Tepuztec people

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The Tepuztec, also known as the Tlacotepehua, were an indigenous people of Mexico. In the 16th century, they lived in the Sierra Madre del Sur and Costa Grande regions of what is now the state of Guerrero. [1] [2] Tepuztec towns included Citlaltomagua, Anecuilco, Xahualtepec, Otatlan, and Tlacotepec. Along the Costa Grande, they lived interspersed with the Cuitlatec people. [3] The Tepuztec no longer exist as an identifiable group, their language having gone extinct some time after the 16th century.

The name Tepuztec derives from the Nahuatl word tepoztli, meaning "copper" or "workable metal". The Tepuztec language is extinct and unclassified, no document describing it having been found. Donald Brand speculated that it was related to Cuitlatec given that both peoples originated on the Costa Grande. [4] Nahuatl was also widely used as a lingua franca in the region.

Little is known about their religion. They worshipped a god named Andut and a goddess named Macuili Achiotl (Nahuatl for "Five Annatto"). At least one archaeological site, dating to the postclassic period and including walls and graves full of artifacts, has been attributed to the Tepuztec culture. [5] As the Purépecha and Aztec empires expanded, they both came into contact with the Tepuztec territory, the Purépecha occasionally raiding it and the Aztecs establishing some garrisons. [6]

References

  1. ↑ Schwaller, John & Berdan, Frances & Blanton, Richard & Boone, Elizabeth & Hodge, Mary & Smith, Michael & Umberger, Emily. (1997). Aztec Imperial Strategies. The Americas. 53. 440. 10.2307/1008035.
  2. ↑ Gerhard, Peter (1993). A guide to the historical geography of New Spain (2 ed.). Norman London: University of Oklahoma press. pp. 39, 291, 293. ISBN   0806125535.
  3. ↑ WAUCHOPE, ROBERT, and HOWARD F. CLINE, editors. Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 12: Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, Part One. University of Texas Press, 1972. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.7560/701526. Accessed 18 Sept. 2025.
  4. ↑ Brand, Donald D. “An Historical Sketch of Geography and Anthropology in the Tarascan Region: Part I.”http://www.jstor.org/stable/4291263. Accessed 18 Sept. 2025.
  5. ↑ Milligan, Mark (19 August 2023). "Archaeologists uncover vestiges of the Tepuztecos". Heritage Daily. Retrieved 18 September 2025.
  6. ↑ Brand, Donald D. “An Historical Sketch of Geography and Anthropology in the Tarascan Region: Part I.” New Mexico Anthropologist, vol. 6/7, no. 2, 1943, p. 50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4291263. Accessed 18 Sept. 2025.
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