San Juan Cotzocón

The name "Cotzocón" or "Cozogón" means "Dark Mountain".[1]

The municipality covers an area of 945.4 km². The territory is rugged, with grazing and cultivation of coffee and corn practiced only the lower irregular plains. The Chiquito River runs through the northern part, a tributary of the Rio Grande. The climate is warm and humid, with rain almost all year round. The forested areas contain pine, cedar, and ceiba.[1]

As of 2005, the municipality had 5,030 households with a total population of 22,478 of whom 10,712 spoke an indigenous language. The main town is now María Lombardo de Caso, located at a height of 140 meters above sea level. Although in a Mixe area, many of the people in this town are Mazatec or Chinantec who moved here after being displaced by the Miguel Alemán Dam in the 1960s.[1] In the 1950s the remote municipality, accessible only via dirt track, drew visitors from the USA investigating use of hallucinogenic psilocybin mushrooms in the traditional Mixe ceremonies.[2]

The main economic activity is coffee cultivation, followed by livestock raising.[1] Some of the Mixe women of the village of San Juan Cotzocon use back strap looms to weave traditional huipil, rebosos, napkins, table cloths and other textile crafts.[3] The Union of Indigenous Communities of the Isthmus Region, a cooperative founded in 1982, assists in production and distribution of the local products, notably coffee, under a fair trade label.[4]