Atitlan

Atitlan lies in the mountainous Mixe country of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca. Its people belong to the Ayuuk, or Mixe, communities whose villages occupy the eastern slopes of the range. The rocky highlands protected them: neither the Zapotec kingdom of Zaachila nor the Aztec empire subdued the Mixe completely, and Cortés wrote that forces he sent against the Zapotecs and Mixes could not conquer them. Dominican friars made the first peaceful contact in 1555. The community's church is dedicated to Santiago Apóstol.