El Nigromante

The village is named after the nickname of Ignacio Ramírez, "El Nigromante" (the necromancer), the 19th-century liberal poet, journalist and thinker. It lies 12 km south-southeast of Playa Vicente, at 140 metres, in the Papaloapan basin where Veracruz meets Oaxaca, and with some 2,450 people it is one of the larger communities in the municipality. It is an Indigenous community: Chinantec, Mixe and the Betaza variety of Zapotec are spoken here, and together with Arenal Santa Ana and Chilapa del Carmen it forms the heart of Playa Vicente's Zapotec area.

Music is central. The village has three brass bands that play traditional Zapotec music and four other groups, two of them known across the region. Men farm and raise cattle, communal work days (faena) are still customary, and there are potters, seamstresses, palm weavers and saddlers. For a farming village it is well equipped: a clinic, a park, a party hall, schools up to telebachillerato level, six churches and two cemeteries, one belonging to the Las Cruces neighbourhood; there is mobile phone coverage and most homes have a landline.

The patronal feast, the best known, is Saint Cecilia's, 20 to 24 November, with bands that also come from Oaxaca, dances, jaripeos and plenty of food. In late April, around Saint Mark's day, there is a gathering of bands and Indigenous dances featuring the Saltimbanquis; the Virgin of Carmen is celebrated in July (14 to 17) and Saint Michael in September (27 to 30). Local dishes include chancletas, beef broth with pata de burro (balls of masa wrapped in malote leaf and steamed), three-pointed tamales with pork in banana leaf, barbecue, caldo de rellena and cacao pozole. Within the village a stream rises from a spring known locally as Huatulco.