The nominative triqui is a deformation of the word driqui, of the language triqui, composed by dri, derived of dre: father, and qui: big or superior.

The triqui region covers a low area whose main town is San Juan Copala, and a high area, with San Andrés Chicahuaxtla as the main town. The triquis are in the west of Oaxaca, in San Andrés' towns Chicahuaxtla and Santo Domingo del Estado, district of Putla; San Martin Itunyoso and San José Xochixtlán, district of Tlaxiaco; and San Juan and San Miguel Copala, of the district of Juxtlahuaca.

Language - The languages triqui, mixteco, cuicateco and amuzgo belong to the family mixteca, of the trunk macrootomangue. The women of more age are monolingual, most of the men speas Spanish and triqui, the same as the children that have studied elementary school.

Health - The concepts of health-illness depend of the relation that the individual keeps with the nature; the ideal state is the balance. Besides the natural elements, in the atmosphere diverse supernatural beings that have the power of curing exist or of making human beings sick. In general, in the event of illness go to the healers that have wide knowledge of the medicinal plants and the human nature.

Housing - The materials more used for the housing they are trunks or tejamanil for the walls, and straw, tejamanil or banana shaft (penca) for the roofs. The triqui house is squared or rectangular and in general it consists of a single room of four or five meters, used as kitchen, bedroom and dining room; the only ventilation that it has is the door, also made of wood; the roof is of two falls and the fissures of the walls are recovered with mud, lime and manure.

Dress - The women use an ample tunic and dress of horizontal fringes, knitted by themselves with cotton thread and adorned with two wide and vertical fringes with zigzag patterns, yellow or purple, underneath they wear a blanket navy blue color. The man's traditional dress consists of short, shirt, belt and palm hat. The short is of blanket and goes wound to the height of the knee. The shirt is of brilliant and embroidered colors, with decorations in the neck and in the fists of the sleeves.

Together with the Catholic religion and elements of the traditional religion of the triquis cohabit. This last one has as main deities nine gods, seven of them correspond to the good: earth, fire, moon, sun, dilutes, air, ice; the other ones correspond to the evil: of death and of hell.

Parties - The main festivity is the one dedicated to the patron saint of the town. Another important festivity of the souls (Day of the Dead). In Chicahuaxtla the celebration to the dead takes in the cementery and in the domestic groups the days October 31, 1 and 2 of November, the collective celebration runs on the account of the majordomo of the festivity and his assistants. In San Juan Copala the main festivity takes place on third Friday of Lent and it is dedicated to Jesus Christ.

Social organization - The Nua' nugua'aj "company cornfield", is a community traditional organization of cultivation of corn, climbing bean and pumpkin, and it consists in that 20 or 30 heads of the family sow conjointly in their parcels, and the gain of the sale of the crops is distributed equally among the group.