“Extraordinary hybrid”, “bear woman”, “world’s ugliest woman”. .. are the nicknames people give to this woman.
Contemporaries thought she was a cross between a human and an orangutan , and believed they had discovered a lost connection. And not only her appearance, but the story of this woman’s life is also the most different in history.
According to the Open Encyclopedia, Julia Pastrana (1834-1860) was a Mexican dancer with hyperhidrosis . Julia Pastrana’s disease is incurable . Her entire face and body were covered with black hairs. The ears and nose are also abnormally large, especially the teeth are oversized and irregular.
Theodor Lent, who later became Pastrana’s husband, is said to have discovered Pastrana and bought Pastrana from someone who at the time was suspected to be Pastrana’s biological mother. Lent taught Pastrana to dance and play music, then took her to perform around the world under the name “Bearded and Hairy Lady”. Despite her less attractive appearance, Julia Pastrana is a smart, sweet and trilingual woman. Tours have helped Julia Pastrana escape poverty since birth and travel the world.
Julia Pastrana is thought to have been born to an American tribe living on the western slopes of Mexico. No one knew about her early years until her first public appearance was in 1834, when she was led out and introduced at Gothic Hall on Broadway.
In the eyes of the public, Julia Pastrana really had a thrilling debut. Her body is covered with hair, and her face is also covered with hair. On that hairy face, one side of the jaw protrudes, the gums swell so they push the teeth and push them out. Those things add to the strangeness of the appearance.
With a height of about 1.3m, it can be said that she looks more like a special monkey than a girl. But she has respectable dignity. Standing in front of thousands of spectators, Julia gently looked down and sang the words with the most beautiful voice. She was fully aware of the fact that she was different, but used those differences and her strength of personality to overcome her fate.
Julia Pastrana is said to be a bear hybrid.
After moving to Cleveland with her new boss, Julia began to captivate and amaze audiences with her charm. She began to gain popularity, even being invited to perform at important meetings and military shows. Not long after, she began touring around the United States.
At that time England became very interested and advertised Julia in the major newspapers. The public began to call her “The Mysterious Person” in the same way we use to call what we still cannot explain today. The press had no way of gathering enough information about her and they were amazed to learn that Julia is not only a famous singer , but she can also speak several other languages fluently. each other, including Spanish and English.
At that time she was helped by Theodore Lent, who became a manager, to help her practice dancing and performing on stage. She tried her best to be famous on stage rather than a monster as they used to refer to people like her. After a warm reception in London, Julia embarked on a tour of the German capital, Berlin, where there were huge changes in her appearance, from whimsical performances to image of a girl singing on stage. She first appeared in a play that was a mixture of love story and comedy called Der Curierte Meyer.
At that time, she received many marriage proposals. This made Mr. Lent realize that if he did not want to lose the “treasure” , the only way was to marry Julia himself. In 1857 they married, and although Julia was often around, he always treated her like a commodity and grew increasingly enthusiastic in exploiting. While on tour from the Netherlands to Russia, Julia realized she was pregnant. On March 20, 1860, Julia gave birth to her first son, a hairy child who lived only 35 hours. Just five days after the death of her first son, Julia also passed away.
It was thought that after her death, Julia would be buried with dignity and would be treated like a lady like she had been. But that did not happen when her husband did not easily overlook the potential of making money from his wife, even as a corpse. Lent sold the bodies of her and her son to a professor at Moscow University. He dissected the bodies and then embalmed them for display in the university’s museum, where they were likely to attract the most visitors.
But that is not the end. Lent took advantage of public outrage, suing the court so that her body could be returned. And he won the case. In 1862 Julia was brought back to England by her miserable husband and was once again displayed and humiliated. Julia’s body was only dressed in a ball gown. Her first son was dressed in a sailor suit, and they put him on a pedestal for display as they did with the ill-fated mother.
Thousands of curious people came and only had to pay a shilling to be able to see the poor woman and her son with their own eyes. Julia’s body is rotated from the university to the museum. Finally, when few people came to see the bodies, Lent gave her corpse to the one who brought him the most profit. But things don’t stop there.
Strangely enough, Lent married another woman who looked a lot like Julia and after a while, he forced everyone to believe that his new wife was Julia’s sister. He called her Zenora Pastrana. Not long after that, he took Julia’s body on a trip with his newlywed wife. Finally, Lent and his new bride took refuge in Saint Petersburg (Russia) and opened a shop in a museum casting wax figures.
Later, Lent suddenly suffered a nervous breakdown and ended up being treated in a psychiatric sanatorium in town. Not long after that, he passed away. Zenora, his new wife, continued to carry the body with her travels. She ended up marrying a much younger man. From then until several decades later Julia’s body appeared and disappeared.
In a box, the bodies of Julia and her less than a month old son were transferred from one person to another, from one country to another like a commodity. It wasn’t until one day in 1976 that the supposedly safe vault where her body was kept was broken into and destroyed. The child’s body was torn to pieces. Julia’s body was moved again and then the same thing happened again.
Finally, in 1990, Julia’s body was found in the basement of the Medical Forensic Academy in Oslo, Norway. The body is still there to this day. Now, with compassion and a sense of morality, we have come to realize that she is not only strange in appearance, but also a woman of dignity and virtue. Many people hope that one day soon, she will be solemnly buried, and a statue will be erected to show us all: This is a woman of courage .