Quebrantadero

Quebrantadero lies in the far southeast of Morelos, in the municipality of Axochiapan, at about 1,067 metres above sea level and 5 km from the municipal seat. According to INEGI figures carried by Wikidata, 2,462 people lived here in 2020, which makes it one of the larger localities in the municipality alongside Telixtac and Atlacahualoya. Very little has been written about it: the sources we found mention it mostly within the municipal monograph, and that is all we can state with confidence.

The building the monograph singles out is the church of San José, one of the few outside the seat that it recommends visiting. Its feast is on 19 March. On the first and second Sundays of September, Quebrantadero shares with Axochiapan, Atlacahualoya and Telixtac the mojiganga, a celebration held in each of those villages on the same dates. In December, as elsewhere in the municipality, there is a dance for the Virgin of Guadalupe and posadas.

To understand the setting, look at the municipality. Nearly six in ten working people are in agriculture: rain-fed fields grow maize, sorghum, peanuts, beans, squash and hibiscus for jamaica, and irrigated plots grow onion, cucumber and sugar cane. In the seat, small firms process gypsum, and local cooking centres on goat barbacoa with tepache, green pipián with tamales and plum salsa. The magnitude 7.1 earthquake of 19 September 2017 had its epicentre in Axochiapan, worth keeping in mind when visiting old churches in the area.