Xcuyún

Xcuyún is a comisaría of Conkal municipality, about 2 km from the town of Conkal, which is itself some 15 km northeast of central Mérida. The village grew up on the land of a henequen hacienda and today covers an urbanised area of about 0.71 square kilometres. Its Maya name is usually explained as "where the yuya builds its nest", the yuya being a songbird, an oriole; the spelling Xcuyum also turns up, but is considered a mistake.

The hacienda had its heyday during the henequen boom. Like many Yucatán haciendas of that era it issued its own tokens, and the Xcuyún tokens, which name the estate as the property of Eulalio Casares, are sought after by coin collectors for their design. After the agrarian reform of the 1930s the fields passed to the ejido and the village kept growing; at the 2005 census Xcuyún had 1,490 inhabitants, making it one of the larger communities in Conkal municipality after the seat.

What a visitor sees today is the old hacienda core: an arched stone gateway at the entrance to the village, the roofless walls of the main house and outbuildings overgrown with trees, a tall brick chimney from the machine house, and long stone walls, all set around open grassy ground next to the village park and sports courts. There are no visitor services; the ruins are best seen from the street as a short detour on a visit to Conkal and its Franciscan convent.