page_title: Villa de Zaachila
section_title: The town
hierarchical_section_title: Villa de Zaachila / The town
caption_attribution_description: Zaachila
context_page_description: Villa de Zaachila is a town and municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico, six km from the city of Oaxaca.
  It is part of the Zaachila District in the west of the Valles Centrales Region. In the pre-Hispanic era, it was the main city-state for the Valley of Oaxaca after the fall of Monte Albán, and the Zaachila Zapotecs were the prominent political force for much of the Valley of Oaxaca when the Spanish arrived. Since then, it has been mostly quiet, but political unrest has been prominent since 2006 and the municipality has two parallel governments.
  Zaachila is famous for its Thursday open air markets, which spreads over much of the center of town and has been a tradition since pre-Hispanic times. It is home to a mostly unexplored archeological site and is known for a dance called the Danza de los Zancudos, or Dance of the Stilts.
  The official name is Villa de Zaachila. The name Zaachila is from the Zapotec language and means “large leaf of the purslane.
context_section_description: Zaachila has considerable cultural wealth with native music, dance, gastronomy and market days filled with flavors and colors, whose traditions have been preserved for generations.  Many houses in this area still have wood stoves and/or a small fireplace in which food is cooked in the embers. Zaachila Zapotec is spoken in the town.
  The town is formed by ten neighborhoods called San Pedro, San Pablo, San José, San Sebastián, San Jacinto, Del Carmen, Soledad, La Purísima, La Virgen and Del Niño. Each has its own patron saint and corresponding festival. These festivals are coordinated each year by a formal committee which includes a president, secretary and other positions. Major celebrations celebrated by the whole town include Holy Week with passion plays, processions and other religious events, and Guelaguetza, with a staging of the story of Donaji. At weddings, it is traditional to send a musical band to fetch the bride and accompany her to the church. Writer Gerardo Melchor Calvo has written about the stories and customs of the municipality, based mostly on local oral tradition. The book is called Historia de un pueblo. Relatos y costumbres de Zaachila. Some of the stories include "La Matlacihua", "El Perro Negro", "La Procesión" and "La Marrana.” There are also descriptions of local events such as the yearly horse races on 24 July. 
  The center of town has a large plaza with a kiosk, which is surrounded by the municipal palace, archeological site and the church, called “Nuestra Señora de la Natividad” (Our Lady of the Nativity). The church is notable for a number of colonial-era santos, statues of saints, some of them executed in polychrome and still in beautiful condition. Zaachila has a stationary municipal market in which can be found regional foods such as barbacoa, “chichilo,”mole verde, turkey in mole with rice, carnitas and empanadas, served with tepache, atole, mezcal and hot chocolate; however, most shopping is done on Thursday, the town's market day.
  Just outside the town is its railroad station, built in the early 20th century when it was the Ferrocarril Agrícola de Oaxaca (Agricultural Railroad of Oaxaca). It is the oldest rail line in the Valley of Oaxaca, which was ceded to the Ferrocarril Mexicano del Sur in 1918.
caption: Main plaza with clock
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