In reenacting an ancient ceremony, the mayor of San Pedro Huamelula,a community of Indigenous Chontal people in Mexico’s Tehuantepec isthmus, Victor Hugo Sosa, has married a crocodile named Alicia Adriana.
The reptile is a caiman, a marsh creature that is native to Mexico and Central America and resembles an alligator.
Sosa swore to be true to what local lore calls “the princess girl.”
“I accept responsibility because we love each other. That is what is important. You can’t have a marriage without love… I yield to marriage with the princess girl,” Sosa said during the ritual.
Since 230 years ago, a man and a female caiman have been married to mark the occasion when two Indigenous communities made peace through matrimony.
According to tradition, conflicts were resolved when a Chontal king, represented in modern times by the mayor, wed a princess girl of the Huave Indigenous group, symbolised by the female alligator.
Near this inland village, in the state of Oaxaca, reside the Huave.
In order to “link with what is the emblem of Mother Earth, asking the all-powerful for rain, the germination of the seed, and all those things that are peace and harmony for the Chontal man,” as Jaime Zarate, chronicler of San Pedro Huamelula, puts it, the parties can “link with what is the symbol of Mother Earth” at the wedding.
The lizard is transported from home to house before the wedding so that the residents can dance with her while she is in their arms. The alligator is decked out with a green skirt, a vibrant hand-embroidered tunic, and a ribbon and sequin headpiece.
To prevent any pre-marriage catastrophes, the creature’s snout is tied shut.
She is afterwards dressed as a white bride and brought to town hall for the blessed occasion.
Joel Vasquez, a local fisherman, casts his net as part of the tradition and expresses the town’s hopes that the marriage will bring “good fishing, so that there is prosperity, equilibrium, and ways to live in peace.”
Following the ceremony, the mayor and his bride dance to traditional music.
“We are happy because we celebrate the union of two cultures. People are content,” Sosa told AFP.
As the dance winds down, the king plants a kiss on the snout of the “princess girl.”
