San Juan Quiahije

Quiahije is one of the centres of the Chatino people. The seat sits at about 1,957 m in the Sierra Madre del Sur and had 2,342 residents in 2020. Its census series has nearly tripled since 1900, when it counted 672, with the biggest jump between 1990 (1,076) and 2000 (2,095). The whole municipality has 4,203 people in eight localities; the second largest, Cieneguilla, has 1,421.

The name comes from Zapotec: quia, "stone", and guixe, "mountain", roughly "mountain stone". By local oral tradition, the church and park stand on a former reed swamp, and the first settlers, who lived 1.5 km to the east, built a small shrine after San Juan Bautista appeared to them on the way to Juquila.

Nearly 3,700 of the 4,203 residents speak an indigenous language, and 3,691 speak Chatino, the eastern variety, a language of many tones. Rituals for births, weddings and community posts, offerings at sacred places and the work of healers remain part of daily life: about half of residents still turn to healers and about 40% still wear traditional dress.

The landscape holds pine and oak forest and hills regarded as sacred: Cerro Espina, the highest, Cerro Piedra del Rey, Cerro Manteca, Piedra Santo and Piedra Traviesa. Visitors should go with respect, ask the authorities for permission and ask which places are open to outsiders. The local economy rests on farming, livestock and trade.