Before there was internet fraud and phone scams, there were always swindlers.

Female swindlers too.

Discover the stories of women from the past who not only survived, but thrived as con-artists and thieves.

How did they use their feminine characteristics to swindle in a world where men made the rules?

Join me, Lucy Worsley, historian and author, and my all-female team in ladies swindlers, wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. This month we're talking about women who found themselves at the center of controversy, whether deserved or not.

In February of 2013, mourners gathered at a cemetery in Sinaloa de Lava, Mexico.

A band played traditional music.

Onlookers watched a white coffin adorned with roses be slowly lowered into the earth.

To an outsider, the event might have looked like a typical funeral.

But the woman being laid to rest died more than a century and a half before her burial.

In the mid-19th century, Julia Pastrana was a popular circus performer, singing and dancing for crowds across America and Europe. But in spite of her talents, Julia's fame was mostly

based on people's belief that she was fundamentally different from them. It was the era of circus freak shows, and Julia, for better or worse, represented a major attraction.

Not much is known about Julia's early life. She was born to an indigenous Mexican tribe in August of 1834 in Sinaloa, Mexico. From birth, Julia had hypertricosis,

sometimes known as werewolf syndrome, a condition that causes excess hair to grow all over a person's

body. She was also born with gingerful hyperplasia, leading to enlarged gums and lips.

These two conditions meant Julia looked very different from other young girls,

a difference that defined how she was treated throughout her life.

Julia's mother died when Julia was still a child.

It's not exactly clear what happened to Julia in the subsequent years,

but we do know that she eventually fell into the custody of then

governor of Mexico Pedro Sanchez. He used Julia as a live-in maid and as a source of

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