- For over 100 years, the preserved corpse of Julia Pastrana was put on display for
the thrill-seeking eyes of the public. Propped up in a defiant
posture with her feet spread, her hands on her hips, Julia's bold stance belied a lifetime of exploitation that had gotten her corpse to that point. During her life, she was often
seen as a body to be gawked at rather than as a human being. Becoming this kind of showpiece after her death was a grimly fitting, if not horribly unjust end. Born with what is now known
as generalized hypertrichosis, a condition that caused hair
to grow all over her face, neck, arms, legs, and much of her torso, as well as what is now recognized
as gingival hyperplasia, a thickening of the lips and gums, Julia had to spend her life
and death as a curiosity. It wasn't until 2013,
153 years after her death and after nearly a decade of petitioning, that Julia's body was finally
repatriated to Mexico, and given a burial the
town of Sinaloa de Leyva, not far from her birthplace. But Julia's long journey home was fraught. Despite consistently being
characterized as remarkably intelligent, observant, charming, and acutely aware of her situation, Julia was condemned by society's obsession with her appearance. Even in death, she could not escape it. And that is why, as women around the world still battle for the right to govern their own bodies, we honor Julia Pastrana, Iconic Corpse. Strap in deathlings. This one's a doozy. It was said that when Julia was born into a tribe residing in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico in 1834, her mother feared that
her appearance was due to supernatural interference AKA werewolves. (werewolves howling) As this was over a century
and a half before Twilight when fans would have like,
totally made Team Julia t-shirts, her mother hid Julia in a cave for the first
two years of her life. For many reasons the timeline
of Julia's early life isn't completely clear, it seems her mother died
when Julia was young and she was brought to an orphanage, and possibly sold to a
traveling circus by her uncle, before going to live with the governor of Sinaloa, Pedro Sanchez. It seems that during her time with Governor Sanchez Julia was trained in dancing and singing, and learned to speak fluent English, French, and Spanish, in addition to her native language, but her life with
Sanchez was no fairytale. She was his live-in amusement and maid and he studied her. When Julia chose to return to her tribe at the age of 20, she was instead persuaded
by an American man to begin her life on the stage. Becoming famous the world over, Julia's act consisted of her singing in her capable mezzo-soprano
voice and dancing. However, it was not her
talents that drew audiences. It was her appearance, her reputation as half-human, the Ape Woman, the Bear Woman, the Baboon Lady. Examined by a Dr. Alexander
B. Mott of New York, he confirmed that she was
in fact half-orangutan. Seriously, how hard was it to become a doctor back in the day? If I've learned anything
from these Iconic Corpses, it's that all you needed
to be a doctor in the 1800s was a jar of formaldehyde and then go like, Hello, I'm a doctor And though other medical professionals would go on to dispute Mott, saying Julia was completely human, it was far more lucrative for the various showman and managers that Julia was passed around to, to continue the tall tale of her questionable parentage. Of these type of folks, Theodore Lent was the worst. Showing and controlling Julia's image, billing her as The Nondescript, the Female Hybrid among other things, Lent became very wealthy because of her. Furthermore, to make sure
that his golden goose never strayed, Lent proposed marriage to Julia. Girl it's a trap. Despite the pain Lent's greed caused her, Julia was devoted to him, confiding in her friend, a Viennese actress and singer that my husband loves me for myself. Lent and Julia married, and while visiting Moscow in March of 1860 she gave birth to a baby boy, who was also covered in hair. Sadly, the infant only lived 35 hours and Julia only for five days after that. Though the romantic idea was that she died of a broken heart, she was actually lacerated
by forceps during birth and died of inflammation of the peritoneum about the uterus. If you've been paying attention to the Iconic Corpse videos this year, you'll know that here is where the mad scientist embalmer with a secret embalming
technique conveniently shows up. Enter Professor Sokolov
of Moscow University. Hey professor. Sokolov agreed to embalm Julia and her son using his secret new
method of his own devising, A method that blended
mummification with taxidermy. After the six months it took
to embalm Julia and her son, the pair were propped up, posed, and displayed at Moscow
University's Anatomical Institute, as was the agreement Sokolov
made with her husband Lent. Did I mention Theodore Lent was the worst? Well it gets even better. Realizing that Julia and their son could still make him money, he removed them from display in Moscow and transferred them to London where after a stint of being viewed by the public for a shilling, he took them on tour. Eventually Lent met a
woman named Marie Bartel, a woman with a similar condition to Julia and married her as well. Theodore Lent sucks. He renamed Marie Zenora Pastrana, calling her Julia's little sister and had her perform onstage with the corpses of Julia and her son displayed in the background. I can't, I can't I quit this job. I quit. After years of touring, with Lent making more
money off of his wives, Lent and Bartel retired in St. Petersburg where Lent promptly went insane and died in an asylum. Good good, good. By the way, don't cry for Marie Bartel. She went on to live in Dresden and marry a man 20 years younger than her. Suck it Theodore. Bartel sold Julia and her son to a Norwegian man who exhibited them in Oslo. His son later took them on tour and displayed them in
his chamber of horrors. The Nazis, of all people, ended these freak shows
during World War II and the corpses of Julia and her son were placed in storage in Sweden, then Norway until the 1970s when they would occasionally
make public appearances. But times they were a-changing, and by 1973 Sweden and
Norway no longer allowed corpses to be displayed for profit. Back into storage Julia and her son went until some miscreant youths broke into the warehouse in Oslo where they were being kept, breaking Julia's arm off and
throwing her son's corpse into a field where rodents ate him. Is Theodore Lent history's
greatest unknown villain? Julia's corpse disappeared in 1979 when again the warehouse was broken into then reappeared in a janitor's closet at the Institute of Forensic
Medicine in Oslo in 1990. How did nobody notice Julia next to the Bona and Krystal soap? Note, those are actual
Swedish and Norwegian floor cleaners I think. From there began the long discussion of what to do with Julia's corpse. To bury or not to bury? At first it was decided to keep her body above Ground at the University of Oslo so that one day she might be studied. However, in 2005 Laura Anderson Barbata, a Mexico City native and
artist in residency in Oslo, began petitioning the university for the repatriation of Julia's body. While at first the university resisted, Barbata eventually went before Norway's National Committee for the Evaluation of
Research on Human Remains and they agreed that it seems quite unlikely
that Julia Pastrana would have wanted her body to remain a specimen in
an anatomical collection. On February 12, 2013, after years of Barbata's
tireless dedication and the governor of Sinaloa
and the Mexican ambassador to Norway being involved, Julia Pastrana was buried in a
cemetery in Sinaloa de Leyva. Her tomb was covered with thousands of flowers sent from people all over the world. Though it took 179 years, Julia finally was shown the respect, dignity, and basic
recognition of her humanity. That she so sorely lacked in life. And that deathlings, is the long, sad story
of the life and death of Julia Pastrana. Survivor, woman, mother,
and Iconic Corpse. If you want to know more
about Julia Pastrana, check out Order member
Bess Lovejoy's conversation with Laura Anderson Barbata on The Order Blog as well, as the book The Eye of the Beholder: Julia
Pastrana's Long Journey Home which is edited by Laura Anderson Barbata and Donna Wingate, and features a contribution from Bess. Who's in a great mood here at the end of the year? This video was made with generous donations from death enthusiasts just like you. Girl it's a trap. It's a trap!
Did anyone else have a flashback to AHS: Freakshow and genuinely want to cry for Julia and her child?
I feel so bad her son didn't get to be buried along with her.