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On October 19, hundreds of giant alebrijes paraded on floats through the main avenues of Mexico City. What are they and what do they represent?

Alebrijes are fantastic or mythical creatures made of cardboard that were born from a deep dream of Mexican artisan Pedro Linares L&&o&&pez, who fell ill and became unconscious and, according to him, the strange creatures were revealed to him.

“When he woke up from that trance, he began to feel an improvement in his health and to remember what he had dreamed. From then on, he felt the need to replicate what he saw,” his grandson Ricardo Linares told CNN from his workshop in the La Merced neighborhood in downtown Mexico City.

“First he tried it with clay, then with other materials until he succeeded with cardboard, a craft to which he dedicated his entire life.”

Ricardo, who is the third generation of cartoneros in his family, says that his grandfather may have fallen ill from a poorly treated wound after participating in the armed conflict known as the “Cristero War,” which ended in 1929. Another version is that he experienced catalepsy, a central nervous disorder characterized by immobility, muscle rigidity and decreased sensitivity to pain, according to the Institute of Social Security and Services for State Workers (ISSSTE).

With an apron and paste in his hands, he details more about his grandfather Pedro’s dream: “He arrives at a kind of forest where he sees that the trees and their branches; the stones, the clouds, begin to take the form of animals with claws, wings and teeth,” says Linares, who affirms that the word alebrijes did not exist before Pedro Linares dreamed it. “Then, in that place these creatures begin to speak, they said: ‘alebrijes.’ My grandfather says that they guided him, and suddenly, he woke up.”

Although it is not clear what happened to Pedro Linares, it was as a result of this episode that he began to create these figures, which are classified as “one of the greatest expressions of popular culture in Mexico” and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Mexico City, according to the Ministry of Culture. In addition, they have been recognized internationally with exhibitions in places such as the Rockefeller Center in New York and the Lille 3000 Festival in France.

The alebrijes have also been an inspiration for filmmakers such as Judith Bronowski and François Reichenbach, who continually visited Linares' workshop and even bought several alebrijes, according to Pedro Linares' son, Miguel Linares.

In 1960, Miguel began to experiment with the shape, style, size and colors of the alebrijes, achieving the figures as they are known today. His father started with rigid figures of about 50 centimeters with dark colors in shades of gray, brown and green. Miguel was the one who took them to a large scale with measurements ranging from 2 to 5 meters in height. To make an alebrije you only need paper, paste and paint, the base for making a pi&&n&&ata.

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