Caxhuacan

Caxhuacan is the seat of the municipality of the same name in northern Puebla, in the Sierra Norte, about 243 km north of the state capital. This is Totonac country: the name comes from the Totonac kaxkawa and is read as "place of bowls", and in Totonac the town is called Kalakgajna. The municipality is small, about 20 km², and had 3,791 people in 2010. It lies at about 500 m and borders Huehuetla, Ixtepec, San Juan Ocelonacaxtla, Tuzamapan de Galeana and, in Veracruz, Zozocolco de Hidalgo.

Totonac groups founded it under the altepetl of Hueytlalpan, and it later fell to the Aztec Triple Alliance within the tribute province of Tlatlauquitepec. Totonac land gave two maize harvests a year, wealth that drew Chichimec raids and the Aztec conquest. In the Kgaltziyat cave, "place of mice", near the Zempoala River, there are stone walls and potsherds that have yet to be dated. The climate is semi-warm and humid, with about 3,500 mm of rain a year and over 150 rainy days; in May temperatures can top 40 °C.

The main fiesta is on 4 October, and at it and at Holy Week the voladores, quetzales, huehues, toreadores, negritos, santiagueros and san migueles dance. At Holy Week the Judas figure is paraded on a donkey before being hanged and blown up, on All Saints the bells ring at night, and every 2 November paper hot-air balloons go up, a tradition of more than 30 years. The food has dishes of its own: xquíjit stewed with meat, paxni-kaka greens with sesame, pulaklas tamales and bread baked in wood-fired ovens.