South And Gulf Coast of Mexico Culture & Language

This region produces more of what the world thinks of as Mexican culture than any other, and most of it is indigenous in origin.

Oaxacan craft

The villages around the city each specialise: Teotitlan del Valle weaves wool rugs on treadle looms with natural dyes — cochineal from cactus insects, indigo, pomegranate; San Bartolo Coyotepec makes barro negro, black burnished pottery; and San Martin Tilcajete and Arrazola carve alebrijes, fantastical painted animals. The standard is genuinely high and the work is done by families across generations.

Chiapas textiles

Tzotzil and Tzeltal women weave on backstrap looms, and each village has its own patterns, colours and meanings encoded in the brocade — a woman’s blouse says where she is from as precisely as a passport.

Music and dance

Oaxaca’s brass bands play at every occasion, the Guelaguetza gathers the state’s dances, and Veracruz has son jarocho — harp, jarana and improvised verse — and the formal danzon danced in its plazas.

Chamula

The church at San Juan Chamula, with no pews, pine needles underfoot, thousands of candles and rituals involving live chickens, is among the most striking religious sites in the Americas.

The Zapotec script

Monte Alban carries carved stones bearing one of the earliest writing systems in the Americas, in use by around 500 BC — several centuries before Maya writing. The danzantes slabs, once read as dancers, are now generally understood as captives, and the accompanying glyphs record names and dates. The script is only partly deciphered, which makes Monte Alban a site where the most interesting things are still unread.

Mezcal

A whole culture of village distilling, with its own vocabulary and etiquette.

Spanish is the common language, but this is the part of Mexico where it is least universal.

Indigenous languages are spoken by around a third of Oaxaca’s population and a quarter of Chiapas’s. Oaxaca has sixteen peoples and far more language variants — Zapotec and Mixtec are the largest, and their varieties are often not mutually intelligible with each other. Chiapas has Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch’ol and Tojolabal, all Maya languages. In some highland communities there are substantial numbers of monolingual speakers, particularly older women.

English is spoken in Oaxaca city’s tourism, in San Cristobal and at the major sites, and very little elsewhere.

Useful Spanish: buenos dias, gracias, por favor, cuanto cuesta, con permiso to get past someone.

In the villages, a greeting and a slow pace go a long way.