The Ixcatec of Mexico

The Ixcatec of Mexico, numbering approximately 400 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are an Oto-Manguean people of a single Oaxaca village, Santa Maria Ixcatlan, whose remote highland location let their pre-Hispanic senorio stay independent until conquered by the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II, with their Ixcatec language now critically endangered. They mostly adhere to Folk Catholicism and Spanish is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: Ixcatec

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Latin American and Caribbean Peoples
Country: Mexico
People Cluster: Central American Indigenous
Primary Language(s): Spanish (spa)
Primary Religion(s): Folk Catholicism
Population: 400
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG039085
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Ixcatec of Mexico

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Folk Catholicism
Religious Affiliation: Christianity

99%
%
Folk Catholicism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Spanish
Language Family: Indo-European

100%
%
Spanish Speakers

Media Resources in Spanish:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film
JESUSView Film
MagdalenaView Film
MagdalenaView Film
The SaviorView Film

5 films

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Ixcatec are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Ixcatec:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Pray specifically for the Ixcatec of Mexico

He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him
readLuke 10:34

Pray that the lost among them will experience the kind of compassion Jesus taught His followers to show others, and that they will trust in Him because He is the one who brings healing to the broken and lost.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
readRomans 5:11

Pray for the gospel to advance and for more people to be brought into God's family through the reconciliation Jesus offers them.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.
readMatthew 18:20

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will be encouraged as they remember that Jesus is with them when they gather in His name.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
read1 Corinthians 15:10–11

Pray that God's people will preach the message of Jesus' death and resurrection and that it will spread among the lost through the selfless witness of believers.

Ixcateco Across Countries (ROP3 - 104129) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

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