Toó

Toó is a small village and comisaría of the municipality of Mocochá, in the henequen country northeast of Mérida. It lies about 4 km west of the town of Mocochá and roughly 3 km from Ixil, on flat land about 8 metres above sea level. The name comes from Maya. It is a quiet place of a few hundred people: the census counted 187 in 1900, under 200 for most of the early 20th century, and 399 in 2005.

Like most settlements in this part of Yucatán, Toó began as a henequen hacienda worked by resident peons. Haciendas came late to the region, from the late 17th and 18th centuries, because of the thin soil and the lack of water for irrigation, and grew with the henequen boom of the 19th century. After the agrarian reform decrees of President Lázaro Cárdenas, the hacienda's lands became an ejido from 1937, while the casco, the core of the estate with its buildings, stayed in private hands.

Today the old hacienda is semi-abandoned. From the road you can still see its stone perimeter walls, the gateway and the tall chimney of the machine house that once processed the henequen. The village has a primary school and little else for visitors, so Toó is best seen as a short stop on a drive between Ixil and Mocochá through the old henequen landscape.