Born Sergio Arturo Castro Martínez in 1941 in the city of Delicias, Chihuahua state and then raised in an orphanage, Sergio Castro trained as agronomer, veterinarian, civil engineer and teacher. He moved from his birth state on Mexico's northern border to Chiapas, a state bordering Guatemala, in 1964. Chiapas has many superlatives among Mexican states, having one of the highest percentage of population belonging to an Indigenous group, it is considered to one of the richest in natural resources but also being the economically poorest.
In this context, Castro assisted in building basic facilities like schools and outhouses in indigenous-majority communities. Through this work, he picked up on a few things. For starters, he became fluent in Toztzil/Tsotsil and Tzeltal/Tseltal, the languages of the Mayan family which are the most widely-spoken among the state's Indigenous populations.
He also realized the failures of Mexico's healthcare system towards disadvantaged communities, often based on systemic racism, which lead to a significant percentage of these people to have little access to or trust in mainstream medicine. Traditional medicine remains commonplace for many indigenous populations in Mexico, but Castro's veterinarian training allowed him to use his knowledge to treat some injuries and burns on people that traditional remedies had not managed to cure.
Doing this work free of charge and across large swaths of land also lead to Castro picking up nicknames like "El Andalón" (The Walker or Wanderer) in Spanish and two in Tzotzil: "Bankilal" (Big Brother) and "YokChij" (Deer Leg), with this last one seemingly being his favorite as it is also the name of his charitable organization. "El Andalón" would become the title of a 2010 documentary about his life and work. Castro's collection was amassed during his travels as well, since many people would gift him clothing and artifacts to thank him for his services. By the 1970s, he turned part of his San Cristóbal home and clinic into a museum where he could showcase the cultures of the state he loved, while collecting for donations to maintain his work.
In addition to the Maya languages, he knows several European ones, which he used to provide tours of the collection, with Italian, French and English joining his native Spanish. As of mid-2025, visiting the museum might no longer include a tour, but it is still possible to get a glimpse into the life of and likely meet the man that was recognized in 2023 as "Living Immaterial Heritage" of Chiapas state.
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