Posted by The Isla de las Muñecas is a small island in the canals of Xochimilco, south of Mexico City, where its caretaker Don Julián Santana Barrera hung hundreds of dolls for decades, according to legend to appease the spirit of a drowned girl. Julián drowned in 2001 in the very same spot. Today the island is a tourist attraction and holds a Guinness World Record.
The Island of the Dolls is a place full of mysteries, and it is in Mexico. Famous for the hundreds of dolls tied to its trees, the island hides a sad legend.
The Island of the Dolls
This island is a chinampa, a small artificial cultivated island, in the Laguna de Tequila, among the canals of Xochimilco, south of Mexico City, and in recent years it has become famous for the hundreds of dolls dangling from its trees.
“But why are these dolls hanging from trees, and who put them there?”
Like every mysterious place, this one too has its legend.
The legend of the Island of the Dolls
In the 1950s Julián Santana Barrera decided to leave the home where he lived with his wife and a daughter and move to the island. He became its caretaker, but then something happened.
Legend has it that one day he saw a little girl drowning, but could not save her.
Shortly afterwards he saw a doll in the spot where the girl had drowned. So he decided to hang it from a tree, as a sign of respect for the poor soul. But Julián began to have nightmares in which the girl’s ghost haunted him, and he decided to tie more dolls to the trees.
Don Julián Santana Barrera really existed and died in 2001, aged 80, but no evidence of the drowned girl has ever been found. Perhaps, some say, she was a product of Julián’s mind.
The more dolls Julián added to the trees, the more people feared the island.
The dolls are broken and dirty, and some are missing limbs or eyes. Julián did not waste time fixing them: he just wanted to hang them up to pay homage to the girl.
The fame of the Island of the Dolls
The island became extremely famous after Julián’s death in 2001, perhaps partly because of how he died. He too drowned, in the same spot where he said the girl he had not been able to save had drowned. That day he was fishing with his nephew and, according to the nephew, he was singing at the top of his voice, saying that mermaids were calling him from the water. The nephew went away for a short while and, when he came back, found him lifeless, face down in the canal.
Rumours began to spread, and with them theories and legends. It was said that the dolls were possessed by the spirit of a drowned girl. After his death his family opened the island to the public, and it immediately became a tourist attraction; tourists themselves began tying dolls to the trees, perhaps without even knowing why Julián had started doing it.
Today the island has hundreds of dolls, three huts and a small museum with newspaper clippings about the island and its caretaker. In the hut where Julián slept, the first doll he found is on display, along with Agustina, his favourite. In 2022 Guinness World Records recognised it as the largest collection of “haunted” dolls in the world.
Many people visit it just to see them, and some swear they have seen them move on their own, especially at night.
As early as 1943, in fact, the island had been used by Mexican director Emilio Fernández as a set for the film María Candelaria. More recently it also inspired an Italian horror short film created by Silvia Chierzi.
It is certainly not a destination for pediophobes, but would you visit it?
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