The Huave (also spelled Huavi or Wabi) are 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 ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. The autodenomination term used by the Huave themselves is ''Ikoots'' or ''Kunajts'' (the first-person inclusive pronoun, thus meaning "Us"), or ''Mareños'' (meaning "Sea People" in Spanish). They have inhabited the

Isthmus of Tehuantepec The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the T ...

for more than 3000 years, preceding the

Zapotec people The Zapotecs ( Valley Zapotec: ''Bën za'') are an indigenous people of Mexico. The population is concentrated in the southern state of Oaxaca, but Zapotec communities also exist in neighboring states. The present-day population is estimated at app ...

in settling the area. Today they inhabit several villages (most notably San Mateo del Mar, in the

Tehuantepec District Tehuantepec District is located in the west of the Istmo Region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. It includes the cities of Salina Cruz and Tehuantepec Tehuantepec (, in full, Santo Domingo Tehuantepec) is a city and municipality in the southeas ...

, and Santa María del Mar,

San Dionisio del Mar San Dionisio del Mar is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. It is part of the Juchitán District in the east of the Istmo de Tehuantepec region. The town is named after its patron saint. Geography The municipality c ...

and

San Francisco del Mar San Francisco del Mar is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. It is part of the Juchitán District Juchitán District is located in the east of the Istmo de Tehuantepec region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, covering ...

, in the

Juchitán District Juchitán District is located in the east of the Istmo de Tehuantepec region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, covering the southern part of a low-lying corridor through the mountains that separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Pacific ocean. The dis ...

) on the sandspits of the Pacific Ocean and trade marine products with inland neighbors. According to the 2000 census, 13,687 people declared themselves to be Huave speakers, however, many non-speakers still identify as Huaves or Mareños. Their language is called Huave, or ombeayiüts/umbeyajts, depending on the dialect. Many Huave people work as fishermen and agriculturalists. Huave families are

patrilocal In social anthropology, patrilocal residence or patrilocality, also known as virilocal residence or virilocality, are terms referring to the social system in which a married couple resides with or near the husband's parents. The concept of locat ...

and reside in homes with thatched roofs. Male members of each Huave village belong to the ''escalafón'', which is a community organization for civic and religious affairs."Huave"
''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 30 July 2012.

Languages

Huave people speak four languages, some of which are mutually intelligible: San Dionisio del Mar Huave, San Francisco del Mar Huave, San Mateo del Mar Huave, and San María del Mar Huave. They also speak

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Notes

References

* Kim, Yuni (2008)
"Topics in the Phonology and Morphology of San Francisco del Mar Huave"
PhD dissertation. Berkeley. * Pelliccioni, Franco,IL CAMBIAMENTO CULTURALE TRA GLI INDIOS LAGUNARI DI SANTA MARIA DEL MAR (OAXACA, MEXICO). ALCUNE OSSERVAZIONI, 197

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huave People Indigenous peoples in Mexico