ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how some Maya peoples envisioned the city, and looks at the Maya struggled to assert Merida’s economic status and cultural authority over Tiho. Some Maya texts, including those made for Spanish administrators, as well as local community objects reveal how the Indigenous peoples attempted to align themselves with the new capital’s colonial power. Merida’s status as the financial and cultural capital, although expected, is relevant to understanding its identity. The Motul map confirms the omnipresence of Spanish cultural authority, as its imagery assists in fixating Merida as a new center of power. The study of colonial maps is a rich area for research, giving attention to the power of the European gridded map to neutralize Indigenous agency and to how Hispanic American maps belie this assertion, particularly those created by Indigenous mapmakers. Maya authors and artists show different realities and ideas about the city in creating new communal identities in Yucatan.
