Mexico's Creepiest Tourist Destination : Terrifying Island of Dolls

The Island Of The Dolls (Isla de las Muñecas), located in the vast network of canals that lies to the south of Mexico City, near Xochimilco is one of the creepiest tourist attraction in Mexico. Here, among the branches and dead trees hang hundreds of old, mutilated dolls. The story goes that some half a century ago a little girl drowned off a small island hidden deep amongst the canals of Xochimico. The island’s only permanent inhabitant was a hermit named Don Julián Santana Barrera, who despite having a wife and family, chose to live alone on the island. Soon after the girl’s death Barrera fished out one doll after another from the canals. Convinced that this was a sign from the evil spirit, Don Julian Santana began hanging them on trees to protect himself from evil and calm the spirit of the dead girl. Soon Don Julián had made the entire island into a shrine.

What doesn’t help this place becoming a popular travel destination is the fact that almost every single tree is decorated with deformed and mutilated dolls. The dolls almost seem evil and I seriously wonder where one would buy such creepy dolls. As you walk the island, it supposedly feels like you are being watched at all times. Well of course creepy toys aren’t enough to make this a candidate for scariest place in the world. You guessed it, the island is supposedly haunted! Even though the island is totally abandoned, over 50 years ago, a man named Don Julian Santana left his wife and kids and moved there to live the rest of his life alone. When he was living there, the body of a dead little girl came floating up in one of the canals. Don Julian thought he had become haunted by her spirit. He began to collect dolls and decorate the island with them. He would trade vegetables and fruits in exchange for any dolls. The dolls were believed to be used by Don Julian as a shrine for the spirit that haunted him. Over the 50 years that he lived there, he continuously collected dolls and decorated them all over the island, until he died.

Mexico's Creepiest Tourist Destination : Terrifying Island of Dolls 

The Tarim Mummies - The Deads Tell a Tale

The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, China, which date from 1900 BC to 200 AD. In addition to being very well-preserved finds, controversy flows around them as DNA tests seem to show that they are the result of Asian and Caucasian mating thousands of years before it's commonly thought that the two peoples intermingled.

The Taklamakan Mummies (Tocharian mummies)

In the late 1980's, perfectly preserved 3000-year-old mummies began appearing in a remote Taklamakan desert. They had long reddish-blond hair, European features and didn't appear to be the ancestors of modern-day Chinese people. Archaeologists now think they may have been the citizens of an ancient civilization that existed at the crossroads between China and Europe.

Victor Mair, a specialist in the ancient corpses and co-author of “Mummies of the Tarim Basin”, said:"Modern DNA and ancient DNA show that Uighurs, Kazaks, Krygyzs, the peoples of Central Asia are all mixed Caucasian and East Asian. The modern and ancient DNA tell the same story.” The discoveries in the 1980s of the undisturbed 4,000-year-old ”Beauty of Loulan” and the younger 3,000-year-old body of the ”Charchan Man” are legendary in world archaeological circles for the fine state of their preservation and for the wealth of knowledge they bring to modern research. In the second millennium BC, the oldest mummies, like the Loulan Beauty, were the earliest settlers in the Tarim Basin.


The Tarim Mummies - The Deads Tell a Tale 

Sokushinbutsu - The Bizarre Practice of Self Mummification

Scattered throughout Northern Japan around the Yamagata Prefecture are two dozen mummified Japanese monks known as Sokushinbutsu, who caused their own deaths in a way that resulted in their mummification. The practice was first pioneered by a priest named Kuukai over 1000 years ago at the temple complex of Mount Koya, in Wakayama prefecture. Estimates of the number of self-mummified priests in Japan range between sixteen and twenty-four priests. Impressive though this number is, many more have tried to self-mummify themselves; In fact, the practice of self-mummification -- which is a form of suicide, after all -- had to be outlawed towards the end of the 19th century to prevent Buddhist priests from offing themselves this way. and yet the grand majority of priests who have tried to do this have failed. The reasons will take some explaining -- but first, some background on the whole practice and the reasons for it.

Sokushinbutsu refers to a practice of Buddhist monks observing austerity to the point of death and mummification. This process of self-mummification was mainly practised in Yamagata in Northern Japan between the 11th and 19th century, by members of the Japanese Vajrayana school of Buddhism called Shingon ("True Word"). The practitioners of sokushinbutsu did not view this practice as an act of suicide, but rather as a form of further enlightenment. Those who succeeded were revered, while those who failed were nevertheless respected for the effort.

It is believed that many hundreds of monks tried, but only 24 such mummifications have been discovered to date. There is a common suggestion that Shingon school founder Kukai brought this practice from Tang China as part of secret tantric practices he learned, and that were later lost in China. Today, the practice is not advocated or practiced by any Buddhist sect, and is banned in Japan. The practice was satirized in the story "The Destiny That Spanned Two Lifetimes" by Ueda Akinari, in which such a monk was found centuries later and resuscitated. 

Sokushinbutsu - The Bizarre Practice of Self Mummification

Creepy Historical Vampire - The Terrifying Tale of Peter Plogojowitz

 

Peter Plogojowitz (died 1725) was a Serbian peasant who was believed to have become a vampire after his death and to have killed nine of his fellow villagers. The case was one of the earliest, most sensational and most well documented cases of vampire hysteria. It was described in the report of Imperial Provisor Frombald, an official of the Austrian administration, who witnessed the staking of Plogojowitz.

The case

Peter Plogojowitz lived in a village named Kisilova (possibly the modern Kisiljevo), in the part of Serbia that temporarily passed from Ottoman into Austrian hands after the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718) and was ceded back to the Ottomans with the Treaty of Belgrade (1739) (see Arnold Paole - Background for more details on the historical context). Plogojowitz died in 1725, and his death was followed by a spate of other sudden deaths (after very short maladies, reportedly of about 24 hours each). Within eight days, nine persons perished. On their death-beds, the victims allegedly claimed to have been throttled by Plogojowitz at night. Furthermore, Plogojowitz's wife stated that he had visited her and asked her for his opanci (shoes); she then moved to another village. In other legends, it is said that Plogojowitz came back to his house demanding food from his son and, when the son refused, Plogojowitz brutally murdered him. The villagers decided to disinter the body and examine it for signs of vampirism, such as growing hair, beard and nails, and the absence of decomposition.

The inhabitants of Kisilova demanded that Kameralprovisor Frombald, along with the local priest, should be present at the procedure as a representative of the administration. Frombald tried to convince them that permission from the Austrian authorities in Belgrade should be sought first. The locals declined because they feared that by the time the permission came, the whole community could be exterminated by the vampire, which they claimed had already happened "in Turkish times" (i.e. when the village was still in the Ottoman-controlled part of Serbia). They demanded that Frombald himself should immediately permit the procedure or else they would abandon the village to save their lives. Frombald was forced to consent.

Creepy Historical Vampire - The Terrifying Tale of Peter Plogojowitz