Tlamanca

Tlamanca comes from tlamantli, flattened ground, and can, place: "on the flattened ground". It is a village of 1,184 people (2020) in the municipality of Zautla, at about 1,990 m in Puebla's north-eastern sierra, some 19 km from Tetela de Ocampo. The photo, from 1980, shows how it looked then.

Zautla, from tzáhuitl, to spin, and tlan, place, is the "place of spinners or weavers". Before the Conquest it was home to Totonac and Otomí people who paid tribute to Texcoco, and tradition tells of a chief named Zautic who worked gold and silver mines that vanished when the Spanish arrived. In the auxiliary town of San Miguel Tenextatiloyan, clay pots have been made since those days. The municipality belonged to the San Juan de los Llanos district and has been a free municipality since 1895.

It covers about 274 km² and drops from over 2,900 m on Cerro Xantel to under 1,200 m in the valley of the Apulco River, which carries its waters to the Tecolutla and the Gulf. The climate is temperate, wetter toward the north, and almost two thirds of the land is forest. More than 6,000 people speak Nahuatl or other indigenous languages. People make pottery, ceramics, rope goods and palm and wool weavings; on the table are mole, pipián, chileatole and tamales, with pulque and chocolate. The parish church of Santiago in the seat dates from the 16th century.