Santa Catarina Ixtepeji

Ixtepeji sits at almost 1,900 metres in the Sierra Juárez, ringed by forest: 81% of the municipality is woodland, at altitudes from 1,400 to 3,300 metres. Zapotec oral tradition places its origins between the years 650 and 700, when three lords left Yolox with several families. The mission town was formally founded in 1565, split into five barrios (San Pedro, San Juan Evangelista, San Juan Bautista, San Nicolás and San Miguel). Cochineal dye followed and made the town an economic and cultural centre of the sierra, setting it for decades against Ixtlán over which would be district seat.

From that past survives the Codex of Santa Catarina Ixtepeji, a painted bilingual scroll in Spanish and Zapotec from the late 17th or early 18th century, with a map and part of the town's story; it resurfaced in 2012 in the American Geographical Society Library in Milwaukee. The parish church dates from the 18th century and was once the head of its curacy; at San Pedro Nexicho, a little over 2 km north, there is another from the 16th century with a portal bearing the image of Pope Julius III.

Today the forest pays the bills: there has been a forestry ejido since 1964 and a communal timber unit since 1984. Wood also becomes kitchen tools of palo de águila, such as spoons and molinillos. The table runs to mole, tamales and tepache, a wind band plays at fiestas, and the patron is Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

The locality had 741 inhabitants in 2020 (777 in 2010); the municipality, with 19 localities, had 2,633 in 2010. There are comedores in town, such as Comedor Jazmín and Comedor Charito, and from here you can walk up Cerro Cruz de Ceniza (2,424 m) in about 75 minutes.