In the middle of the dark room a light comes on, focusing her. While she, very slowly, removes the black veil that covers her face. An absolute silence and expectation sustains the audience’s anxiety for what she is willing to reveal to them. It stimulates the morbidity of an era that punishes what is different with sarcasm.
When the fabric falls, the reaction is immediate. She surprise, mockery and horror. Here is the one nicknamed: ugliest woman in the world, cute woman, bear woman and even “the perfect hybrid that occupies the place of the missing link of civilization”, as reported by El Clarín.
Her name, Julia Pastrana, the Mexican woman, the Sinaloan woman, the artist with the beautiful, prodigious voice and grace for dance, who triumphed in the United States and Europe in the last six years of her life.
His physical appearance, his body, was the prison, “the little box” where he kept his talents and intelligence. It is said that he was born on February 14, 1834 in Santiago de Ocoroni, municipality of Leyva, Sinaloa (Mexico).
A whole box of rarities
He suffered from congenital generalized hypertrichosis, a genetic disorder that covers the face and body with hair. She also suffered from gingival hyperplasia, which gave her mouth a protruding appearance. Without a doubt, she was different and worse still, frowned upon.
Her generous breasts, her beard, her dark skin, her prominent mouth and her height of 1.35 drove audiences crazy.
The story of Julia Pastrana, the ugliest woman in the world
It was sold to a circus as an object to exploit its rarity in circuses and fairs. First in Mexico and then in the United States, where she meets Theodore Lent, who marries her and, in this way, has control over her.
She was talented. She sang, acted and danced. She did stunts on a horse, a woman who overcame her limitations and who, with great intelligence and ability, made a business of herself. Not without pain.
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Lent exposed her. He exploited her. The tours were endless and at the age of 26 Julia gave birth to a boy who lived only 35 hours and who suffered from the same disease as her. As a result of childbirth, she died five days later of puerperal fever, on March 25, 1860 in Moscow, Russia.
But Pastrana transcended his own life. Mummified by Lent after her death, the show continued. The man embalmed the bodies of mother and son to continue with his business, until a mental illness took him to the asylum until he died.
In the 19th century, marked by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, Pastrana was a novelty. A rarity to show on stage, in a showcase.
Repatriated more than 100 years later
Julia’s body remained on display until 1970. It was later taken to the University of Oslo Medical Research Institute, where it remained until its repatriation to Mexico in 2013. Some 153 years later.
On February 7, the University of Oslo handed over Pastrana’s remains to the Mexican government, and on February 12 she was buried in Leyva, Sinaloa, in a white coffin. She was buried in a vandal-proof grave.
In 2013, a movie chronicled the life of this amazing woman. “The concepts of beauty, canons, feminism, intelligence, ambition, abuse and even the condition of a Mexican immigrant are raised in ‘The Inexplicable Pastrana’ written by Raúl Dorantes and directed by Joel Valentín Martínez. A story where everything makes sense”, according to the Chicago Tribune. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
