Qualla: Tlacolula de Matamoros: The Sunday Market at the Place of Abundance

Tlacolula de Matamoros: The Sunday Market at the Place of Abundance: Introduction

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Every Sunday, the population of Tlacolula de Matamoros multiplies. Farmers, vendors, and families pour in from the surrounding valley to fill an open-air market that has operated here for centuries - one of the oldest, largest, and busiest in the state of Oaxaca. The stalls overflow with produce, meats, moles in four colors (colorado, amarillo, verde, and chichilo), tlayudas the size of dinner plates, and heaps of chapulines - edible grasshoppers seasoned with chile and lime. At Chocolate la Tradicion, cacao beans are ground with sugar and spices into drinking chocolate sold mostly to families in the more rural reaches of the valley, where hot chocolate prepared with milk or water and accompanied by pan de yema - egg yolk bread - remains a daily ritual. The city's Nahuatl name, tlacolullan, means "place of abundance." On Sundays, it earns it.

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Tlacolula de Matamoros: The Sunday Market at the Place of Abundance: From Lakebed to City-State

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Zapotecs probably arrived in the central valleys of Oaxaca around the second century CE, when much of what is now the Tlacolula Valley was covered by a lake. The chronicler Fray Juan de Torquemada believed they came from a region called Panuco, establishing themselves first a...

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Tlacolula de Matamoros: The Sunday Market at the Place of Abundance: Gold and Gilding Behind Stone Walls

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Spanish established Santa Maria de la Asuncion Tlacolula formally in 1560, and the Church of La Asuncion went up the following year as a Dominican mission. From the outside, it resembles other Dominican churches in the Central Valleys - solid stone, restrained in ornament, bu...

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Tlacolula de Matamoros: The Sunday Market at the Place of Abundance: From Oaxaca to Venice Beach

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Tlacolula Valley is home to over 60,000 people, many of them Zapotec speakers, but the community extends far beyond the valley itself. Economic pressures have driven significant migration to the United States, with Tlacolula residents congregating specifically in the Venice B...

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Tlacolula de Matamoros: The Sunday Market at the Place of Abundance: Caves Where Farming Began

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Beyond the Sunday market and the Baroque chapel, the municipality holds something of global significance: approximately one hundred caves and rock shelters scattered through the Tlacolula Valley that document one of the most consequential transitions in human history. These caves...

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