Papantla

The Gulf lowlands around Papantla were home to a long line of cultures, and the great city of El Tajín flourished in the hills just west of today's town. The town itself was founded around 1200 by groups of Totonacs, some of them people who had left El Tajín after its fall. Before the Spanish came it belonged to the Totonac lordships of Totonacapan, and Moctezuma II brought it into the Aztec Empire, which took cloth, chillies and maize as tribute. The forests gave cedar, chicle, cotton, cacao, honey and above all vanilla, which grows wild here.

After the conquest the Spanish refounded the town as Papantla de Santa María de la Asunción, laid out a plaza with church and government buildings, and soon shipped vanilla to Europe. Franciscans built the parish church between 1570 and 1590. In 1785 the official Diego Ruiz, searching for illegal tobacco fields, stumbled on the Pyramid of the Niches at El Tajín, which became famous through the writings of Alexander von Humboldt. During the War of Independence the guerrilla leader Serafín Olarte fought in the area until his capture and execution; the town's official name, Papantla de Olarte, honours him.

The 19th century made Papantla Mexico's leading vanilla region, but the privatisation of communal lands under Porfirio Díaz set Totonac communities against merchants and officials, and led to an uprising in 1891. Forces associated with Pancho Villa destroyed the Municipal Palace in 1915. In the 20th century the artist Teodoro Cano García covered the town with murals and sculptures celebrating Totonac culture, and in 2012 Papantla was named a Pueblo Mágico.

Papantla is the heart of Totonacapan, and Totonac language and culture remain strong. The town's best-known tradition is the Danza de los Voladores. Five men climb a pole about 30 metres high; four, tied by ropes, launch themselves and spin to the ground while the fifth stays on top, playing a flute and a small drum. Each rope is wound 13 times, making 52 circuits in all, the number of years in the Mesoamerican calendar cycle, and the four flyers represent the four directions. The ritual did not begin with the Totonacs, but it is now strongly associated with those around Papantla, and UNESCO has listed it as intangible cultural heritage. Flights take place beside the church and at El Tajín.

The dance of the guaguas is the other dance most closely linked with the town: dancers in embroidered red trousers and great circular headdresses of ribbon stamp around a wooden cross that turns vertically. Both appear at Corpus Christi, the town's main festival, first held here in the mid-16th century, alongside the Xanath Festival of Totonac culture. Cumbre Tajín, held around the spring equinox at the ruins, mixes Totonac traditions with concerts.

Day of the Dead has its own local form. Families build altars called pachau, laden with fruit, tamales, mole and chocolate figures, and it is believed the souls arrive as insects to eat the hot, fresh food. Teodoro Cano García's murals, on the church, the palace, the kiosk and the Chapel of Cristo Rey, make the town's history visible on its walls.

The municipality of Papantla had about 160,000 people in the 2020 census, around a third of them in the town itself and the rest in more than 300 smaller communities spread over the hills and down to the coast. About a quarter speak an Indigenous language, most of them Totonac. Most people are Catholic, with a sizeable evangelical minority.

Farming still occupies close to half the municipality's people. Corn, beans, chillies and oranges are the main crops, cattle and pigs are raised, and the packing and shipping of oranges is the main local industry. Vanilla remains the town's emblem, though buyers in the United States came to set its price. Tourism, built on El Tajín, the beaches and above all the voladores, is a growing part of the economy, and the oil city of Poza Rica next door provides work and services.

Life centres on the plaza and the markets facing the church. On Fridays couples dance danzón in the plaza, Saturdays bring live music and Sundays cultural events.

Papantla's cooking belongs to the Totonac and Huasteca traditions of northern Veracruz. Local specialities include zacahuil, the huge tamale of the Huasteca, frijoles in alchuchut and tashuayahun. Corn, beans, chillies and oranges from the surrounding farms fill the Hidalgo and Juárez markets, and tamales, mole and local breads are central to festival and Day of the Dead tables.

Vanilla is the town's pride. It comes from the seed pod of an orchid, Vanilla planifolia, that climbs host trees in these forests; the pods darken soon after they are picked. The Totonacs used it for centuries as flavouring, perfume and medicine, and since 2009 "Vainilla de Papantla" has had a protected designation of origin. In the Totonac language vanilla is called xanath, the name also given to a vanilla liqueur rarely found outside the area.

Real vanilla is expensive and hard to find elsewhere in Mexico, so the pods, extract and figures of animals woven from vanilla pods sold around the centre are a favourite purchase.