“Región de la Mixteca”
Municipalities:
v Zapotitlan
v San
Gabriel Chilac
v San
Jose Miahuatlan
v Caltepec
Garb:
Flora and Fauna:
Its climate is humid and warm temperate rainforest,
the area is mountainous, animals like squirrels, tree, body spin, gray fox,
badger, deer, hawk, eagle, opossum and bobcat, its flora is: pine ocotero, ash,
oak, juniper, juniper, and casoarina ahuehué, its terrain is mountainous with
few valleys and plains
Produce:
They are distinguished by making bowls, masks
jarcería, cotton and wool textiles like napkins and backpacks. Simple ceramic
pots, gods, men or animals. With admirable talent and exquisite sensitivity
necklaces elaborated. Elaborated beautiful ceramic pieces recorded,
breastplates, rings, bracelets, gold leaf, ceramic carved bone, wood, jade,
obsidian and shell rock crystal, pumas mosaics, pottery, polychrome decorated,
all this made with technical perfection. The Mixteca is characterized by a
diversified handicraft production. Pozahuancos are manufactured, gourds, masks,
jarciería, cotton and wool textiles as napkins, blankets, blouses, bags, belts,
petticoats, embroidered shirts, Coton, woolen shawls and tangles, basketry reed
and palm, furniture, candles, ceramic clays for various different purposes,
saddlery, rockets, knives, blacksmithing, metates, brooms and fine hats from
the Isthmus royal palm and palm rest Creole collected in the region. The
textiles and pottery are crafts that women do in their spare time. Men engaged
in jarciería, blacksmithing, carpentry, saddlery or cutlery. The craftsmanship
is done in the home. Children begin to learn about the six years. Because of
its importance in the regional economy, the craftsmanship of the palm deserves
a special reference. They made hats, mats, baskets, purses, toys, brooms, hand
bags, and so on. This research has been government support for credit and has
founded a trust.
Agriculture is the basic activity; cultivated areas of
under two hectares, usually temporary, or slightly eroded enough to own
culture. The main products obtained are corn, beans, wheat, garlic, tomato and
onion, and avocado and other grown in the yard or collected in the field, such
as herbs. Forest resources are exploited individually with chainsaws and work
for merchants, no mills. Livestock production is extensive, minor species
(goats and sheep) and equally poor. Mining is practically in recess, it is not
currently exploit mineral resources that exist in the region. The legal
problems facing fisheries exploitation, yet species are consumed locally, which
fishing is done rudimentary. The main form of land tenure is communal. In urban
areas, the main activities are concentrated in the trade of food and clothing,
and in the service sector. Women work in the silk culture, although an
unprofitable activity. Exchange is also practiced but is restricted only among
Indians. Migration is one of the consequences of the overexploitation of
natural resources. The main monetary input is provided by the migrant
population. This phenomenon is beginning to bear from the time when there was a
drop in trade of scarlet, the end of the last century. During this century
continued to increase, until today. The Mixteca region is the main ejector
labor in the country. Most of this group will be working to harvest in Veracruz
and Morelos, Sonora cut cotton, to whit tomato in Sinaloa, a building in Mexico
City or horticultural fields of the United States of America.
“Region del Altiplano ”
Municipalities:
v Tepandco de Lopez Mateos
v Chapulco
v Santiago Miahuatlan
Garb:
In the
highland region highlights the Cerro Colorado, northwest of the city, which is
one of its main stage.
In the
Cerro Colorado tehuacaneros first defined lod (Popolocas) of Montezuma's Aztec
forces and the time trasncurrir this hill was important to the story there in
the hollow stone is still this place through the years about this legendary
hill appeared the virgin of the Conception.
This area
is where you will find the largest aquifers in the area, especially in
Teotipilco and Cuayuacatepec, from where water is supplied Tehuacán.
The water
in this region comes from groundwater seepage or Citlaltepetl Volcano Pico de
Orizaba. This vital fluid has a high concentration of minerals like calcium,
phosphorus, magnesium, copper, zinc, manganese, potassium, sodium and iron,
which characterizes the local soft drink production.
The
problem exists with regard to water that has this region is that the largest
denim laundries as private label and any washing are precisely and San Lorenzo
Cuayucatepec Teotipilco, exploiting and polluting the water as explained fully
below.
The
peasant culture of the region has been substantially modified by the
installation of some of the largest maquiladora garment industry, since the
vast majority of young people are employed in these industries and leave the
pitch. This is where you join the Valley and the highlands of Tehuacán, since
farmers Zinacatepec where only seniors also cultivate the land, they have to
join their counterparts Cuayucatepec to plant and produce through sharecropping
system, is ie some provide land and water, and other workforce.
Crafts:
They
are crafted, woven reed palm and embroidered dresses besides.
“Region del Valle”
It is
located at the ends of the north and southeast of the town of Tehuacan, which
include the following towns:
v
Tehuacan
v
Ajalpan
v
Coxcatlan
v
Altepexi
Garp:
The Tehuacán
Valley is regarded as "the cradle of maize in Mesoamerica", and
therefore the American agriculture in this region.
The area was
discovered agricultural cultivation by the year 6000. C., marking the beginning
of a new era in the history of mankind in America. Different types of squash
and avocado were the first species to be cultivated when they were still wild
corn, chile and beans.
Maize was
domesticated between 5000 and 3500. C., thus gradually human culture in the
region was transformed from hunter to farmer, ie a sedentary nomadic or
semi-nomadic.
The first settlements that existed in the
Tehuacán Valley and that eventually would become the current peoples of the
region dating back to 3000 BC. C. approx. These ancestral inhabitants and grew
cotton and grew corn, beans and squash, dressed in cotton, yucca or agave.
The semiarid
Tehuacan Valley is composed of thickets, mesquite and chaparral as well as a
wide variety of cacti. Currently the people of the Valley have been rapidly
losing its status as indigenous and campesino many residents, especially young
people, work in the maquiladoras along the garment industry, but still
continues growing corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, garlic , chayote, cassava,
alfalfa, chilies and sugar cane and other products.
Today agricultural production Tehuacán Valley
is in a period of return to consumption, since production for regional and
national trade that made the region until the eighties, a major producer of
tomato, garlic and corn nationally, has reached very low levels by the
capitalization of the Mexican countryside in general, in addition to production
which manages to introduce to the market is underpaid by intermediaries
regional producers.
In the region
still remains the production of handicrafts like making reed baskets in
Altepexi, and the traditional dressmaking chanelesen Chilac. Both manufactures
are sold beyond the region. Basketry altepexana sold in Puebla, Mexico City and
even the United States is exported. Chilean apparel reach Guadalajara,
Monterrey, Chihuahua, Baja California, and even arriving in California and
Texas markets. Ajalpan produces building materials such as bricks and tiles,
which are used both for housing in the region, and for the construction of
public schools in Oaxaca and Guerrero.
In Calipam, in the municipality of Coxcatlán,
lies a sugar cane mill working with producers Tehuacán Valley and La Cañada
Oaxaca.
The dresses
called "chaneles" Women are dresses that are made of a single piece
generally fabricated blanket with embroidered motifs and colors on the front.
Although not originally from Chilac, has been manufacturing and marketing its
tradition.
The people,
in different forms of land tenure are constituted and organized in Ejido core,
commons and smallholdings.
The lands
they ancestrally possessed peoples Tehuacán Valley and taken from them and
privatized from Colonial times to before the armed revolt of 1910, especially
during the liberal period that began with the Reformation of 1857 driven by
Benito Juárez, the re- take and profit with land distribution established in
the Constitution of 1917 in the wake of the Mexican Revolution and the
subsequent allocation of ejidos and agrarian titles.
The springs
in the region were recognized for the enjoyment of people and regulating their
use and distribution. But since the signing of NAFTA and Article 27
constitutional reforms in January 1992, which resulted in the completion of the
national land distribution and the creation of the current Farm Bill, regional
ejido cores have been privatized through implementation of the Certification of
Ejido Rights and Urban Lots (ANY) implemented by the Agrarian. With this
program the land in ejidos may be acquired by third parties.
Water also
was privatized by the degree of concessions for the use and operation of the
wells and springs of the agrarian intended for agricultural use, you can now
purchase third, especially businesses. These concessions were enacted by the
federal government and the last shall be implemented by the National Water
Commission until September of this year (2002).
These two
privatization, land and water, which are the most important elements in life
and agricultural culture, have become more complicated the already difficult
regional situation of the peasantry, which had suffered the ravages of public
policy liberalization for the field, allowing their current conditions are
similar to those prevailing before the 1917 revolution.
In the
pre-revolutionary period, the chiefs who held indigenous land and water in the
form of farms and estates, landowners were Creoles and mestizos from the farms
of La Huerta, The Shrine, San Lorenzo, irrigation, Santa Cruz, Buenavista,
Zavaleta, La Trinidad, Nativitas, Tilapa and Calipam.
Now people
have started playing that role in the area are the entrepreneurs of the garment
industry. Before company stores, now maquiladoras. Faced with poverty and lack
of resources to revive the countryside, many farmers have opted to leave the
land or sell. This makes agricultural production is low. This situation has
been exacerbated by the opening to imports of U.S. agricultural products like
corn - GM-even as a result of NAFTA.
Given the
lack of rainfall in the region, the people use the canal irrigation system or
apantles, carrying water from underground aquifers and filter galleries to the
fields. To run the irrigation system are organized peoples Water Companies.
Water is the
key element in the Tehuacan Valley, and through which to build regional
history. It is the crucial element in an agricultural culture and is present in
agricultural religious rituals before the Conquest. The ever increasing water
scarcity in the region, among other reasons due to overexploitation of the
resource industry has transformed the local indigenous culture.
In times not
so long ago that there was enough water for agricultural irrigation, the people
engaged in vigorously every party established by the traditions and customs,
contributing to the continuity of cultural identity. The production of corn or
tomato surrendered to preserve the cargo system, which provided food, fireworks
and drink in celebration of stewardships Barrios or water companies, but now
with the shortage of this vital liquid, the production is very low and does not
allow celebrate the customs as previously, which weakens the local culture and
its links with the land cosmogonic and water.
Possession of
the water is a reference with which to measure political power local.La
regional history has shown that whoever controls water use, retains control
over the means of production, the economy and consequently, the power in the
area.In pre-Hispanic times, the main chiefdoms and chiefdoms controlled the
pace and irrigation water circulating in the rivers and canyons. Then, with the
extraction wells and infiltration galleries, landowners controlled irrigation.
Now entrepreneurs are poultry industries and clothing apparel who account for
most of the water for industrial use.
“Region
de la Sierra”
It
is located east of the town of Tehuacan and where populations are:
v
Zoquitlan
v
Eloxochitlan
v
Coyomeapan
v Tlacotepec de Díaz
In
this particular region are virgin forests of the area and where vanilla is
grown in a place called River Tezinzintepetl Tonto is as specified production
that occurs in that area the rum, like the liquor "Lapo".
Flora:
matorrales, cactaseas,
Fauna:”tuzas.zopilote,lagartijas,serpientes,alacranes”
Garp:
In these
municipalities many people migrate to work temporarily in cutting cane harvest
in Calipam and row Omealca mills, and Paso del Macho Motzorongo in Veracruz.
There are also migrants in the United States. Others go to the city as masons
in the construction industry and in the maquiladoras. In fact in this area of
the Sierra Negra are operating three maquiladoras. A Santa Catarina
Otzolotepec - population belonging to Tehuacán - and 2 in Vicente Guerrero, one
of the transnational Tarrant Apparel and another who installed the Ministry of
Finance of the state government as "social project".
From the
testimonies and interviews we have done from 1995 to 2002 with the Nahua
peasants Miahuatlán Neighborhoods, Tuxpango, Atzacoalco and Acteopan, belonging
to San Jose Miahuatlán, head of the municipality of the same name.
Hot land area is producing cash crops such as
coffee and sugar cane, in addition to subsistence crops. The farmers in this
region have fared very poorly, due to the fall in world coffee prices and the
problems of the sugar industry. This area is lush and tropical, with a
sufficient stock of various products such as fruits and vegetables, as there
are rivers like the Fool and the rains last for six months each year, resulting
in a region rich in natural resources and animal biodiversity and plant, which
contrasts with the extreme poverty of the majority of the inhabitants of the
region.
Products exist, but not for commercial roads,
so that people see as every year thousands of rotting oranges, lemons and
bananas among other products, unable to sell or change out of small markets
that are performed in the larger towns in the region.
To get to many of the highland communities
sometimes need to walk three, five and ten hours in a geography increasingly
lush and rugged.
Many young people migrate to maquiladoras to
Tehuacan, or to cut cane in Veracruz, masonry and other jobs in Córdoba,
Orizaba, Puebla, Mexico and even the United States.
In the Sierra Negra is still common the
influence of the chiefs, who control the political life of the region for the
benefit of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). These chiefs have
become rich, in the case of the upper, with the exploitation of forests and
engagement of workers for the harvest of sugarcane in the lower area and have
established conditions for control, hoarding and coyotaje of production of
sugar cane and coffee from local farmers, in addition to several of the few
transit systems in the mountains are theirs.
Members of
the clan chiefs are usually controlled municipal authorities who they are, so
they constantly use public money for their benefit or for the PRI's electoral
campaigns. And gunmen have killed a lot of people have to stay with the land or
to settle political differences.
The indigenous
peoples of the Sierra Negra, and social marginalization in which they live,
face a daily and systematic violation of their individual and collective human
rights.
From the
evidence we have gathered with the people of the Nahua communities and Mazatec
of that municipality from 1997 to date. Administration of justice for the
people of the mountain, we must remember that there are seven regional jail for
every ten indigenous prisoners.
Fauna
The fauna composition is
quite varied. Among insects are unique characteristics of solid species like
the butterfly Arica morronensis. Among amphibians highlights the natter jack
toad and the painted flog. The diversity of the reptile community includes
among anthers, the lizard, the vipers and the Montpellier snake.
Flora
The Aleppo pine is the
dominant tree species, although in areas dominated by tall black pine and
Corsican. There are also small patches of oaks and maples.
Accompanying the
Ramblas and near the sources, also develop elm, poplar, along with a gallery of
bushes: honeysuckle, rose, sarsaparilla ant other.
“Region de la Montaña”
It is located north of the town of Tehuacan and where
populations are:
v San Antonio Cañada
v Vicente Guerrero
v Nicolás Bravo
This region
is in the highest place and cold in the municipality and is patron of the
region "Our Lady of the Snows", reflecting the uniqueness of the area
where extensive vegetation predominates, where most of the inhabitants are
engaged to the lumberyard, of pine and fir species. Another activity is the
embroidery and textiles.
Craft: We
manufacture woven palm and reed.
Garp:
Description
Men wear trousers and tunic blanket, strap sandals
straw hat and overcoat, women wear blouse with hand embroidery thread and
brightly colored satin, embroidered each strip is a combination of flowers,
birds, sheep, eagles devouring snakes, all arranged with grad taste, dress in
complemented by a petticoat and jewelry are usually jewelry.
Flora
The vegetation in the municipality is composed of low
deciduous and pine forests, oak. Regarding this tropical deciduous forest
species is characterized by its change of foliage in the dry season, their
heights vary from 5 to 30 meters.
Fauna
The fauna consists mainly of common animals such as
rabbits, hares, gophers, bobcats, ocelots, pumas, coyotes, foxes, deer, doves,
vultures, etc.
Meals
Turkey mole, whose ingredients are red hot, and
aporeadillo, made whit corned beef and tomato sauce, as well as appetizer beef
tamales with white atole.
Beverages
Drinks are representative mescal, pulque and atole
white.
