Xiuhtlan

Xiuhtlan was a polity centred on Xihutla, the native name of the Banderas valley on the coast of what is now Jalisco. Settled villages had long occupied the valley, which was home to the Banderas culture in the Late Postclassic period.

In March 1525 Francisco Cortés de San Buenaventura reached Tintoque, where more than twenty thousand armed Indigenous people faced him with feather banners before submitting. The banners gave the valley its Spanish name, Banderas. A record of 1584 explained Xihutla as the place where grass grows.