Oaxaca

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Oaxaca is the name of both a state in Mexico and that state's capital city. This article is about the state. For the city, see: Oaxaca, Oaxaca.

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Oaxaca

Location

Statistics
Capital	Oaxaca
Area	93,952 km² Ranked 5th
Population (2005 census)	3,506,821 Ranked 10th
HDI (2004)	0.7164 - medium Ranked 31st
Governor (2004-2010)	Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (PRI)
Federal Deputies	PRD: 7 PRI: 2 Convergencia: 1 PT: 1
Federal Senators	PRI: 1 PRD: 1 Convergencia: 1
ISO 3166-2 Postal abbr.	MX-OAX Oax.

Catedral de Santo Domingo

The Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca or simply Oaxaca wɑˈhɑkɑ (help·info), named for its largest city, is one of the 31 states of Mexico, located in the southern part of the country, west of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Oaxaca borders the states of Guerrero to the west, Puebla to the northwest, Veracruz to the north, and Chiapas to the east and the Pacific Ocean in the south.

Oaxaca, the historic home of the Zapotec and Mixtec peoples, is distinct from all other Mexican states in that it contains more speakers of indigenous languages than any other state. [1]

With an area of 95,364 km², Oaxaca is the fifth largest state in the Republic. According to the 2005 census it had a population of 3,506,821 people.

One of Mexico's most famous heroes, President Benito Juárez, came from the Oaxacan village of San Pablo Guelatao. Other famous Oaxacans include Rufino Tamayo, Porfirio Diaz, José Vasconcelos, Francisco Toledo, María Sabina, J. Alberto Canseco Díaz, Major League Baseball player Vinicio Castilla, chemical engineer Marco Rito-Palomares and many other writers, artists and politicians.

1 History
2 Law and Government
3 Geography
4 Demographics
5 Tourism and Regional Festivals
6 Culture
7 See also
8 Major communities
9 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Pre-Colombian History

The rugged terrain of modern day Oaxaca historically allowed a tremendous diversity of socio-linguistic groups to emerge, with hundreds of group living in relative isolations from each other in the mountains and valleys. The central Valley of Oaxaca, however, was one of the most fertile areas of the Americas and as such allowed powerful and influential groups to emerge, first being occupied by the Zapotec people, then in the thirteenth century being conquered by the Mixtecs. Society was mainly organized in villages by extended family groups with communal authority, though the civilizations of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs did have kings and religious specialists.

Among these civilizations many accomplishments were the domestication of many plants and animals including corn, beans, chocolate, tomatoes, chiles, squash, pumpkin, and turkeys. Also available in the fertile region of Oaxaca were pineapples, avocados, zapotes, and maguey. In the south, the Pacific Ocean was an important food source.

The civilizations built by these groups are reflected in important archaeological sites including Monte Albán, Mitla, Guiengola and Huijatzoo. Monte Albán was a great ceremonial center built on a flattened mountain top by the Zapotec people which reached its zenith between 600 and 900 A.D. The ancient Zapotec village of Teotitlán del Valle near the city of Oaxaca is one of the oldest human settlements in Mexico.

Throughout this era, there was significant local and regional trade. The most important economic activities were agriculture, hunting, fishing and mining; silver and gold having been fashioned by artisans for hundreds of years. Commercial routes passed through Oaxaca to the Mayan lands of the north and south to Central and South America. Major ports were located in present-day Salina Cruz, Astata, Huatulco, Puerto Angel and Pinotepa Nacional.

In the mid-fifteenth century the central valley was conquered by the Aztecs, who forced the surrounding Mixtec and Zapotec kingdoms to pay tribute to the emperor in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. The Aztec presence had the effect of increasing social and economic ties between Oaxaca and the Aztec heartland. Shortly after 1496, the Aztecs established a garrison in the center of the valley, around the Cerro del Fortín and down to the present Church of Carmen Alto where their temple was located. They called their garrison Huāxyacac, meaning "place of guaje trees" in the Nahuatl language, because of the great number of this species (Leucaena esculenta) in the area. Under Spanish rule, Huāxyacac would become Oaxaca, and the pronunciation of the x would transition from "sh" [ʃ] to the modern Spanish "j" [h].

[edit] Colonial History

Tenochtitlan fell to the Spanish in August of 1521, and with it all of the Aztec empire. On November 25, 1521, Francisco de Oruzco arrived in the central valley to claim it in the name of the conquistador Hernan Cortes, who had been granted Oaxaca as his prize for the conquering of New Spain by the Spanish crown. Cortes was thereby named Marques del Valle de Oaxaca. The settlement founded by the Spanish in 1521 as Segura de la Frontera, later known as Nueva Antequera, was officially raised to the category of a "royal" city in 1532 by decree of Emperor Charles V (Carlos I) with the name of Antequera de Guaxaca.

Transformation was swift in the central valley with the Spanish introducing new food and methods of cultivation. Cortes himself ordered the cultivation of wheat in the Valley of Etla and the construction of mills. The Spanish cultivated sugar cane and imported silkworms. Disease introduced by the arriving Spanish greatly diminished the native population of Oaxaca as did the insatiable appetite for gold which lead more and more Oaxacans into the dangerous mines.

Over the 300 years of colonialism many aspect of life became "Europeanized." Important government positions were filled with the Spanish and their decedents, and later elite mestizos, those of mixed European and indigenous ancestry.

[edit] Early Independent to Modern-Day Oaxaca

Independence from Spain was won in 1821. Throughout the 1800's and into the early 1900's, Oaxaca remained largely an agriculture-based economy with little new industry. The automobile created a divide between the traditional villages and the new urban world of mobility and fast communication. A railroad was built connecting Oaxaca to Mexico city. Centuries of deforestation resulted in rampant erosion forcing migration to the cities and the U.S. [2]

[edit] Recent History

Main article: 2006 Oaxaca protests

In May of 2006 a teachers strike calling for higher wages led to the occupation of many buildings and streets in Oaxaca's capital city. On June 14, 2006, the Oaxaca Teachers Union was evicted. By October of 2006, supporters of the strike which was led by the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) had grown to tens of thousands calling for Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruíz Ortíz to resign. Demonstrators launched a widespread campaign of civil disobedience and took over the state-run television station. [3] On October 27, 2006, paramilitary forces fired on a crowd of protesters, killing three: Esteban Zurrita and Emilio Alonso Fabian, two locals involved in the demonstrations, and Brad Will, a U.S. independent journalist and activist who had been videotaping the protest. [4] On October 28, 2006, Mexican President Vicente Fox ordered riot police to regain control of the city. [5] On October 29, police and military forces used bulldozers, water cannons and tear gas to push Oaxaca's citizens back. [6] Government forces seized Oaxaca's town hall by mid-afternoon. At least one more person was killed in the most recent violence, raising the total of persons killed to "more than a dozen."[7] Early in the morning on November 2, Mexico's Day of the Dead holiday, the PFP attempted to clear barricades surrounding the Autonomous University of Oaxaca Benito Juarez, which houses the radio station Radio Universidad, one of the last radio or television outlets still under the control of the APPO. A pitched battle ensued, during which police threw tear gas onto University grounds and dropped gas canisters from low-flying helicopters. The protesters hurled rocks and fireworks at police and set buses and vehicles on fire as impromptu barricades. After several hours, the police withdrew, having failed at least temporarily to gain control of the area surrounding the University or to take the radio station off the air. Subcomandante Marcos of the EZLN has also called for the resignation of Governor Ruíz. [8]

[edit] Law and Government

Due to its large size, rough terrain and the tendency of the indigenous communities to identify strongly with their village as opposed to their region, Oaxaca is divided in 571 municipios, the most of any one state, accounting for almost 1/4 of all the municipios in the country.

[edit] Geography

Oaxaca is located where the Eastern Sierra Madre and the Southern Sierra Madre mountain ranges converge, resulting in a rugged mountainous terrain with a large temperate central valley. The Average altitude is 1,500 meters (5,085 feet above sea level.)

[edit] Demographics

A dominant characteristic of the state of Oaxaca is its high concentration of people identifying as indigenous. It also has the most diversity of indigenous groups. There are sixteen different indigenous communities formally registered, though this number can be a bit misleading as there is great cultural diversity within many of those groups. In fact, it has been suggested that there is larger variety between dialects of Zapotec than there is between romance languages.

The sixteen groups and the number of speakers of their language according to the 2005 census are listed below:

Zapotec - 357,134
Mixtec - 242,049
Mazateco - 164,673
Chinanteco - 104,010
Mixes - 103,089
Chatino - 42,477
Trique - 18,292
Huave - 15,324

Cuicateco - 12,128
Zoque - 10,000 (est)
Amuzgo - 4,819
Chontal - 4,610
Tacuate - 1,726
Chochotec - 524
Ixcateco - 207
Popoloco - 61

Of these, 477,788 are non-Spanish monolingual. [9]

[edit] Tourism and Regional Festivals

Oaxaca's principal industry is tourism, with over 250 km of beaches, colonial architecture and archaeological treasures. The prominent colonial destination is the city of Oaxaca which contains the Santo Domingo Temple, the Government Palace, the Macedonio Alcala Theater, the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Prehispanic Art, and the House of Cortes.

Monte Alban is the dominant archaeological destination, having been the capital of the ancient Mixtec-Zapotec empire. Mitla, originally meaning "place of the dead" in Zapotec, is known for its unique ancient tile work. [10]

Major festivals include the dia de los muertos (day of the dead) and noche de los rabanso (night of the radishes). In Zapotec villages, families traditionally finance the large communally organized dances and feasts on patron saints' days through a system of making small loans over many years and then calling them in on an occasion when the family has volunteered to be the festival sponsor or mayordomo; this economic system is known in Zapotec as guelaguetza. This practice has given its name to the largest festival in the state, the Guelaguetza, [11], a major attraction for regional, national, and international tourists that is put on annually at a stadium built for the purpose overlooking the city of Oaxaca.

Transportation is provided by a toll-road that leads to Mexico City through Puebla and another that leads from Oaxaca City to Huatulco. Major airports are found in Oaxaca City, Huatulco and Puerto Escondido and are served by the airlines Aeromexico, Aerocaribe, Aerotucan, Aviacsa, and Mexicana.

[edit] Culture

[edit] Crafts

Oaxaca has a number of native crafts, including the production of alebrijes, weaving and black clay objects. Alebrijes are popular wooden figurines of mythical beings, animals, and fantastic combinations of both, usually painted with very vibrant colors.

Zapotec weaving traditions were studied at length by Edwin Scheier and Mary Goldsmith in the 1960s [12].

[edit] Cuisine

For the same reasons its people are so diverse, Oaxaca also boasts a tremendous diversity of regional cuisine, nicknamed "Land of the Seven Moles." An abundance of fruits and vegetables are grown in the central valley, tropical fruits are found in the north and fish and shellfish dominate the cuisine of the south. Oaxaca is also known for Oaxaca cheese which is now exported around the world and even made in many locations in the United States. There is also a breakfast specialty, generally only available in Oaxaca - huevos oaxaqueños - eggs poached in a chili-tomato soup. Another specialty is chapulines, an unusual dish composed primarily of barbecued grasshoppers. Oaxaca is also known for producing mezcal, a spirit similar to tequila.

Corn is the staple food but the preparation of corn dough varies wildly, from entomadas and empanadas to tamales and tortillas. Black beans are also a common ingredient, as is the pasilla oaxaquena chile which gives many dishes their distinct hot, smoky taste and red color.

Oaxaca is also well-known for its chocolate, which is made from ground cacao beans, and frequently includes almonds, cinnamon and many other ingredients. [13]

[edit] Plants and Shamanism

Oaxaca is also known for at least two plants which are native to this particular area of the world, both used in Shamanism: Psilocybe mushrooms and Salvia divinorum. Though the former is preferred in shamanic practice, the latter is known to be the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen^{[citation needed]} and belongs to the Mint family.