San Bartolomé Quialana

San Bartolomé Quialana sits at 1,803 m in the Tlacolula district, in the east of Oaxaca's Central Valleys, and is the most populous locality in its municipality. The 2020 census counted 2,264 people (2,390 in 2010, 2,434 in 2005); more than 98% identify as Indigenous and about 89% speak an Indigenous language, Valley Zapotec (dizhsa), which is heard in the streets alongside Spanish.

The name is Zapotec and means roughly "blackened stone", after a rocky hill nearby. Women still wear two everyday outfits: a flower-embroidered blouse under a second floral blouse tied at the back, a skirt topped with a plaid wrap skirt held by a hand-woven belt, and an apron; or a simpler floral dress with an embroidered apron. A textile collector who visited described a bandana particular to this village, which turns up at the Sunday market in Tlacolula, and one family that still weaves belts.

On 1 January, according to a photographer who attended, people of all ages climb El Calvario, a hill that locals say is a buried pyramid. They carry clay animals, tiny houses and toy money, leave them at the top with flowers and prayers, and ask for health, protection and good fortune for the year, a custom called the pedimento. It blends Zapotec practice with Catholic devotion.

The climate is temperate highland, averaging about 17.7 °C with roughly 850 mm of rain a year. Other Valley Zapotec villages ring the town: San Marcos Tlapazola about 2.6 km away in a straight line, San Lucas Quiaviní 3.6 km, and the district seat, Tlacolula de Matamoros, about 6.4 km.