Chila

Between the two tile-capped towers of Chila's church, a public clock has kept time since it was blessed on 14 August 1951; it was a gift from local resident Gilberto Amador. The church, dedicated to the Assumption, stands against the thick walls of the convent built by the Dominicans, and the town grew up around that foundation. Locally it is known as Chila de las Flores, and it is the seat of a 128 km² municipality at the far southern tip of Puebla, deep in the Mixteca, which borders Oaxaca to the south and southeast: Huajuapan de León, Zapotitlán Palmas, Santiago Ayuquililla and San José Ayuquila. Petlalcingo lies to the north and San Miguel Ixitlán to the east.

The name has several readings. One derives it from Nahuatl cili, little snail, plus tlan, abundance: "where small snails abound"; another renders it as "place of chile". In Mixtec it is called Toavui, which the scholar Maarten Jansen interpreted as "river of shamans" or "river of the seated lord". The town sits at 1,624 metres and had 2,064 residents in 2020; the municipality rises from 1,400 to 2,100 metres, with a semi-warm climate averaging 19 to 21 °C and 700 to 900 mm of summer rain. Its streams, one of them called the Chila, run only in season and drain toward the Acatlán and Mixteco rivers, in the Atoyac basin.

Palm weaving is a household trade: people make campechano hats, chiquigüite baskets, harvest baskets, tenates and fire fans, and huaraches are woven from cane. Chila's cooking is among the most varied in the Puebla Mixteca: green mole and mole de olla, huachimole, adobo, chilate, ditazatos, bean memelas, pellizcadas, shrimp with nopales, goat barbacoa and tamales of mole, sweet and fresh corn; for dessert, chilacayote squash, jamoncillo, palanquetas, torrejas and pumpkin empanadas, and locally made chocolate. There are songs and mañanitas by local authors, music written for the Moros dance and a traditional band called Jazmín.