A Mexican indigenous
woman exhibited in 19th-Century Europe as the “world’s ugliest woman” has been
buried in her native Mexico some 150 years after her death. Julia Pastrana, who suffered from a genetic
condition that covered her face in hair, performed in circuses as a freak of
nature. After she died in 1860, her American husband toured with her embalmed
body, which ended up in Norway.
Her remains were returned this week for a proper
burial, after a long campaign. People flocked to the town of Sinaloa de Leyva
on Tuesday where Julia Pastrana was laid to rest in a white coffin adorned with
white roses. “Imagine the aggression and cruelty of humankind she had to face,
and how she overcame it. It’s a very dignified story,” said Sinaloa Governor
Mario Lopez. “A human being should not be the object of anyone,” Father Jaime
Reyes Retana told mourners.
Julia Pastrana, who was born in 1834, suffered from
hypertrichosis which covered her face in hair and had a jutting jaw. Because of
her appearance she was called a “bear woman” or “ape woman”.
In the 1850s, she met and married US impresario
Theodore Lent who took her round freak shows, where she would sing and dance.
She died in 1860 in Moscow after giving birth to a son who had the same
condition and lived for only a few days. But Julia Pastrana’s story did not end
there as Lent continued to tour with their embalmed bodies. The corpses finally
ended up in Norway, where, in a further twist in 1976, they were stolen, dumped
and recovered by the police.
The remains ended up in storage at the University
of Oslo. Mexican artist Laura Anderson Barbata began a campaign for Julia
Pastrana’s body to be returned home in 2005, with Mexican officials
subsequently lending their weight to her request. “I felt she deserved the
right to regain her dignity and her place in history, and in the world’s
memory,” Ms Barbata told.
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