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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

International A Burial for Julia Pastrana, the "Bear Woman"

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 3:05 PM

This New York Times story about one artist's decade-long quest to get the embalmed body of a 19th-century circus performer, Julia Pastrana, a woman once billed as "the ugliest woman in the world,” repatriated to her birth place in Mexico, is sad and fascinating:

Pastrana was born in Mexico in 1834. She had two rare diseases, undiagnosed in her lifetime: generalized hypertrichosis lanuginosa, which covered her face and body in thick hair, and gingival hyperplasia, which thickened her lips and gums.

... In 1859 Pastrana became pregnant by Lent while touring. Her infant inherited her hypertrichosis and died hours after his birth in Moscow, and Pastrana died from complications five days later.

Lent soon began exhibiting the embalmed bodies of his wife and son. He later found a bearded woman in Germany whom he married and billed as Pastrana’s sister, “Zenora Pastrana.” The couple traveled, and Zenora performed alongside the bodies.

After Lent’s death, Pastrana’s body was exhibited widely, most recently by a Norwegian fairground operator in the early 1970s. In 1976 thieves broke into a warehouse owned by the fairground’s heir and stole the bodies of Pastrana and her son...

According to the article, Pastrana was finally laid to rest in Sinaloa, Mexico, today.

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Comments (4) RSS

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Thanks for posting this. I read about Julia Pastrana in school and her sad story stuck with me. It made me really happy to hear she is finally being treated with the dignity that was denied her in both life and death.

Posted by Mighty Kaytor

on February 12, 2013 at 3:38 PM

Thanks for sharing the story; it was an interesting read.

Glad it had a happy ending.

Posted by MLM on February 12, 2013 at 3:55 PM

That reminds me of the story of Joice Heth, who was supposedly George Washington's nurse, and one of P.T. Barnum's star attraction in the antebellum period. Her body also went on tour for an extended period of time in the U.S, I don't recall for how long. There is a book on the subject called The Showman and the Slave that is excellent: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_…

Posted by lowlytootle