Yaonáhuac

On Fridays Yaonáhuac fills up: that is its turn for the market that rotates among the sierra towns, and the stalls join the seat's handful of shops. The town holds half the municipality's people, 3,968 of its 7,926 residents in 2020, the latter spread over 16 localities, and it sits at about 1,790 m in the north-eastern sierra, just 4 km from Tlatlauquitepec and 68 km in a straight line from Xalapa. Most residents are Nahua: in the municipality more than 3,200 people speak an indigenous language, nearly always Nahuatl.

The town's saint is Santiago Apóstol. Tradition dates his arrival in the area to 21 July 1531, at the hamlet of Ayohualol, today's Tepanzol, and his church in the seat is a 16th-century building. On 25 July he is honoured with masses, processions, dances, fireworks, a jaripeo and brass bands. On 30 and 31 May there are prayers to the Virgin of the Pillar, and at the Day of the Dead the offerings are covered in flowers; you can still see women in long black skirts and rebozos and men in white trousers, jorongo blankets and palm hats. The settlement was made a town in 1560 under the Tlatlauquitepec district and has been a municipality since 1895.

The ground is broken: to the south a flatter strip slopes down from north to south, and in the north rise isolated hills such as Caxtomaquimatépetl and Portezuelo. The Atexcaco runs more than 7 km through the middle before meeting the Apulco, and the Ajocotzingo and Xucayucan also cross it, all heading for the Gulf. The heights carry pine-oak and cloud forest, with cedar and sweetgum in the milder parts, home to opossums, squirrels, rabbits and armadillos. Farmers grow maize and coffee, with orchards of pear, apple, plum, peach, avocado, orange, banana and lemon. In town there are textile workshops, blacksmiths, nixtamal mills and tortilla shops.