Chicontepec

Chicontepec, officially Chicontepec de Tejeda, is the seat of a large municipality in the Huasteca Baja of northern Veracruz, near the border with Hidalgo. It sits at about 520 m on the slopes of the Sierra de Chicontepec, a branch of the Sierra Madre Oriental, and its name comes from Nahuatl chikome tepetl, "seven hills". The town had 4,823 people at the 2020 census, but it is the centre of a mostly rural and Indigenous municipality of nearly 300 localities, where most people are Nahua and some speak Tének (Huastec). The municipal encyclopaedia calls it the "balcony of the Huasteca" for its view over the green plain that runs towards the coast.

Before the Spanish conquest the area belonged to the Huastec province of Zicoac and later paid tribute to the Aztec Triple Alliance. The colonial town was formed by congregating scattered villages from 1592, when the viceroy commissioned Pedro Portes to found it as Santa Catarina Chicontepec. The church was rebuilt in the early 19th century with three naves and was burned during the War of Independence, when its parish archives were lost. Chicontepec belonged to Puebla until 1 December 1853, when it passed to Veracruz. It became a city in 1910, and in 1960 it was renamed Chicontepec de Tejeda after General Adalberto Tejeda Olivares, the revolutionary and governor of Veracruz who was born here.

Chicontepec is above all a market and festival town for the surrounding Nahua villages. On Sundays people come in to sell dried meat, embroidered cloth, tobacco, ground coffee and farm produce, and local crafts include textiles, pottery, rattan, palm and leather. The main fiesta honours Santa Catarina on 24–25 November with dances, religious processions and flower offerings, and Day of the Dead is the most important ritual season of the southern Huasteca. From the town you can see Postectitla, a hill of bluish-grey basalt that is sacred in local Indigenous ritual. Typical dishes include bocoles, zacahuil, enchiladas with cecina and fried enchiladas.