The Tlapanec , or Meꞌphaa, are an

indigenous people of Mexico Indigenous peoples of Mexico ( es, gente indígena de México, pueblos indígenas de México), Native Mexicans ( es, nativos mexicanos) or Mexican Native Americans ( es, pueblos originarios de México, lit=Original peoples of Mexico), are those ...

native to the state of

Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...

. The

Tlapanec language Tlapanec , or Meꞌphaa, is an indigenous Mexican language spoken by more than 98,000 Tlapanec people in the state of Guerrero. Like other Oto-Manguean languages, it is tonal and has complex inflectional morphology. The ethnic group themselves ...

is a part of the Oto-Manguean language family. The now extinct

Subtiaba Subtiaba is an extinct Oto-Manguean language which was spoken on the Pacific slope of Nicaragua, especially in the Subtiaba district of León. Edward Sapir established a connection between Subtiaba and Tlapanec. When Lehmann wrote about it in ...

language of

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

was a closely related language. Today Tlapanecs live primarily in the state of

a number more than 98,000. In

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

times they lived in the isolated mountain area along the Costa Chica region of Guerrero, just southeast of present-day

Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...

. Their territory was called '' Yopitzinco'' by the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

s who also referred to the Tlapanecs as ''Yopi''. Yopitzinco was never conquered by the Aztecs and remained an independent enclave within the Aztec empire. The main Tlapanec city was Tlapan and the name ''Tlapanec'' is the

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

for "Inhabitant of Tlapan".

Religion

The Tlapanecs explain natural phenomena through

myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

, like the myth of the creation of the sun (''Akha), the moon (''Gon''') and the fire god (''Akuun mbatsuun'''), who all were born on the bank of the river and who were raised by ''Akuun ñee'', goddess of the

temazcal A temazcal is a type of sweat lodge, which originated with pre-Hispanic indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica. The term ''temazcal'' comes from the Nahuatl language, either from the words (to bathe) and (house), or from the word (house of heat ...

sweatbath and patron of the hot/cold duality. Another important element in their culture is

nagualism In Mesoamerican folk religion, a nagual (pronounced a'wal is a human being who has the power to shapeshift into their tonal animal counterpart. Nagualism is tied to the belief one can access power and spiritual insight by connecting with the ...

. When a baby is born it is said that at the same time an animal is born and that that animal is the

nahual In Mesoamerican folk religion, a nagual (pronounced a'wal is a human being who has the power to shapeshift into their tonal animal counterpart. Nagualism is tied to the belief one can access power and spiritual insight by connecting with the ...

of the child. No one except the child knows which animal is its nahual because the nahual will only show itself to the child in its dreams.

References

Tlapanecos
- Ethnographic description of the Tlapanec people (

Instituto Nacional Indigenista The National Institute of Indigenous Peoples ( es, Instituto Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas, INPI) is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was established on December 4, 2018, though the earliest Mexican ...

)
SIL international on Tlapanec language and culture
Ethnic groups in Mexico Indigenous peoples in Mexico Mesoamerican cultures {{Mexico-stub