The Mazatec language of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, Oaxaca, is spoken, along with closely related variants, in a large area of the Sierra Mazateca of northern Oaxaca. Some other towns whose speech is close to that of Eloxochitlán are San Pedro Ocopetatillo, Santa Cruz Acatepec, San Jerónimo Tecóatl, and San Lucas Zoquiapan. The variants spoken in San Francisco Huehuetlán, Santa Ana Ateixtlahuaca, and San Lorenzo Cuanecuiltitla, are related somewhat more distantly. Speakers of all of these have considerable difficulty understanding the prestigious variant spoken in Huautla de Jiménez (mau).

According to the 2000 INEGI census the population of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón is 4149. More than 96% of the population speak Mazatec. The town has two municipal agencies - San José Buenavista and Aguancha. The name of the town in Mazatec is Nguixó.

Eloxochitlán is the birthplace of Ricardo Flores Magón, one of the intellectual authors of the Mexican Revolution.

One important and ancient craft of Eloxochitlán is the making of chitates, such as the one pictured at the top of this page. This is the only place in the Sierra Mazateca which continues to preserve this artisan skill. Large sized chitates are commonly used by the people to transport products that require care in handling. They are also used for harvesting corn and for draining wet coffee when it is washed. Small sized chitates are used during the coffee harvest and for planting.

Making chitates
(November, 2004)

--Leonardo Avendaño Bautista, Daniel M. Agee

• Diccionario Ilustrado en el Mazateco de Eloxochitlán
• Aprendamos a leer palabras con saltillo (ˈ) cuando se presenta antes del consonante (Learning to Read Words with Glottalized Consonants (ˈ))
• Aprendamos a leer palabras con saltillo cuando se presenta entre dos vocales (Learning to Read Words with a Glottal Stop Between Two Vowels)
• Aprendamos a leer palabras con X (Learning to Read Words with the Letter X)
• Si̱kònde̱é ijo-ná (Caring For Our Bodies, in Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón Mazatec)
• ¿Ñánda? tíjna nañá? (Where is the Dog?)
• Nikje-ná (Our Clothing, in Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón Mazatec)
• Kíxki̱y eé tsajmì ra tjín ya̱ 'én Ngixó (Let’s count in Eloxochitlán Mazatec)

• technical articles, including:
  • Aspect formation of San Jeronimo Mazatec verbs (SIL-Mexico workpaper in scanned PDF format)
  • Modal clitics in San Jeronimo Mazatec (SIL-Mexico workpaper in scanned PDF format)
  • Fronting in San Jeronimo Mazatec (SIL-Mexico workpaper in scanned PDF format)