42nd BABAO 2013 Conference Abstract: Treatment of the Body Session Laura Anderson Barbata and Nicholas Márquez-Grant Julia Pastrana (1834-1860) was a Mexican artist. She had a genetic condition, hypertrichosis, and for that reason her face and body were considerably covered in hair. She also had gingival hyperplasia, with enlargement of the gum tissue. During her life in the 19th century she had been negatively described as a different species, a hybrid between a man and another ape, and as the world’s ugliest woman. Her agent purchased and married her and she was became an ‘exhibit’ touring North America and Europe. After her death, her body and that of her son had been mummified and were continued to be exhibited until the 1970s when ethical concerns by the public forced her ‘owners’ to withdraw her from public view. Her body ended up being stored in Oslo, Norway. In recent years, there has been a campaign to repatriate her body from Norway to Mexico in order that Julia Pastrana can be returned home, buried, and given respect and dignity. After a complex process of requests between individuals, governments and institutions, the result was a positive recommendation of The National Committee for Ethical Evaluation of Research on Human Remains in Oslo and the approval of the University of Oslo, Julia Pastrana’s body was eventually repatriated in February 2013 and buried in her place of birth, Sinaloa, northwestern Mexico. This presentation will deal with some of the ethical and logistical issues of her repatriation, the balance and debate between the scientific interest to retain her body and the legitimate request for reburial, also by the dilemma faced potentially for anthropologists with future cases and finally the entire process surrounding the repatriation of the body and its significance.
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 05:01:27 +0000
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