Santa María Ixcatlán

Ixcatlán is the only place where Ixcatec is spoken, an Oaxacan language that UNESCO lists as critically endangered. It was already fading decades ago: in 2008 only 8 speakers were counted, and the first known letter written in Ixcatec, from Doroteo Jiménez to President Lázaro Cárdenas, dates from 1939. In the town, at 1,891 m, the 2020 census recorded 448 residents, down from 559 in 2005. Its Ixcatec name is Njani Male Xula.

The territory is huge for so few people: 177.9 km² ranging from 700 to 2,800 m, with some 41,530 hectares of communal land titled in 1948. The whole municipality has just two localities, the town is governed by usos y costumbres, and women have voted in its assemblies since 2016. On the hills you see soft tepetate rock, into which cellars and caves have been dug.

Palm carries the local economy. The leaves are cut, left to dry in the sun for three or four days, then stored in natural or hand-dug caves where they stay damp and easy to work; hats, mats and baskets are woven from them. People also grow maize, beans, wheat and barley, and distil mezcal from papalome agave. A legend says a stranger left a bag of seeds that grew into the palms.

The church was built between 1704 and 1739. Its Christ, the Señor de las Tres Caídas (N'ai Tjan in Ixcatec), is deeply venerated, and families take turns as mayordomos at the fiestas. The 1578-1586 geographic relation left a map of the town that survives as a historical document. About 900 mm of rain falls a year, June is the wettest month and the record low is 1.7 °C.