Teponahuasco

Teponahuasco lies a couple of kilometres from Cuquío, the municipal seat, and is known above all for its sanctuary. The Señor de Teponahuasco, a dark-skinned crucifix, is venerated here, and pilgrims from Cuquío and neighbouring communities come every Friday of the year. Oral tradition says the image arrived during an epidemic and that villagers held on to it when people from another town tried to carry it off; a local historian dates it to the mid-17th century. The name is Nahuatl and is translated as "place where musical instruments are played".

The settlement is pre-Hispanic. Fray Antonio Tello recorded that 400 warriors came from here in the Mixtón War of 1541; the place belonged to the Tecuexe nation and was subject to the lordship of Tlacotlán. Epidemics in the late 16th and early 17th centuries cut the population to 65 tributaries by 1605. The sanctuary atrium, described by one source as a former hospital for Indigenous people, keeps an atrial cross dated 1760, and the temple is run by a rotating commission much like the mayordomías of Indigenous towns.

The main feast is on 20 December, with a pilgrimage announced for 18 to 20 December. Mid-year the image is carried in procession to the parish of San Felipe Apóstol in Cuquío, and in October it returns to its sanctuary; local sources disagree on exact dates (between mid-June and the first Sunday of July going, and between 4 and 13 October returning), so confirm with the parish. At Christmas and Epiphany the village stages Los Pastores, a sung nativity play performed by adults and elders, and dances the San Salvador dance, successor to the matachines.

Pottery is made in the village: jars and other ware using old techniques, a trade that lapsed for a while and was taken up again a few years ago by a group of eight women, the loceras. The economy rests on farming, commerce tied to religious tourism and jobs in Cuquío. At the 2020 census it had 1,047 inhabitants, the third-largest locality in the municipality.