Amuzgos

The Amuzgos are an indigenous people of Mexico. They primarily live in a region along the Guerrero/Oaxaca border, chiefly in and around four municipalities: Xochistlahuaca, Tlacoachistlahuaca and Ometepec in Guerrero, and San Pedro Amuzgos in Oaxaca. Their languages are similar to those of the Mixtec, and their territories overlap. They once dominated a larger area, from La Montaña down to the Costa Chica of Guerrero and Oaxaca, but Mixtec expansion, rule and later Spanish colonization has pushed them into the more inaccessible mountain regions and away from the coast. The Amuzgos maintain much of their language and dress and are known for their textiles, handwoven on backstrap looms with very intricate two-dimensional designs. The Amuzgo area is very poor with an economy mostly dependent on subsistence agriculture and handcraft production. The Aztecs referred to them as Amoxco, the origin of the word Amuzgo. One interpretation has it meaning "place of books" probably referring to an administrative center which was then generalized to the people. Another states that it means "people of tin." Yet another states that it means "among mountains" which originally referred to one community and became generalized. The endonym of the Amuzgo peoples varies by community. In San Pedro Amuzgos it is Tzjon Noan (meaning "people of the textiles or thread"), in Santa María Ipalapa it is Tzo'tyio, and in Suljaa' it is Nn'anncue (meaning "the people"). The Mixtecs call them Ñuuñama, which means "people of totomoxtle (dried corn leaves)." The Amuzgo people are generally found in a region which straddles the border of the Mexican states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, near the coast. The number of ethnic Amuzgos may be as high as 50,000, with about eighty percent living in the state of Guerrero. The Amuzgos are the largest indigenous group in their region, which they share with Mixtecs and Nahuas as well as mestizos and Afro-Mexicans.