Mexican 'Ape Woman' Buried After 150 Years: Julia Pastrana Returns Home

In 1854, 20-year-old Julia Pastrana left her home in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa in order to become the "ape woman" in a sideshow performance that toured around the U.S. Led by Theodore Lent, the show exhibited Pastrana as the ugliest woman alive as she sang and danced for paying audiences. The show became a success, and Lent took her to tour both Europe and Russia. Now, 150 years after her death, her body is finally returning to her home country.

So why was Pastrana named the ape woman? She suffered from a rare genetic condition called hypertrichosis. It covered her face and body in hair, and gave her a thick jaw. Sometimes called "werewolf syndrome," hypertrichosis is a very rare condition with fewer than 100 cases documented worldwide. However, the condition does run in families and in 1995, scientists were able to trace the approximate location of the mutation to a section of the X chromosome. Men who suffer from this condition can have hair covering both their faces and eyelids, while women normally grow thick patches on their bodies.

So what exactly causes this condition? Scientists theorize that the extra DNA located on the X chromosome may turn on a nearby hair-growth gene which results in runaway growth. The current candidate for this gene is SOX3, which is known to play a role in hair growth.

Unlike those who suffer the condition today, though, Pastrana had to suffer through tours and audiences that openly mocked her status. After performing for years, she eventually married Lent and had a son, who suffered her same condition. However, the newborn died soon after birth and Pastrana herself developed a fever related to complications from childbirth. She died in 1860 in Moscow.

That wasn't the end of Pastrana's show, though. Both she and her baby were embalmed and put on display as the performance continued. Eventually, though, her remains ended up at the University of Oslo, Norway. But now, they're finally being sent to her home state of Sinaloa.

Mexican Ambassador Martha Barcena Coqui formally received Pastrana's coffin at a Feb. 7 ceremony in Norway before the coffin itself was flown to Mexico.

"Today, it's almost incomprehensible that a circus used corpses for entertainment purposes. Hers was used in a way we today would consider to be completely reprehensible," said Jan G. Bjaalie, head of the Institute of Basic Medical Science at the University of Oslo in an interview with Fox News. "It's important that we now have a clear end to the way she was treated."