Mexican Mayor Marries Alligator 'Dressed as a Bride' as Part of an Ancient Ritual for Good Fortune

A Mexican mayor married an alligator nicknamed "little princess" as part of an ancient ritual in the Central American nation. The marriage ritual gain grounds both on social media, as well as local and international news of the bizarre yet culturally-embedded event that has been practiced for hundreds of years.

Mayor Hugo Sosa of San Pedro Huamelula reportedly brought perceived "prosperity" and "good fortune" to his constituents and residents of the town in Oaxaca state, Mexico. The small reptile resembled a typical bride of a human as it wore a wedding dress, a wedding veil, and other garments when the wedding ceremony took place on Thursday, June 30.

Reports reveal that residents danced in traditional music and requested the mayor to seal the marriage rite by planting his lips more than once to the gator's mouth, which was safely tied up to prevent any potential alligator bites.

The attendees also carried the alligator into the streets of San Pedro Huamelula, where trumpets played and men waved their hats. The local treatment to the alligator bride stems from a local harvest tradition, wherein local believed that an alligator in a particular generation resembles the body of a deity.

Mayor Marries Alligator

San Pedro Huamelula is now embedded with a mixture of Catholic spirituality when the age-old ritual took place last week. The seven-year-old alligator or caiman was reportedly believed to be a goddess representing mother earth.

Elia Edit Aguilar, also called the "godmother" who organized the wedding, stated that it gives her happiness and pride to her roots, as cited by Reuters. Aguilar adds she felt privileged to be entrusted with the task of carrying out the ceremony, which took time for preparations to be made.

There are no details provided as to the exact timeline or interval for the human-alligator marriage ceremony to take place.

In 2015, a similar event took place when the former mayor of San Pedro Huamelul, Joel Vazueqz Rojas, married an alligator as part of a traditional service to bring luck and prosperity to local fishermen, as reported by NBC News.

The events reportedly reveal that locals consider the bonding between a local leader and a chosen alligator to serve as an act equivalent to an offering or a prayer in exchange for a blessing.

Ancient Tradition

Both their cultural and religious beliefs, as well as the wedding ritual itself, signify that an abundance of natural resources and away from famine is assured. The tradition dates back pre-Hispanic times when indigenous communities in Mexico worship their local gods.

The religious worship in Mexico preceded the teachings and practice of Catholicism, which came into the country through a series of European exploration and colonization of the Americas. The conquest was initially influenced by the arrival of Italian explorer and navigator Christopher Columbus in the continent.

In the recent marriage event, the practice was likely derived from Oaxaca's Chontal and Huave indigenous communities. With a limited data, the said indigenous communities from the state were mentioned in a special article about equality and public health in July 2021.