Totozoquean

The Totozoquean group brings together peoples of southern Mexico whose languages are proposed to share an origin: the Totonac of Veracruz, the Zoque of Chiapas, the Mixe of Oaxaca, and the Ikoot, or Huave, of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, whose language may be a close relative. Some scholars link the Mixe-Zoque speakers to the Olmec, though the claim is disputed.

From the mid-fifteenth century the Totonac of Totonacapan faced Aztec incursions and rebelled often. Cempoala was the first native city Hernán Cortés reached on his march to Tenochtitlan in 1519. Luis Marín began the conquest of the Zoque lands in 1523, and the Zoque were parcelled out to settlers, but the Mixe held their mountains against Spanish attack.