Mexican Mayor Victor Hugo Sosa Marries Female Reptile (Photos/Video)

As onlookers clapped and danced, the Indigenous Chontal people of the town watched while the Mayor took his betrothed reptile re-enacting an ancestral ritual.

“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.

The wedding allows the sides to “link with what is the emblem of Mother Earth, asking the all-powerful for rain, the germination of the seed, all those things that are peace and harmony for the Chontal man,” explains Jaime Zarate, chronicler of San Pedro Huamelula.

Before the wedding ceremony, the reptile is taken house to house so that inhabitants can  take her in their arms and dance. The alligator wears a green skirt, a colorful hand-embroidered tunic and a headdress of ribbons and sequins. The creature’s snout is bound shut to avoid any pre-marital mishaps.

Later, she is put in a white bride’s costume and taken to town hall for the blessed event.

As part of the ritual, Joel Vasquez, a local fisherman, tosses his net and intones the town’s hopes that the marriage may bring “good fishing, so that there is prosperity, equilibrium and ways to live in peace.”

After the wedding, the mayor dances with his bride to the sounds of traditional music.

“We are happy because we celebrate the union of two cultures. People are content,” Sosa told AFP.

Watch the video below: