Photography by John Dickie

The museum’s glass cabinets emanate a golden, soporific glow. It feels like an exhibit of Aztec treasure. Maybe a hundred years from now they will be on show in a real museum somewhere: artifacts from the Narco period in Mexican history; remnants of a criminal culture. And it really is a culture. They call it Narcocultura. Not just the corrido songs telling stories of daring smugglers and bordertown shoot-outs, or the extravagant narco cowboy shirts and hats and boots; we’re talking real roots culture. “This scene says it all; it is the first rung on the trafficking chain,” explained the army tour guide as we arrived to a surreal replica scene of a mannequin narco guarding his crops, complete with shotgun, empty beer cans, and a stereo blaring out a narcocorrido.