Learn the macabre story behind the sinister Doll Island in Mexico

If you ever visit Mexico, you can enjoy the beautiful floating gardens of the Xochimilco canals, full of canoes with tourists and fun mariachi bands. Longer walks, however, may end up in the much less pleasant landscape of Isla de las Muñecas (“Doll Island”), whose name comes from the macabre trees with severed heads and plastic limbs hanging everywhere.

The broken and decaying debris is not by chance, and the more you know about the reason for the practice, the more sinister the story gets. According to local legends, it all began with a hermit named Don Julian Santana Barrera, who lived on one of the channel system islands and claimed to have found the body of a dead little girl floating nearby where he lived.

Although it is not known if this really happened or if it was just a dream of Don Julian, since there is no evidence about the alleged corpse, the fact is that he took a very real attitude in response to it. Shortly thereafter, the hermit says he found a doll floating in the water, and to honor the little girl's spirit and protect her home from further tragedy, he placed the toy in one of the trees.

Coincidences?

Legend has it that from that day on, dolls continued to float, and Don Julian fished them to add to his growing collection of heads, limbs, and other parts. He even dressed in the decrepit mud-soiled toys with worn glasses or torn pieces of cloth, which only made the result even more frightening.

Although the sight of the “decoration” was striking at first glance, Don Julian was an extremely friendly host and welcomed the visitors with open arms in his home, explaining the doll's history without inhibition. But as if everything was no longer bizarre enough, the hermit was found drowning in early 2001, floating in the same spot where he claimed to have seen the girl's body years earlier.

Today, the history of Isla de las Muñecas has become a tradition and locals have taken care of it. The legend has spread around the world and many tourists come to see everything up close - and some even bring in new dolls to add to the memorial in the trees. See more images of the macabre scenery in the gallery above and also check out our list of 13 scary or haunted places around the world, available at this link.

* Posted on 10/04/2015