San Lorenzo Zinacantán () is a town and

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the

Mexican state A Mexican State (), officially the Free and Sovereign State (), is a constituent federative entity of Mexico according to the Constitution of Mexico. Currently there are 31 states, each with its own constitution, government, state governor, a ...

Chiapas Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises Municipalities of Chiapas, 124 municipalities and its capital and large ...

in southern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. 99.1% of its population is Tzotzil Maya, an

indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

with linguistic and cultural ties to other highland

Maya peoples Maya () 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 who lived w ...

. 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 language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

. People in Zinacantán speak

Tzotzil The Tzotzil are an Indigenous Maya people of the central highlands of Chiapas, 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 Tzotzil pop ...

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

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

times before the conquerors' arrival, Zinacantán already had strong links with the

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

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. 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 is a vast network of roads that stretches about 30,000 kilometers (about 19,000 miles) from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in the northernmost part of North America to Ushuaia, Argentina, at the southern tip of South America. I ...

, 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.

Geography

Climate

Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as

subtropical highland An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate or maritime climate, is the temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification represented as ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring co ...

(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