HUASTEC. A native people of the Atlantic coast of Mexico, south of Tampico and the lower Panuco river. They form an isolated offshoot of the great Maya family of Yucatan and Guate mala, but decisive evidence is lacking as to whether Huastec speech represents an archaic form of the Mayan language and the people a remnant left behind in an ancient southward migration of the stock, or the reverse. Culturally the Huastec belong rather in the Toltec-Aztec than in the Maya province, although their low land habitat brought with it many differentiations. They formed the north-eastern frontier of the higher civilization of ancient Mexico. About 20,000 Huastec-speaking Indians survive.
See B. Sahagun, book X., ch. 29 ; Seler, Gesamm. Abh., II. (igo4) ; W. Staub, El Mexico Antiguo, I. (1919) ; R. Schuller, ibid., II. (1924).