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Mexico's "Ape Woman" Finally Brought Home and Buried After 150 Years
The world's "ugliest woman in the world" was finally laid to rest today in her native Mexico, finally putting a sad chapter to rest in human history.
According to BBC, Julia Pastrana was born in 1834. She suffered from a condition called "hypertrichosis", which caused her face to be covered with hair and a jutting jaw. Her appearance led her to be called names like the "ape woman" and the "bear woman".
During the 1850s, the Huffington Post reports that Ms. Pastrana met the American Theodore Lent. In 1854, she left the Pacific state of Sinaloa at the age of 20, in order to travel the world. Lent toured her around Europe and Russia, where Pastrana danced and sang at parties in order to display her unusual condition.
During the 1850s, Pastrana married Lent and bore him a son, according to NBC News. However, the occasion turned tragic. Their son had inherited his mother's condition and passed away days later. Pastrana too became ill, due to complications from childbirth, and passed away.
However, Lent was not done showcasing Julia Pastrana. After the death of his wife and son, Lent had the bodies embalmed. He then traveled Europe, showcasing the bodies. Her remains ended up in Norway, where they were held in storage at the University of Oslo for years, with the exception of a brief period during the 1970s when the body was stolen, left behind and picked up again by the police.
Now, 150 years after her death, Norway has sent the body back to the state of Sinaloa, after a request from the Mexican government, led by a decade-long campaign by artist Laura Anderson Barbata. Her body was finally laid to rest after a Roman Catholic mass in a local church. Her body was carried to an area cemetery, where it was finally buried.
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