To
the left is a picture of a Voodoo doll believed to be put in the
path of someone at their place of employment. It was strategically
placed in the parking lot facing the individual's car. This looks
like one of those Brat dolls you can find in any department store.
But how would you know it is carrying a curse?
as been. To find out if you have been hoodooed,
you should have a divination done by a reputable
practitioner, or do a divination yourself using cards, a
pendulum, or some other divination system with which you are
familiar. The results of the divination will reveal whether
or not your situation is due to being crossed or jinxed.
Haunted
Creepy Dolls
These pictures and many many more
available for license and to buy at
bizarrearchive.com
As
our boat drifts ever closer, we see that many of these
grubby infants are missing limbs, covered in cobwebs, or
crudely lashed to the boughs with rusted metal wires.
As our boat pulls alongside the shallow flight of steps
that leads onto the island, the roar of what sounds like
a chainsaw buzzing to life shatters the silence. We half
expect Leatherface to come hurtling towards us from the
wooden shack in the centre of the island, intent on
adding our heads to his macabre gallery of death.
Thankfully, the ‘chainsaw’ turns out to be a local
gardener who’s merely firing up his lawn mower behind
the ramshackle tool shed. But with hundreds of plastic
eyes following our every move, the sense of foreboding
that consumed us as we approached the island shows no
signs of abating, and gets steadily worse as we discover
the true horrors of Mexico City’s creepiest attraction.
Plastic Nightmare
The Island Of The Dolls – located in the vast,
bewildering network of canals that lies to the south of
Mexico
City, between the urban sprawl and the more traditional
farmland region called Xochimilco (pronounced so-chee-meel-koh
and meaning ‘place of flowers’) – is rich in history and
superstition.
Created by the hermit Don Julián Santana who, despite
having a wife and family, chose to live alone on the
island for over 50 years before his death in 2001, the
Island Of The Dolls is a shrine to a dead girl who was
said to haunt him, and in whose honour he collected
dolls, to calm her restless spirit.
“There are many stories about why the dolls are here,”
says Don Julián’s cousin, Anastasio, one of several
family members who now curate the island, welcome
visitors, and charge a token fee to take photos.
“Some people claim Don Julián was mad, and that he’d
fish dolls out of the canal believing they were real
children, and that he could nurse them back to life. But
the real story is that, soon after Don Julián arrived on
the island, he came to believe this place was haunted by
the spirit of a poor young girl who drowned in the
canal. So when he saw a doll floating past he took it
and put it on a tree, both to protect himself from evil
and make the dead girl happy. But one doll wasn’t
enough; soon Don Julián had made the entire island into
a shrine.”
For decades, Don Julián amassed a huge collection of
dolls that had been rejected by their owners, either
plucking them out of the canal as they bobbed past, or
scavenging toys from rubbish heaps on rare excursions
from his secluded home.
In later years, locals began to trade old dolls with Don
Julián in return for home-grown vegetables, and before
his death the hermit’s cadaverous collection covered
every inch of the island – each unloved toy receiving a
second lease of life as part of his surreal shrine.
The Rot
Sets In
Walking
around the tiny island, what’s most striking is how the
dolls have naturally decomposed over time, creating a
gallery of eerie and nightmarish faces.
As well as damage from the sun – which leaves many of
the dolls covered in bubbles, blotches and blisters –
the wind and rain have also left their mark, eroding any
surface paint and leaving behind pale, skull-like faces,
or gradually gnawing away the dolls’ fake hair to create
jagged tufts that make them look as if they’re suffering
from an agonising wasting disease.
Many are also missing arms or legs – or have been given
the limb of another doll that clearly doesn’t match –
and even toys without heads are welcome on the island,
many strung from washing lines or shoved into the gaps
between branches, their exposed necks becoming a home
for the exotic spiders and insects that inhabit this
sprawling agricultural region.
Read more here.
