The huaves are also known as mareños or huazantecos. The term "huave" was coined by the zapotecos to refer to the "people that rots in the humidity."

At the moment that group inhabits a coast of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. The main huave communities are: San Mateo del Mar, San Francisco del Mar and San Dionisio del Mar; the municipalities that depend politically on the district of Tehuantepec and economically of the oil refinery at Salina Cruz.

Language - The linguistic filiation of the huave is uncertain. The huaves say that the group as the language come from Peru or Nicaragua, mentioning a chronicle of the XVI century that locates their origin in that sense.

Health - The huaves classify the illnesses in two big categories: the correspondents for heaven's sake, generally light and of epidemic character, and those caused by a human action or for the direct intervention of some deceased. The illnesses of second category, well-known as "narangïc" are usually associated to emotional conditions as anger, depression or fear.

Housing - It is still possible to observe in San Mateo del Mar the traditional houses made of pitches, reed and royal palm.

Dress - Through transformations, the huave dress has passed to be part of a regional spectrum. Even when the oral tradition assures that the attire of the huaves was at some time different, today it is adjusted in its basic parameters to a regional pattern that follows the pattern of the zapotecos. The men that used to use taparrabo (breech-clout) and blanket shirt now use western garments, palm hat and huaraches. The women are distinguished to conserve the wide cotton skirts that cover them down to their feet, generally barefoot. On the skirt, of color almost always blue or red, they take a short tunic and without sleeves, with geometric designs on the chest and a rectangular neck.

The huaves are nominally Catholic since the XVI century. The practices and the cults that govern their religious life are, in their great majority, institutions that come from several centuries of dominican influence, fruit of a discontinuous evangelism process that was able to establish harmony between the Christian divinities and the vernacular ones. Between God and man a wide chain of saints, virgins and monteoks are organized and function as middlemen and they centralize the activities of the cult.

Parties - In San Dinisio del Mar, once lapsed the festivities of the Holy Week, authorities and local rezadores (praying people) will request rain to the Hill of Christ, small island that the huaves recognize as a sacred place; another is Hill Bernal, visible from the beach that unites San Mateo del Mar with the ocean and towards where they go to petition for this municipality.

Social organization - The huaves strucutre their social life with a hierarchical system of positions that forces the men of the community to complete, in a gratuitous way, with the positions that are assigned around the religious and municipal obligations.