Amayuca

In eastern Morelos, close to the Puebla border, Amayuca is the most populated locality in the municipality of Jantetelco: 5,854 people in the 2020 census, more than the municipal seat itself at 5,050. It stands at about 1,431 m on federal highway 160, the road that leaves Cuautla toward Puebla and Oaxaca, and it has grown along that road. In 1900 it had 1,189 residents and as late as 1960 only 1,829; by 1970 the census shows 5,296.

The name comes from Nahuatl amatl, the bark paper, and yocan, and is read as "place where amate paper is made". We found no source that tells its local history in detail. What INAH documents on the region do record is that the priest of Jantetelco looked after Amayuca, Chalcatzingo and Copalcuatitlán within the Cuernavaca diocese, and that Mariano Matamoros took over the Jantetelco parish in late 1807, before he joined the insurgency. Jantetelco marks the priest's uprising on 13 December.

The municipality's climate is semi-dry and semi-warm, with about 988 mm of rain a year and a dry spell from late autumn to early spring. A state road links Amayuca with Jantetelco, and in that area is the cerro de la cantera, with remains attributed to the Olmec culture or one influenced by it (around 1000 BC). Neighbourhood altars to the Virgin of Guadalupe appear along the streets, like the one shown in the photo here.