Isla de las Muñecas is a small island that belongs to Mexico. “Las Muñecas” means “Isle of dolls”, which could not be more accurate because dolls are in fact sprinkled all over the island, on trees, in bushes, on poles and stones. Why, you ask. Well, they are supposed to drive away bad spirits…
The island is situated in the Eastern part of Mexico City in between various canals and about 23km from the city centre away. It consists almost entirely out of marshy mire landscapes and until the 90’s it was nearly uninhabited. Until his death in 2001 fisher Julián Santana Barrera was the only one living on the island. He was the one, who started hanging up dolls because supposedly back in 1951 a corpse of a drowned girl was found on the beach. Julián Santana Barrera was convinced that her spirit haunted him, demanding toys every step of the way.
He then started to collect dolls, which he mostly found swimming in the canals and decorated the trees with them but when the spirit didn’t go away he began mutilating the dolls to frighten the ghost. He yanked out limbs and gouged out the dolls’ eyes to make a point. Over a thousand dolls now cover the whole island and thus became a very popular place to test one’s courage. Teenagers dare each other to spend a whole night on the island because at night the wind breathes life into the dolls.
Nowadays the island is very popular among tourists. When Julián Santana Barrera was still breathing and strolling around, you could get away with a small gift for the man to enter the island but now you have to pay a fee to see the dolls. On a little side note, he drowned at the exact same spot where he found the girl lifelessly floating around decades ago.
Copyright and Source: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/la-isla-de-las-munecas
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_de_las_Mu%C3%B1ecas
