An indigenous Mexican woman put on display in Victorian-era Europe because of a rare genetic condition that covered her face in thick hair has been buried in her home state in a ceremony that ends one of the best-known episodes from an era when live human beings were treated as collectible specimens.
With her hairy face and body, jutting jaw and other deformities, Julia Pastrana became known as “ape woman” after she was taken to the U.S. by showman Theodore Lent in 1854, when she was 20. She died in childbirth in 1860 and her body ended up at the University of Oslo, Norway.
After Government and private requests to return her body, the University shipped her remains to the state of Sinaloa, where they were laid to rest Tuesday afternoon.
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