Isla de las Muñecas

Isla de las Muñecas is a chinampa, a man-made island of woven reeds and mud, in the canal network of Xochimilco in the south of Mexico City. Four thousand dolls hang from its trees.

Julian Santana Barrera

Around 1950, Julian Santana Barrera left his wife and child and moved to the island alone. He said that a girl had drowned in the canal beside the island, and that her spirit would not leave him alone. He began hanging dolls from the trees to appease her. For fifty years he continued, attaching every doll he found, bought, or was given. He nailed them to tree trunks, tied them to branches, and strung them from clotheslines. The dolls decomposed, lost their limbs, and were colonized by insects. He hung more.

The Death

On April 17, 2001, Barrera was found drowned in the same canal where he said the girl had died. He was eighty years old. His family later said they doubted the girl had ever existed. No record of a drowning matching his description has been found.

The Island Today

The island is now a tourist attraction. Visitors arrive by trajinera, the flat-bottomed boats that navigate the Xochimilco canals. Barrera’s nephew maintains the island. The dolls remain hanging. New ones are still added, now mostly by visitors. The original dolls, after decades of exposure to rain and sun, have the appearance of objects that have suffered.