Dolls and the Condenado (the Condemned One)
A Girl and Her Doll (Walter Coraza Morveli)
In a town near the city of Cusco lived a family made up of a mother and her daughter. Every day they would go to get water from a well that was close. At the same time near the well was an abandoned house. Without paying it any attention they went about their daily activities.
One day the girl looked in the abandoned house and saw inside it lots of beautiful dolls and gold. She ran to her mother to tell her what she had seen but the mother did not give it any importance.
Some days went by and the woman saw that in her dauther’s rooms there were lots of beautiful dolls made of porcelain as well as of plaster. She asked her daughter were she had gotten the dolls and the girl replied innocently. She said sh had found them in the abandoned house near the well.
The mother loaded all the dolls in a queperina, a hand woven carrying cloth, and carried them to the abandoned house in order to give them back. When she lowered the queperina to get the dolls out and return them she was surprised to see that there was nothing in the cloth.
The air inside the house suddenly became heavy and a repugnant smell developed. In front of her she suddenly say a man all dressed in black.
Filled with repugnance and unable to do anything else, the woman fled. The man was a condemned one and he wanted to eat her.
As she was running she ran into a drunk man and paid him no heed. She almost lost her soul.
When she got to the house of her aunt, they took her to the curandera, the healer, so that she could receive a healing cleansing of her body and, hopefully, recover.
After hearing what had happened, the neighbors went to that abandoned house and in it found the cadaver of a young man. It was missing various pieces.
The condemned one, the condenado, had killed the boy and had been devouring his cadaver.
In this house were carried out satanic rituals and witchcraft. The condenado would attract children with toys, fooling them so that he could later eat them.