Nativitas Cuautempan

"At the edge of the woods": that is the meaning of Cuautempan, from the Nahuatl cuauhitl (tree), tentli (lip, edge) and pan (on). The village sits at 1,880 metres in southern Puebla, in the Acatlán river basin, and is one of the two juntas auxiliares, or local districts, of the small municipality of Coyotepec, the other being San Mateo Zoyamazalco. The 2020 census counted 447 people here, out of 2,334 in the whole municipality.

Life revolves around rain-fed farming: beans, maize and wheat that depend on the summer rains. The other trade is weaving petates, the traditional sleeping mats, and across the municipality palm and zoyate fibre are worked into mats and tenate baskets. The village has a public primary school, Justo Sierra, and the Xichinchi preschool. Mario Marín Torres, later mayor of Puebla and governor of the state, was born here on 28 June 1954.

This is not a tourist destination and has no visitor services. Anyone travelling around Tepexi and Ixcaquixtla can continue to the municipal seat, San Vicente Coyotepec, about 10 km away, whose parish church of San Vicente dates from the 16th century and whose patron saint fair falls in early April. Local cooking includes mole poblano, mutton and goat barbacoa, and candied squash (calabazate).