The Tzotzil are an Indigenous Maya people of the central highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. As of 2000, they numbered about 298,000. The municipalities with the largest Tzotzil population are Chamula (48,500), San Cristóbal de las Casas (30,700), and Zinacantán (24,300), in the Mexican state of Chiapas.
The Tzotzil language, like Tzeltal and Ch'ol, is descended from the proto-Ch'ol spoken in the late classic period at sites such as Palenque and Yaxchilan. The word tzotzil originally meant "bat people" or "people of the bat" in the Tzotzil language (from sotz "bat"). Today the Tzotzil refer to their language as Bats'i k'op, which means "true language".
Clothing
Houses were traditionally built of wattle and daub or lumber, usually with thatched roofs. Traditional men's clothing consists of shirt, short pants, neckerchief, hat, and wool poncho. Traditional women's clothing is a blouse or long overdress (huipil), indigo dyed skirt (enredo), cotton sash, and shawl.
History
Based on linguistic and archaeological data, scholars believe that the common ancestors of the contemporary Tzotzil and Tzeltal peoples entered Chiapas between 100 BCE and 300 CE. According to Spanish chronicles, just before the Spanish Conquest the Tzotzil exported quetzal feathers and amber to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. They also produced salt from wells near Ixtapa and traded it throughout the Chiapas highlands, and continued to do so after the Conquest. is strong among the Tzotzil.
Native religion
A Spanish chronicler described Zinacantán as a people with "an infinite number of gods; they worshiped the sun and offered sacrifices to it, and to the full rivers, to the springs, to the trees of heavy foliage, and to the high hills they gave incense and gifts .. . their ancestors discovered a stone bat and considered it God and worshiped it" (Ximenez 1929-1931, 360). Baptized infants and women who die in childbirth go directly to Winajel, located in the Sun. People who have drowned, have been murdered, or were struck by lightning do not go to Katibak.
References
Further reading
pl:Tzeltalowie