Los alebrijes are Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical animals invented by Pedro Linares López in 1936 in Mexico. They’re made of paper or wood and represent an imaginary animal, combining the form of two or more animals. Their structure is made of wood or carrizo and the outside part is wrapped in papier-maché and cardboard. They can also come in the form of carved wood little statues.
The origin of the word alebrijes comes from a time when Pedro was sick, bedridden, and had a dream where there were animals with several different shapes and colors, with wings, horns, tails, pointy teeth and bulgy eyes. In this dream Pedro heard a voice saying “Alebrijes!”, “Alebrijes!”. He woke up, and as he was an artisan in Arrazola, Oaxaca, he began to produce those little animal sculptures.
Some people say that alebrijes are demons who come from trees, caves, rivers and clouds and others claim that they come from typical animal masks from Oaxaca. At first they were little sculptures but nowadays you can see whole parades of large alebrijes on the street, like in the video below:
This is it for today, nos vemos prontito.
