Have you heard of ‘La Isla de las Muñecas’?
On an isolated chinampa in Xochimilco, Mexico, thousands of decrepit dolls dangle from lines of straggly string, hang from rotting slabs of wood, and rest their heads on sharp, wooden spokes. Those that dare step foot on the island are plagued with an irrational sense of terror creeping through their chest. They stagger under the piercing gazes of eyeless dolls, mangled, mud-caked effigies, and the fervent fluttering of blood-thirsty bats overhead when they begin to hear childish whispers and knocking against the trees. Horror strikes their gut in a moment of stark realization. They are not alone. Now running through the island, swatting away jutting branches and spiderwebs, they realize that the dolls are alive and blazing with the vengeful souls of dead children.
La Isla de las Muñecas, or the Island of the Dolls in English, began from the superstitions of a hermit named Don Julian. After stumbling upon the body of a mysterious, drowned girl floating in the canal with a doll, he made every effort to save her. When he ultimately failed, he became tormented with guilt to the point where he began to believe that the little girl’s soul was haunting him. This led him to hang the island’s first doll upon a tree as a form of appeasement. However, as time went on, his paranoia only increased. He was overwhelmed with the fear that his tribute was insufficient and quickly began scavenging through dumpsters and canals for more abandoned dolls. Don Julian soon spiraled into complete insanity, gathering over four-thousand dolls that he believed each harbored a dead child’s soul. In 2001, his lifeless body was discovered face down in a canal. The same canal where he had first discovered the mysterious drowned girl.
Many believe that Don Julian’s ghost remains trapped with that of the dead children and attribute both parties to the eerie phenomena of incessant whispering, sporadic footsteps, and dolls moving their limbs and eyes.
La Isla de las Muñecas continues to play a significant role in Mexican culture. Being built on a chinampa, it is one of the few remnants of Aztec civilization. It is also one of the most popular tourist attractions in the nation, attracting people from all over the world to come and see Don Julian’s extensive collection of haunted dolls. The island has interesting implications on Mexico’s indigenous views on life and death, adding on to common traditions like Día de los Muertos: the Day of the Dead.
Whether you believe the island to be a mere product of a mad man’s ravings or truly accept it as a hotbed of restless spirits, when you stumble across a doll in Xochimilco’s canals, beware La Isla de Las Muñecas!
