La Trinidad Tenexyecac

La Trinidad Tenexyecac is a village in the municipality of Ixtacuixtla de Mariano Matamoros, at about 2,200 metres, set between two hills along a river and right beside the Puebla-Tlaxcala motorway. Its Nahuatl name, Tenexyecac, translates as "lime nose". It has roughly 3,300 inhabitants and is far better known for its clay than for tourism: according to INAH it is a national reference for the making of mole cazuelas.

Potters take clay from old pits in the hills and on the village's own land, in quantities large enough to make traditional cazuelas up to 1.40 metres across and 80 to 90 centimetres tall. The piece is shaped over a mould and beaten with a basalt stone, finished on a hand-turned wheel, dried for 8 to 30 days and fired twice: about 10 hours the first time and about 5 after glazing. Cazuelas are graded by size with names such as "de a cuarto", "de a peso", "de a medio" or "literera". Local artist Albadelia Solano Juárez counts about 150 workshops in the community, and besides cazuelas they make jugs, comales, flowerpots and plates.

On the plaza stands the parish of the Santísima Trinidad, dated 1785. Local tradition says that on Good Friday at 3 p.m. sunlight falls on the spot where the Blessed Sacrament is kept. The main fiesta honours the Holy Trinity, on the Sunday after Pentecost. Pre-Hispanic structures and remains have been reported in the hills, linked to a Tlaxcalan culture that predates the Spanish arrival.