San Luis Coyotzingo

San Luis Coyotzingo is a village in the municipality of Huejotzingo in west-central Puebla, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. It stands at about 2,300 m and had 2,188 people in 2020. The name joins Saint Louis the Bishop with the Nahuatl Coyotzingo, from coyotl, coyote, tzintli, a reverential diminutive, and co, in: "where the little coyote is worshipped".

Coyotzinco was a small lordship paying tribute to Huejotzingo and served as a defensive outpost against the Tlaxcalans, the Huejotzincas' sworn enemies; its people were of Toltec-Chichimec stock. In 1973 a broken chacmool, a reclining figure typical of the Toltec tradition, was found in the village, and Postclassic polychrome pottery like Cholula's is plentiful at the site. In the 16th century Coyotzingo was a major wheat producer, and in 1559 the Indigenous community built a water-driven mill that ground flour for the area, Puebla and Tlaxcala; a stone inscription from the mill is set into a wall of the church.

Its most remarkable monument is the pre-Hispanic mound, not a hill but a platform of interlocked adobes, once faced with lime, sand and stone, with its stairway facing west, dedicated to Camaxtli, the Huejotzincas' main god. After the Conquest its facing was stripped and the Franciscans used the stones to build the church of San Luis Obispo, but the core was so massive that it still stands.