of the Virgen del Camino to the east, and two giant footprints at the edge of town tied to local legends. Farmers grow maize, beans, squash, chile and agave, and the village makes mezcal, dairy products, clay pots, molcajetes, huaraches and palm goods.