On Display
and yet Unseen

The Life of Julia Pastrana

Words by Laura Anderson Barbata

(Interior page) Zine 1. La Extraordinaria Historia de Julia Pastrana. How can I get to know you? 2015. Laura Anderson Barbata in collaboration with Erik Tlaseca. 

Julia Pastrana (1834-1860), an indigenous woman born in Sinaloa, México, was a gifted mezzo soprano singer, musician, and dancer who could converse in English, Spanish, French and her native language: Cahita. From birth, Pastrana´s face and body were covered with thick hair, and her jaw was disproportionately large, all due to a severe congenital condition called hypertrichosis terminalis and hyperplasia gingival. This physicality would shape the trajectory of her life. It brought her into the public eye and predetermined what people expected of her.  Julia Pastrana, with her talent and grace, defied these assumptions.

Little is known of her childhood. Historians in Mexico tell us that she was sold and bought from the time she was an infant. Historian Ricardo Mimiaga´s research reveals that by the time she was an adolescent she was living in the home of the Governor of Sinaloa, likely as a curiosity. In her early twenties, she performed on stage in Guadalajara, Mexico receiving extensive praise and press coverage that reached the United States. The publicity reached a young American named Theodore Lent and the Governor of Sinaloa and the Director of Customs of Mexico partnered with the intent to sell Julia Pastrana. Julia Pastrana arrived at the port of New Orleans to be sold as property, like a frightening number of people before and after her. Before the commercial transaction took place Lent secretly convinced Julia Pastrana to marry him, leaving Mr. Sepulveda, the Director of Customs of Mexico, without a legal claim of ownership.

 Lent immediately became Julia Pastrana´s manager-owner, designing materials and crafting language promoting the unusual contrast between Pastrana´s appearance and her talents. He billed her as -the ugliest woman in the world, half-woman half-ape, bear woman, the misnomered, the female nondescript- among many other sobriquets, they toured ceaselessly through North America and Europe with great commercial success. Lent controlled all aspects of her exhibition, including forbidding her to be seen in public with her face uncovered minimizing the loss of a oogeling, paying theater patrons. At the age of 26 she becomes pregnant by Lent and they travel to Russia where she gives birth to a baby boy. Their child was born with the same condition as his mother, and he tragically lived only 36 hours. Julia died three days later due to complications of labor. After these deaths, the commodification of Julia Pastrana showed no signs of slowing. In fact Lent sold both the body of his deceased wife and that of his own newborn child to the attending doctor who wanted to test new embalming techniques on them. Lent , impressed with the results, demands that Julia’s body and that of his son be returned to him for another ticket-selling-tour. 

After the request is denied Lent then petitions the US Consulate's assistance to reclaim the bodies. With their intervention he is successful and regains possession of their bodies. He displayed Julia and his deceased infant inside a glass case and began to exhibit them throughout Europe with greater commercial success than when she was exhibited alive.

(interior spread) Zine 5. La Extraordinaria Historia de Julia Pastrana. Julia Pastranatzin Oyah ce Cahita Cihuatzintli. 2019. Archival documents on Julia Pastrana collage. 

An artist intersects 

It did not end there for Julia. She was bought and sold repeatedly. She passed from hand-to-hand for over 150 years. In 2005, when I heard the story of Julia Pastrana, she was in a wooden box with an inventory number in the basement of the University in Oslo. I felt it was my duty as an artist and as a woman, a Mexican-Woman, to do everything I could to have her restored to dignity and removed from the Schreiner Collection in Norway. If I did not do so she might remain an inventory number with an inconclusive existence.  

So I began to try to understand the reasons that justified and kept Julia in the collection. At the same time I began working with other people to understand her as a person and to change the conversation around her and collectively restore her dignity and rights she had been denied during her life and after her death.  I organized a memorial mass for her, following the religion she practiced. It was the first action done for her that recognized her humanity. It took a long time for the Schreiner Collection, the University of Oslo and the Ministry of Health of Norway to recognize officially that Julia Pastrana had the right to be removed from the collection, repatriated to Mexico to be buried in her homeland, a country that barely had the opportunity to know her. In 2013, after almost 10 years of efforts, and more than 150 years after her death, custody of Julia Pastrana was officially transferred to Mexico. 

Repatriation

Julia Pastrana was taken out of the wooden box and placed inside a white coffin filled with fresh flowers. She journeyed from Oslo to Paris, to Mexico City, to Culiacán, and then to home to Sinaloa de Leyva where she was received by thousands of people, and hundreds-of-thousands white flowers from all over the world bid her goodbye and closed the cycle of her exploitation. 

Zine 5. La Extraordinaria Historia de Julia Pastrana. Julia Pastranatzin Oyah ce Cahita Cihuatzintli. 2019. Laura Anderson Barbata in collaboration with Erik Tlaseca. 

Further Resources

For additional information visit www.lauraandersonbarbata.com and click on Julia Pastrana for a complete chronology as well as related works. 

Julia Pastrana Online (http://juliapastranaonline.com) is a growing database with archival materials, photos, documents on Julia Pastrana.

Laura Anderson Barbata

Born in Mexico City, Laura Anderson Barbata is currently based in Brooklyn and Mexico City. Since 1992 she has worked primarily in the social realm, and has initiated projects in the Venezuelan Amazon, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway, and the United States. Among them is her ongoing project La Extraordinaria Historia de Julia Pastrana, begun in 2005, which resulted in the removal of Pastrana’s body from the Schreiner Collection in Oslo and its successful repatriation and burial in Sinaloa, Mexico, Pastrana’s birth state. The project continues with upcoming publications and performances. 

La Extraordinaria Historia de Julia Pastrana has been supported by the National Fund for Culture and Arts, through the National System of Arts Creators, Mexico (2014-2017)