San Esteban Atatlahuca

San Esteban Atatlahuca sits high in the Mixteca at about 2,450 m, in a municipality of pine and oak forest covering 110 km². In 2020 the locality had 547 residents (489 in 2010), and most of the population is Indigenous. Its Nahuatl name means "red earth between two rivers"; the Crown issued land titles in 1550, and it has had a town council since 1891, in the Tlaxiaco district. Beyond the seat, the municipality includes communities such as Guerrero Grande, Independencia, Mier y Terán and Ndoyocoyo, and its authorities are chosen by customary law between July and August.

This is cold country: about 14 °C on average, over 1,300 mm of rain a year, roughly 250 days with rain or drizzle, and lows that have reached -1.4 °C. Of the 11,129 hectares of communal land, some 7,850 are forest, and families live from it: timber, river stone and foundation stone, and seasonal mushrooms such as the pine, egg-yolk and Lent varieties. Lower plots grow maize, beans and tomatoes; higher up, broad beans, oats and maguey. The woods hold pine, oyamel fir, madroño and oak, orchids, deer, foxes and birds of prey.

The seat and Mier y Terán both have colonial churches. The fiesta calendar runs from the Santa Cruz (3 May) and San Antonio (14 June) to the patronal feast of San Esteban (3 August) and New Year's Eve. From January until 2 February the Mascaritas carnival is danced, with the dance of the abuelito, and people eat pozole and mole amarillo and drink tepache or pulque. Wool from sheep goes into blankets, sarapes, sashes and rolls, and the music is wind-band. The municipality also holds a carved Mixtec stone and the remains of an archaeological site, Yucunukee, now abandoned.