Pochutec

The Pochutecs were a Nahua people of the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, settled around Pochutla near Huatulco. Their tongue was the earliest branch to split from the Nahuan languages, perhaps as early as the fifth century, and absorbed traits from the neighbouring Chatino.

Cut off from other Nahua polities by the southern mountains, they never entered the Aztec Empire. At the Spanish arrival the coast belonged to the Mixtec tributary kingdom of Tututepec, or Yucu Dzaa, founded on the Río Verde by the ruler Eight Deer in 1083 and expanded until Huatulco became a subject town.

Pochutec merchants travelled the trade routes into the Mixtec highlands. Their language survived long after the end of the independent Nahua states, before eventually falling extinct.