Isla de las Muñecas
| Isla de las Muñecas | ||
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| Waters | Canals of Xochimilco | |
| Archipelago | Chinampas from Xochimilco | |
| Geographical location | 19 ° 16 '19.9 " N , 99 ° 5' 19.6" W | |
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| length | 200 m | |
| width | 100 m | |
| Residents | 1 (2010) | |
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The Isla de las Muñecas ( Spanish for Island of the dolls or puppets Island ) is an island in Mexico City . Hundreds of mutilated toy dolls are hung in trees across the island. They were originally supposed to drive away the ghost of a girl who allegedly drowned near the island. Today the scary island is a tourist attraction.
location
There used to be a shallow endorheic lake, Lago de Xochimilco , which was the original home of the axolotl , in the south of the core of what is now Mexico City . It was largely drained by drainage measures . The area is now a network of canals in the municipality of Xochimilco , about 23 kilometers from the city center, and the moorland created by the lake is a nature reserve .
The pieces of land between the canals form countless small islands that are only separated from each other by narrow waterways. One of these islands, roughly in the shape of a triangle with a side length of around 150 meters, is called the Isla de las Muñecas . Until it was opened for tourism in the late 1990s, it was uninhabited except for one person.
The creation of the doll cult
Until his death in 2001, the only inhabitant of the island was the flower grower and fisherman Julián Santana Barrera. According to him, a little girl drowned off the shore of the island in 1951. Her body was washed up on the island and found by Santana. He panicked and from then on felt haunted by the girl's ghost. Allegedly, their screams and their demand for toys were constantly audible. Santana collected discarded dolls that he found in the canals to calm the girl's mind. But when these did not disappear as he expected, he began to mutilate them and hang them in the trees as a deterrent to the spirit. He hung almost 1,000 dolls, some without eyes or limbs, in the trees until his death.
Julián Santana Barrera drowned in 2001 in the same place where he had found the dead girl exactly 50 years earlier, according to some statements because he was drunk, according to others because he had suffered a heart attack.
Tourist attraction
The island is often used by the indigenous mainland people as a place for tests of courage. Most of the dolls move with the wind in the trees, suggesting that they are alive. Youngsters have to spend a night on the island to prove their fearlessness. They expanded the doll collection and kept hanging new creepy figures in the trees.
Since the mid-1990s, the island has also become increasingly popular with tourists because of the shocking decoration. While Santana himself only accepted gifts and no money from interested tourists, the area was opened up for tourism after his death. Today there are paid boat trips to the island several times a day and entry is required for entering the island. The only resident today is Anastacio Santana, the nephew of the late Julián Santana Barrera.
literature
- Michael deMeng: Dusty Diablos: Folklore, Iconography, Assemblage, Ole! North Light Books, 2010, ISBN 1-60061-350-0 .
- Jamie Frater: Listverse. Com's Ultimate Book of Bizarre Lists . Ulysses Press, 2010, ISBN 1-56975-817-4 .
Web links
- Official website
- Scary Tour in Mexico: Island of the Zombie Dolls . Detailed article on Spiegel Online.de, accessed on November 13, 2013
Individual evidence
- ^ Catálogo de Localidades
- ↑ The 10 scariest places in the world: A journey that will teach you fear on News.at; Retrieved November 13, 2013
- ↑ La Isla de las Munecas on atlasobscura.com; Retrieved November 13, 2013
- ↑ Five sights on planet-wissen.de; Retrieved November 13, 2013
- ↑ On the Puppeninsel in the Donaukurier on October 21, 2008
- ↑ Peteranderl: Horror Tour , Spiegel Online November 13, 2013
- ↑ Holidays with goosebumps guarantee - Mystical travel destinations on artikelmagazin.de; Retrieved November 13, 2013
- ↑ Creepy Dolls ( Memento of the original from January 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on bizarremag.com; Retrieved November 13, 2013
- ↑ Peteranderl: Horror Tour , Spiegel Online November 13, 2013
