The Corpse Bride of Mexico: Is this a dead girl or a mannequin?
This from Oddity Central:
La Pascualita or Little Pascuala is a bridal mannequin that has “lived” in a store window in Chihuahua, Mexico for the past 75 years. That is quite a long time for a bridal gown shop to retain a mannequin, but then the dummy has a rather strange history behind it.
La Pascualita was first installed in the store window on March 25th, 1930, dressed in a spring-seasonal bridal gown. Soon, people realized that the mannequin closely resembled the shop’s owner at the time, Pascuala Esparza. It didn’t take long for them to come to the conclusion that the dummy was in fact the embalmed body of her daughter, who had died recently on her wedding day after being bitten by a Black Widow spider. This revelation did not go very well with the locals, and they started to express their disapproval. But by the time Pascuala could issue an official statement denying the rumors, it was too late. Nobody was willing to believer her. The daughter’s name has been lost over time, and ‘La Pascualita’ stuck through the years.
Here are the photos:
Here are my thoughts:
1. Embalming. We’ve seen Lenin and other famous corpses last for years upon years, BUT their bodies have been meticulously cared for by people in the know. Sure, an embalmed body might last a couple years, but for it to be kept in pristine condition, it would have to be continuously cared for by people with some degree of technical skill. If La Pascualita is a corpse, seventy-five years is an impossibly long time for it to remain in such good condition.
2. Climate. A consideration in the longevity of an embalmed corpse is the climate it’s in. If it’s in a dry, arid environment it has a longer chance of lasting (example, the Egyptian mummies). La Pascualita is located in Chihuahua, Mexico, which “lies on the western side of the Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion and as such has a semiarid climate.” Moisture is the kryptonite of an embalmed corpse. The fact that La Pascualita exists in a semiarid environment does help the argument that it’s an embalmed corpse.
3. The hands. If La Pascualita is a wax mannequin or any other type of mannequin, the hands are just too intricate.
4. The facial features. When you embalm a person “hard” (thoroughly flush them with strong embalming fluid), the lips and the eyelids will noticeably “dry out.” They will start to act like a piece of beef jerky in that all the moisture will leave the tissue, leaving it shrunken and wrinkled. IfLa Pascualita is embalmed, the facial features would probably be noticeably dried out. The face simply looks too supple. Of course, the “drying out” could be fixed with the right kind of cosmetology wax.
5. My conclusion. I doubt La Pascualita is a corpse. It simply looks too good to be a 75 year old embalming job. If the corpse is meticulously maintained, I suppose it’s possible (especially in a semiarid environment), but it highly unlikely.
Honestly, though, those hands are the mystery for me. They just look too real.
