Mercado de Sonora

It is part of a number of mercados públicos or public markets established by the government to better organize and regulate retail commerce.

The area used to contain exclusively narrow, haphazard streets, but around the same time as the market, a number of main thoroughfares (called ejes) were built and now surround most of the complex.

However, this is also the time to find the widest variety of merchandise, such as nopal cactus and fresh corn from Milpa Alta, flower pots and soil from Xochimilco, and medicinal herbs from Puebla, Morelos and the State of Mexico.

[1] However, the mass of street peddlers outside and the lack of maintenance of the building proper has deteriorated the condition of the market greatly.

[7] What makes this market different and famous are the aisles dedicated to medicinal plants, magic and the occult, which are only two located in the back of the large nave.

[1] The variety of medicinal plants sold is vast and include avocado leaves for inflammations, chiranthodendron for the heart, jacaranda flowers for the stomach and more.

[12] Items for sale include amulets, horseshoes, candles in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and colors, with many of the colors have very specific functions, gold dust, black salt, powders of unknown ingredients, water of Saint Ignatius-to ward off unwanted attention, aromatic lotions and soaps, many of which are related to love spells and more.

There are candles, oils, amulets, soaps, needles, lotions, tobacco, herbs, and services such as spell casting and cleansings all geared to finding, keeping or recovering love.

[9][12] As late as the 1990s, before medical abortion was legalized in Mexico City, one herbal remedy sought in the market was one to promote the termination of a pregnancy.

However, for herbal medicine sellers, demand for a 10-herb blend designed to prevent and treat the flu kept a number of vendors solvent.

[14] Mercado de Sonora is one of the traditional markets for purchasing items related to Day of the Dead in Mexico City on 2 November.

During this time, the aisles fill with items such as sugar skulls, papel picado (crepe paper cut into designs and hung like flags), representations of skeletons and more.

For this family, like most others, it began as a seasonal occupation, but in the first half of the 20th century, Pedro Linares conceived of making fantastic monsters of cartonería which he called alebrijes.

The craft inspired a similar one in Oaxaca, Linares’ home state, made with local wood and generally much smaller, but still fantastic creatures painted in bright patterns and bold designs.

[15] The Linares family continues to make alebrijes and more traditional figures in their workshops located just behind the Mercado de Sonora.

[1] There is also a section that sells live animals, from baby chicks, puppies, kittens, toucans, parrots, hamsters, full grown roosters and hens, ducks, rabbits and various species of snakes.