Alfadir Luna, being aware of this mix, but most of all decided to unite the market place with its daily protagonists, organized, from 2008 on, a procession throughout all the 11 marketplaces. The whole tour is crowned and leaded by the figure of a maize man, built collectively by the people from La Merced. It is transported in a boat in the midst of a great party, which gathers peddlers, vendors, chinelos and passersby.

Maize has a very strong symbolic weight within Mexican culture since pre-Columbian times. For instance, it has been thoroughly described in the Mayan sacred book, Popol Vuh, and, nowadays, it has become a central piece in the debate over transgenic processes and their possible consequences. The Man of Maize Procession, thus embodies a sort of communion between man and nature, between the religious and the idiosyncratic practices that have been developed in the country, even more so after the Spanish Colony and which are still visible in places such as San Juan Chamula or in the constant cult to the Our Lady of Guadalupe.