Zinacantán
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San Lorenzo Zinacantán () is a town in the southern part of the Central Chiapas highlands in the
Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named Mexico, United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a sepa ...
of
Zinacantán Municipality San Lorenzo Zinacantán () is a town in the southern part of the Central Chiapas highlands in the Mexican state of Zinacantán Municipality, Chiapas. 99.1% of its population is Tzotzil Maya, an indigenous people with linguistic and cultural tie ...
,
Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...
. 99.1% of its population is Tzotzil Maya, an
indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
with linguistic and cultural ties to other highland
Maya peoples The Maya peoples () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people ...
. Zinacantán literally means "land of bats" and comes from the
Nahuatl language Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan languages, Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in ...
. People in Zinacantán speak
Tzotzil The Tzotzil are an indigenous Maya people of the central Chiapas highlands in southern Mexico. As cited by Alfredo López Austin (1997), p. 133, 148 and following. As of 2000, they numbered about 298,000. The municipalities with the largest Tzo ...
(a
Mayan language Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...
) and they call their own land ''"Sots'leb",'' that is, "land of bats" in their own language.


Population

As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 36,489. As of 2010, the town of Zinacantán had a population of 3,876. Other than the town of Zinacantán, the municipality had 60 localities, the largest of which (with 2010 populations in parentheses) were: Navenchauc (4,625), Pasté (3,771), classified as urban, and Nachig (3,260), Apas (1,485), Patosil (1,452), Zequentic (1,201), and Bochojbo Alto (1,088), classified as rural.


Traditional charges and feasts

Many feasts are celebrated during the year. In every feast men are in charge of the celebration—they are: ''martomoetik'', ''alperesetik'', and ''moletik''. The first two of these three names are loan words from the Spanish ''mayordomos'' and ''alférez'', respectively. They have to pay whatever is needed in order to celebrate the feasts. These three kinds of '' cargos'' (“charges”) are in fact a hierarchy. They constitute an ascending scale in the same order as they are described below. One can never become one of the moletik if he hasn't been a martomo first and then an alperes. These charges are just for men, although their wives have important roles in their husbands' charges. There are twelve martomoetik, twelve alperesetik and six moletik, who are chosen by the inhabitants of Zinacantan every year. Each one has a different feast assigned to him during the year, although they each have to assist in every feast throughout the year. The ''martomoetik'' are those in charge to buy whatever is needed for the feast within the church (flowers, candles, pine leaves, etc.). The ''alperesetik'' are those who buy and prepare everything needed for the feast outside the church: fireworks, ''kameró'' (which is a sort of “bomb” or explosive that they use at certain moments of the feast in order to emphasize its importance), etc. The ''moletik'' are the elders who are in charge of teaching the younger chargers how to organize the feast. Three days before of the very day of the feast they begin to celebrate by wearing their traditional clothes and performing the corresponding traditional rites. The patron saint of Zinacantán is San Lorenzo (Saint Lawrence), whose feast day is 10 August. This traditional feast lasts four days (8–10 August). The feast of Saint Sebastian, 20 January, is also important in Zinacantan. In fact, Saint Sebastian's feast lasts from 18 to 22 January. There are also many other feasts which are less important, including Epiphany on 6 January, Our Lady of the Candelaria on 2 February, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, Pentecost, Saint Dominic on 4 August, Saint Matthiew on 22 September, and Christmas.


History

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 before the conquerors' arrival, Zinacantán already had strong links with 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 in the Central Zone of Mexico. Zinacantecans exchanged their products (especially salt, but by the 19th century also cacao, tobacco, and coffee) with Aztec traders. The first missionaries who came to evangelize the native inhabitants in Zinacantán were the
Dominican Friars The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...
. They settled in Zinacantan in the 16th century and built a wooden chapel to begin their mission. These missionaries left Zinacantán before they were expelled from Mexico by the government in the 17th century. They resumed their pastoral work in Zinacantan in 1976. An important development in Zinacantán was the construction of the
Pan American Highway The Pan-American Highway (french: (Auto)route panaméricaine/transaméricaine; pt, Rodovia/Auto-estrada Pan-americana; es, Autopista/Carretera/Ruta Panamericana) is a network of roads stretching across the Americas and measuring about in to ...
, which significantly improved the mobility and prosperity of the Zinacanteco population, as it enabled them to easily transport goods to market such as maize and flowers.


Climate

Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as
subtropical highland An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...
(Cfb).


References

*''This article draws upon information contained in the Spanish-language Wikipedia article, :es:Zinacantán.
Zinacantán at Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México:


External links


Zinacantán Tzotzil Vocabulary List
(from the World Loanword Database) {{DEFAULTSORT:Zinacantan Municipalities of Chiapas