San Miguel Zozutla

Its Nahuatl name, built from xoxoctic (green) and tlan (a place where something abounds), means "greenish place", and the Christian part comes from Michael the Archangel, whom the village holds as patron. Zozutla belongs to Yehualtepec, in the southeast of the Puebla highlands: 5,077 people lived there in 2020, at 2,038 metres. In a straight line Tehuacán is 43 km away, Orizaba 59 and Puebla city about 66 km to the west.

Yehualtepec means "in the roundness of the hill" or, more loosely, "surrounded by hills". Its first inhabitants were Nahuas; in 1604 the area was placed in the fourth congregación and a church community was founded, though a confraternity devoted to the Immaculate Conception had been active since 1588. During the 19th century it depended on the district of Tecamachalco, and in 1895 it became a free municipality. It covers almost 126 km² between 1,960 and 2,600 metres, with neighbours such as Tecamachalco, Palmar de Bravo, Tlacotepec de Benito Juárez and Xochitlán Todos Santos. Its religious heritage includes the 16th-century parish church of San Simón and the churches of San Mateo Tlacomulco, San Gabriel Telzoyocan and San Juan Ocotlán.

Nearly the whole municipality is a plain with rocky-floored low hills, split almost in half between the Atoyac basin and that of the Salado river, which feeds the Papaloapan; rather than rivers, what flows here are irrigation canals fed by streams. Seven in ten hectares are farmed. Craftspeople weave wool into blankets and gabanes, draw ixtle from the cucuya agave to twist ropes, fire bricks, polish marble and carve onyx chess sets. Women wore the woollen sesote with a rebozo and braids tied with coloured ribbons; men wore cotton calzón and shirt. On the table: mole, pipián and bean tamales, peach and tejocote preserves, pulque and aguamiel.