Media reports about Lalit Patidar, an 18-year-old Indian boy who has made it into Guinness World Records for the hairiest face of a male, have sparked folk memories in Myanmar of a family of hairy people who became world-famous in the 19th century
The tale of Shwe-Maong and his descendants not only captured Burma’s royal court but also the curiosity of British colonial officials who visited the country.
Courtiers as well as journalists and academics wrote about the hairy family, who are said to be the only example on record of four generations with hypertrichosis lanuginosa, a rare congenital disorder characterized by excessive hair growth and defective teeth.
Unlike Paditar, Shwe-Maong and his descendants not only had hairy faces but also hairy bodies, earning them the nickname “monkey people.” But in every other aspect, including intellect and body structure, they were quite normal.
John Crawfurd, a British colonial administrator who led a diplomatic mission to the court of King Bagyidaw at Ava (now Inwa in Mandalay Region), met Shwe-Maong in 1826 and recorded the meeting in his “Journal of an Embassy to the Court of Ava.”
Crawfurd arrived in Ava in September 1826 under the Treaty of Yadanbo which ended the first Anglo-Burmese War from 1824-1826 during the reign of King Bagyidaw, when Burma lost Rakhine and Tanintharyi.
Shwe-Maong, he writes, had been given to the king of Ava at the age of five as an exotic gift by a local district chief in present-day Laos. He took on the role of court jester and entertained the king so well that the sovereign presented him with a beautiful wife at the age of 22. The marriage resulted in four children, one of whom, a daughter named Maphoon, was also covered in hair.
Crawfurd documented Shwe-Maong, who was then 30, in portraits and notes, and described Maphoon, who was two-and-a-half-year-old, as having soft, golden-tinged hair.
When Burma lost more territory in the second Anglo-Burmese War, one Captain Henry Yule came to Amarapura in 1855 to discuss peace, and there he also met Maphoon, who was then 31. Her father had reportedly been killed by thieves.
Maphoon married an ordinary Burmese man, although an Italian had previously proposed to her and wanted to take her to Europe. But the king refused and offered a large dowry to any Burmese man who would have her.
This union resulted in two sons, one of whom, Moung-Phoset, was as furry as his mother and grandfather.
Maphoon and Moung-Phoset occasionally served King Mindon, who in return granted them the tax authority on a local market, which enabled them to lead a comfortable life and even make donations and support others, according to prominent Mandalay writer Ludu Daw Amar.
Throughout the reign of King Thibaw, the family—which now consisted of three generations including Maphoon and her grandchildren—lived a comfortable life in Mandalay. Moung-Phoset had one daughter named Mah-Me who was also hairy.
Several pictures of the three have survived, one showing a hairless relative who had apparently not inherited the gene.
Most Burmese historical records conclude the tale of the hairy family around the time of King Thibaw’s abdication in 1885 following the third Anglo-Burmese War. But they managed to escape with the help of one Captain Paperno, an Italian who had been a military advisor to King Thibaw.
Paperno, finding himself unemployed, suggested they make a tour of Europe and exhibit themselves for money, with him acting as impresario. Before they could leave, Mah-Me died aged only 18, but Maphoon and Moung-Moset were exhibited at the Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly in London’s Piccadilly during the summer of 1886.
Maphoon was by then said to be blind, but Moung-Phoset had a lively personality and was an inveterate betel chewer despite his paucity of teeth.
The show moved on to Paris and even the U.S., where the legendary impresario P.T Barnum exhibited them in his circus in 1887 as “the Sacred Hairy Family of Burma” under the slogan “Touch them for luck!”
Maphoon reportedly died in Washington in 1888, aged 64, but what became Moung-Phoset is unknown.
Remarkably, there have been no documented cases of unusually hairy faces or hairy bodies in Myanmar since then.
