San Bartolo Teontepec

Teontepec means "on the hill of god", from teotl, god, tepetl, hill, and co, on, and the village does have a sacred hill where people went to hold rites. That is also the source of the nickname its people carry in the region, "teochis", from teochihua, to consecrate or bless: though sometimes used as a put-down, it can be read as "the consecrated" or "the worshippers". Its patron is Saint Bartholomew. With 6,238 people in 2020 it is one of the largest places in Tepanco de López, at about 1,800 m and some 15 km from Tehuacán.

The municipality, about 208 km², occupies the northern tip of the Tehuacán valley, between the Sierra de Tecamachalco to the east and the Sierra de Zapotitlán to the west. Its name reads "at the boundary" or "on the stony ground", and López was added in 1869 in honour of José María "el Güero" López, a liberal guerrilla born here who made his name in Oaxaca during the French Intervention. It has no permanent rivers: farms are watered from seasonal ravines and from canals bringing water from the Valsequillo reservoir.

It is semi-arid country, averaging 14 to 20 °C with only 400 to 800 mm of rain; scrub covers more than two fifths of the municipality. People weave palm and reed, eat goat-hip or backbone mole, totopos, tlaxcales and chileatole, and drink atole, chocolate, aguardiente and mezcal. For festivals the church front is decked with colourful arches, as the photo shows.