Searching for Maura | An illustrated investigation

Summary

The story of Maura, an Indigenous Kankanaey woman from the Philippines, highlights the tragic reality of human displays at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Maura was recruited along with hundreds of Filipinos to be exhibited as part of a Philippine Exposition. Enduring harsh travel conditions, Maura fell ill and died before the fair opened. Her cerebellum was taken by Ales Hrdlicka, a Smithsonian anthropologist, as part of a now-condemned brain collection. Janna Añonuevo Langholz, a Filipino American activist, has sought justice for Maura and others exploited in the fair's colonial display.

Takeaways

• 🌍 Maura, a young Kankanaey woman from Suyoc, Philippines, was brought to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, as part of a display to showcase the U.S. territory.
• 📅 The journey to the fair was arduous, with Maura and over 230 other Filipinos traveling by ship for over a month across the Pacific Ocean.
• 🏥 Upon arrival, several Filipinos, including Maura, fell ill, with some succumbing to pneumonia, highlighting the harsh conditions they faced.
• ❄️ Maura's wish was to have her body returned to the Philippines for burial, reflecting her connection to her homeland despite her untimely death in a foreign land.
• 🏰 The Philippine Exposition at the fair was a popular exhibit, where the daily lives of the Filipinos were turned into a spectacle for entertainment.
• 🐶 Fair officials pressured the Igorots to perform certain acts, like eating dogs, to reinforce stereotypes, which had lasting impacts on perceptions of Filipinos.
• 🧠 Ales Hrdlicka, a physical anthropologist, collected the cerebellum of a Suyoc Igorot, likely Maura, for his 'racial brain collection', without consent.
• 🔍 Over a century later, Janna Añonuevo Langholz, a Filipino American activist, discovered Maura's story and began efforts to honor her memory and seek justice.
• 🏺 The Smithsonian Institution has since repatriated some of the brains from Hrdlicka's collection, including four from Filipino individuals, as part of efforts to address historical wrongs.
• 🕍 The Suyoc community in the Philippines continues to search for Maura's burial site and plans to build a memorial in her honor, symbolizing the enduring impact of her story.

Q & A

What was the purpose of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis?

The 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis was a historic exhibition of U.S. expansionism and innovation, aimed at showcasing the new territory of the Philippines and justifying the U.S. occupation.

Why were Maura and other Filipinos brought to the World's Fair?

Maura and other Filipinos were brought to the World's Fair to be put on display as part of the Philippine Exposition, which aimed to showcase the new U.S. territory and its people.

What is known about Maura's background and her community?

Maura was born around 1886 in Suyoc, a mining community in the Cordillera mountains of Luzon, and was Kankanaey, an Indigenous Igorot group. Her tattoos suggested she likely came from a high-status family.

What was the journey like for Maura and the other Filipinos traveling to St. Louis?

The journey was long and arduous, with over 230 Filipinos packed together in steerage quarters on a commercial ship, crossing the Pacific Ocean for more than a month.

How were the Filipinos received upon arrival in the United States?

Upon arrival in Tacoma, Washington, they were greeted by hundreds of curious locals. The journey by train to St. Louis was marked by extreme temperatures, with some experiencing unbearably hot conditions and others unbearably cold.

What health issues did the Filipinos face during their stay in St. Louis?

Several Filipinos, including Maura, contracted pneumonia, likely due to the unfamiliar cold weather and poor living conditions. At least two died from the illness before the fair began.

What was the role of Ales Hrdlicka in the story of Maura and the other Filipinos?

Ales Hrdlicka, head of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution, took the cerebellum of a Suyoc Igorot, likely Maura, for his 'racial brain collection,' based on his now debunked theories about racial differences.

How did Janna Añonuevo Langholz become involved in uncovering Maura's story?

Janna Añonuevo Langholz, a Filipino American activist and artist, discovered Maura's story during a rare April snowstorm in St. Louis, which reminded her of the 1904 World's Fair.

What actions did Janna take to honor Maura and the other Filipinos from the fair?

Janna documented life in the villages on a website, led tours of the neighborhood, raised money for headstones on unmarked graves, and searched for Maura's burial place. She also began discussions with the Smithsonian to return the cerebellum taken from Maura.

What was the outcome of Janna's efforts to have the cerebellum returned to the Philippines?

The Smithsonian could not verify the identity of the person whose cerebellum was taken and could not provide a location for where it was cremated. However, they have repatriated a total of four brains from Hrdlicka's collection as of August 2023.

What is the current status of the remaining brains collected by Hrdlicka?

As of August 2023, the Smithsonian has repatriated four brains, but the other 255 brains remain in museum storage.

Outlines

00:00

🌍 Journey to the 1904 World's Fair

Maura, a young Kankanaey woman from Suyoc in the Philippines, embarked on a journey to St. Louis for the 1904 World's Fair. She was part of a group of Indigenous Filipinos displayed as exhibits to showcase the United States' new territory. Born around 1886, Maura's high-status family background is suggested by her tattoos. The journey was arduous, with the group traveling by ship across the Pacific Ocean in cramped conditions. Upon arrival in the United States, they faced extreme weather conditions, with some suffering from the heat and others from the cold. Tragically, Maura and others contracted pneumonia, leading to her hospitalization and eventual death before the fair began.

05:08

🏥 Maura's Final Days and the Fair's Impact

Maura was admitted to Mullanphy Hospital in St. Louis, where she expressed her wish to be buried in the Philippines. She passed away just before the fair's opening, and her death was met with mourning by her community. Despite their grief, they were not allowed to perform their traditional burial customs. The fair proceeded, with the Philippine Exposition becoming a popular attraction, where the daily lives of the Filipinos were turned into entertainment. The Igorots were subjected to unfair treatment, including being pressured to eat dogs for the crowds, which reinforced stereotypes. Some Filipinos resisted, refusing to attend the English school within the fair in protest. The fair also attracted the attention of Ales Hrdlicka, who sought to collect the brains of Indigenous people for his racist research, leading to the removal of parts of Maura's brain post-mortem.

10:13

🔍 Rediscovering Maura's Story and the Quest for Repatriation

Janna Añonuevo Langholz, a Filipino American activist, discovered Maura's story during a snowstorm in St. Louis, which reminded her of the 1904 World's Fair. Inspired by Maura's story, Janna began documenting the lives of the Filipinos at the fair and advocating for the recognition of their history. She learned that Hrdlicka had taken Maura's cerebellum for his collection, which led to her efforts to have it returned. Despite the Smithsonian's inability to confirm the cerebellum's identity or provide a cremation site, Janna's work led to the discovery that Maura's body was indeed returned to the Philippines. Her efforts also prompted the Smithsonian to contact the Embassy of the Philippines about its collection of human remains, leading to the repatriation of some brains and an apology for the institution's past practices.

Keywords

💡1904 World's Fair

The 1904 World's Fair, also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, was a major international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. It was a significant event that showcased U.S. expansionism and innovation. In the script, the fair serves as the backdrop for the story of Maura and other Filipinos who were brought to the U.S. to be displayed as part of the Philippine Exposition, highlighting the historical context of U.S.-Philippine relations and the exoticization of indigenous peoples.

💡Indigenous Igorot

The term 'Igorot' is used in the script to describe the indigenous people from the Cordillera mountains of Luzon in the Philippines. The Kankanaey, to which Maura belonged, is one of the Indigenous Igorot groups. This keyword is central to understanding the cultural background of Maura and her community, as well as the way they were perceived and treated during the World's Fair. It also underscores the diversity and richness of the Philippine indigenous cultures.

💡U.S. Expansionism

U.S. expansionism refers to the historical policy and ideology of expanding the territory and influence of the United States. In the context of the video, it is exemplified by the U.S. taking control of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, which led to the Philippines becoming a U.S. territory. The World's Fair was used as a platform to showcase the 'benefits' of U.S. rule over the new territory, including the display of its indigenous people.

💡Stereotyping

Stereotyping is the act of assigning fixed, oversimplified attributes or traits to a group of people. In the script, the Igorots were stereotyped as 'savages' by fair officials and newspapers, which was part of the dehumanizing and exoticizing treatment they received. This keyword is crucial for understanding the negative impact of such portrayals on the perception and treatment of the indigenous Filipinos at the fair.

💡Racial Theories

Racial theories, as mentioned in the script, refer to the now-debunked scientific ideas that attempted to classify and rank different human populations based on perceived racial differences. Ales Hrdlicka, a character in the script, is noted for his belief in the superiority of white people and his collection of human body parts to support his theories. This keyword is significant as it highlights the dark history of racial pseudoscience and its implications for the treatment and understanding of different racial and ethnic groups.

💡Cerebellum

The cerebellum is a region of the brain that plays an important role in motor control, coordination, and balance. In the script, it is mentioned that Hrdlicka took the cerebellum of a Suyoc Igorot, likely Maura, for his 'racial brain collection.' This act symbolizes the extreme objectification and violation of the dignity of the indigenous people, reducing them to mere specimens for scientific research.

💡Repatriation

Repatriation in this context refers to the process of returning human remains or cultural artifacts to their country of origin. The script discusses the Smithsonian's efforts to repatriate the brains taken from Filipinos during the World's Fair. This keyword is significant as it represents a step towards acknowledging past wrongs and respecting the rights and dignity of the affected communities.

💡Suyoc

Suyoc is a mining community in the Cordillera mountains of Luzon, where Maura was from. It is an example of the specific geographical and cultural origins of the indigenous people who were brought to the World's Fair. Understanding Suyoc helps to contextualize Maura's background and the broader narrative of indigenous displacement and cultural exploitation.

💡Human Remains

Human remains refer to the physical remains of deceased individuals. In the script, the Smithsonian's possession of human remains, particularly brains, collected from indigenous people without consent is a central issue. This keyword is crucial for understanding the ethical violations and the ongoing efforts to address historical injustices.

💡Exoticism

Exoticism is the portrayal of foreign cultures as strange, unusual, and fascinating, often to the point of dehumanization. In the video, the Igorots were displayed at the fair as exotic curiosities, performing daily chores as entertainment for fairgoers. This keyword is important for understanding the power dynamics and the objectification inherent in the representation of indigenous cultures during the World's Fair.

💡Philippines Independence

The struggle for Philippine independence is a historical context mentioned in the script, referring to the conflict between the Philippines and Spain, followed by the Philippine-American War after the Spanish-American War. This keyword is significant as it sets the stage for the U.S. colonization of the Philippines and the subsequent events that led to the participation of Filipinos in the World's Fair.

Highlights

Maura, a young woman from the Philippines, was brought to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis to be displayed, representing the U.S.'s colonial subjects.

Maura's background includes being from a high-status family in Suyoc, a mining community, and belonging to the Kankanaey Indigenous Igorot group.

The Philippines had recently become a U.S. territory following a war for independence and Spanish colonial rule.

Maura and over 230 other Filipinos were recruited to travel to St. Louis, an experience that was both a novelty and a mystery to them.

The journey to St. Louis was arduous, with the group enduring crowded conditions and the challenges of sea travel.

Upon arrival, the group faced cultural shock and health issues, including the death of some members from pneumonia.

Maura's wish for her body to be returned to the Philippines after her death reflects her connection to her homeland.

The 1904 World's Fair showcased the Philippine Exposition, with the Igorot Village becoming a popular exhibit.

Indigenous people were pressured to perform for entertainment, including eating dogs, which was contrary to their customs.

The fair's portrayal of Filipinos as 'savages' contributed to enduring stereotypes.

Some Filipinos resisted their portrayal, with two Visayan women refusing to attend an English school inside the fair as a form of protest.

Ales Hrdlicka, a physical anthropologist, collected human body parts, including Maura's cerebellum, for his racial research at the Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian's collection of brains, including those from Filipinos, was part of a larger, global network of researchers and collectors.

Janna Añonuevo Langholz, a Filipino American activist, discovered Maura's story and began efforts to honor and repatriate her remains.

The Washington Post's investigation into the Smithsonian's brain collection brought further attention to Maura's case and the historical injustices.

The Smithsonian has begun the process of repatriating some of the brains in its collection, reflecting a shift in attitudes towards ethical collection practices.

The search for Maura's burial site continues, and there are efforts to build a memorial in her honor in Suyoc.

Transcripts

It would have been her first time seeing snow.

Nearly one month before,

Maura had arrived in St. Louis from the Philippines.

She had come for the 1904 World's Fair,

a historic exhibition of U.S. expansionism and innovation.

But Maura wasn't attending the fair.

She and her fellow Filipinos

were there to be put on display.

There's a lot we don't know about Maura.

We couldn't find any photos of her.

We don't know who her family was.

But here's what we have learned:

She was born around 1886.

Based on her tattoos, an article in the St. Louis Republic

said she was probably from a high-status family.

And we know she was from Suyoc,

a mining community 200 miles north of Manila.

She was Kankanaey, an Indigenous Igorot group

that lives in the Cordillera mountains of Luzon.

The term Igorot is used broadly to describe

multiple ethnicities from this region.

When Maura was around 13, the Philippines

became a U.S. territory after more than

three centuries of Spanish colonial rule.

A three-year war for Philippine independence followed.

At least 220,000 Filipinos died.

After the United States claimed victory in 1902,

William Howard Taft, then governor of the Philippines,

was eager to use the World's Fair to show off

the new territory and justify the occupation.

We don't know what the Americans promised.

But they began recruiting Indigenous people

from all over the Philippine Islands

to travel to St. Louis, Missouri.

Maura, now about 18, was one of them.

In Manila, Maura and more than 230 other Filipinos

from across the islands boarded the Shawmut, a commercial ship.

For more than a month they crossed the Pacific Ocean

packed together in the steerage quarters,

seeing nothing but water on the horizon.

Kario, a man who was on the voyage,

wrote about his experience sometime in the 1930s.

"In the ship, we slept at night in different compartments."

"In the morning, the Igorots danced on the deck

to the outside of the ship with gongs."

Some of the passengers were taking the journey

for a new experience.

But others didn't know why they were

on a boat to the United States.

"On the interior of the ship,

we had nothing to do except to stay."

"None of us knew why we were carried to America."

When the ship arrived in Tacoma, Washington,

they were greeted by hundreds of curious locals.

They traveled by train from

Tacoma to St. Louis for five days.

First it was unbearably hot.

The train operators sent a telegram:

"Chief of Igorottes has just thrown his suit out the window."

"What shall we do?"

"Why did you not shut the windows?" officials responded.

Using a derogatory term, the train workers replied:

"Did shut window, but they broke out the glass."

"Headhunters are getting uneasy with the heat ..."

Some of the train cars didn't

have heat as they passed through colder areas.

In those cars, it was unbearably cold.

Upon arrival in St. Louis, a man named Ibag

was rushed to nearby Mullanphy Hospital.

Within days, he and another man both died of pneumonia.

Fair officials expected more deaths.

They set aside a plot that could hold 40 graves

in a cemetery across town.

The Suyoc group slept in bunk beds

as the exhibits grew around them, a staged version

of their own lives back in the Philippines.

Pneumonia soon took hold of Maura, too,

and she was admitted to Mullanphy Hospital.

We can only speculate about her time there.

But we know it began to snow,

a rarity for April in St. Louis.

The St. Louis Republic newspaper later reported

that she shared her wish that her body be returned

to the Philippines for burial.

Maura died a few days before the fair began.

Truman Hunt, the American assigned to

the Igorot group, broke the news.

They mourned in a circle for hours.

Newspapers fixated on their funerary customs.

People from Maura's community went to

view her body at the funeral home.

A member of the Suyoc group said a blessing.

But they weren't allowed to carry out their

traditional customs of preparing the body before burial.

Hunt promised that her body would be

returned to the Philippines.

Down the street, the fair opened to the public.

The 47-acre Philippine Exposition became one of its

most popular exhibits, particularly the Igorot Village.

Their daily chores became entertainment for the fairgoers.

The men from Suyoc demonstrated how they checked

the quality of ore, first by licking it.

Visitors thought that they could taste the metal's qualities.

They were just removing the dirt to see it better.

Fair officials pressured the Igorots to eat dogs

several times a week for the crowds,

even though they only did so on rare occasions back home.

That fueled a stereotype

about Filipinos that lingers to this day.

They were called "savages" by fair officials and newspapers.

Some Filipinos grew tired of it.

Two Visayan women refused to attend

the English school inside the fair,

protesting how some Filipinos were showcased.

Teresa Ramirez said in a letter printed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

"All the Filipinos in our village are very angry to be called savages."

Meanwhile, the head of physical anthropology

at the Smithsonian Institution's U.S. National Museum,

Ales Hrdlicka, had been closely monitoring the fair.

Hrdlicka ranked people by race,

believing White people to be superior.

He collected human body parts to research his now

debunked theories about the anatomical differences between races.

He began what he called a "racial brain collection" for the Smithsonian.

He hoped he could take the brains of

Indigenous people who died at the Fair.

Hrdlicka traveled to St. Louis and autopsied

two Filipinos who had died.

We know from official Smithsonian documents

that he took the cerebellum of a Suyoc Igorot, likely Maura,

since she was the only known person from Suyoc

who died while in St. Louis for the World's Fair.

We don't know what happened to the rest of the brain

or why he only took the cerebellum.

He also took the brain of an Igorot from Bontoc.

In September, fair officials mailed the museum

the brains of two more Filipino people who had died.

The collection Hrdlicka started

would grow to at least 268 brains,

including 27 from Filipino people,

some of which were collected by the U.S. Army

stationed in the Philippines.

A global network of professors,

researchers, doctors and Army surgeons collected

the brains in autopsies and sent them to the National Museum.

Four of the brains brains were willingly donated to the collection

by the donors themselves or their families.

The others appeared to be taken without consent.

In December 1904, a newspaper article said that

people were visiting the funeral home to see Maura's body.

But few people would know what Hrdlicka did

until over 100 years later.

Janna Añonuevo Langholz found Maura's story

during a rare April snowstorm in St. Louis.

On the news, she heard that one of the last times

St. Louis had seen snow that late was in 1904.

Her mind flashed to the World's Fair

As a Filipino American activist and artist born in 1988,

on the historical site of the World's Fair,

she had always known the history

of the Philippine Exposition.

But she wondered what the Filipinos back

then had thought of the snow.

Looking through newspaper archives,

she realized it had been 117 years since Maura died.

Inspired by Maura's story, she began to document

life in the villages on a website:

"1,200 Lives and Deaths at the World's Fair."

She started leading tours of the neighborhood

that was once the site of the Philippine villages.

And she raised money to put headstones

on the unmarked graves of the Filipinos.

She searched for Maura's burial place.

Janna found an old Smithsonian report that showed

Hrdlicka had taken the cerebellum of a Suyoc Igorot's

brain to the Smithsonian.

Her heart sank.

Documents from the Smithsonian never listed Maura's name.

The autopsy date differs in two records,

and a note said the cerebellum came from a male.

But Janna was sure.

"Since Maura was the only person

from Suyoc that died, I know that's her."

Most available records supported her conclusion.

Outraged, and hoping to see it returned,

she began discussions with the Smithsonian.

The brain collection was now managed by

the National Museum of Natural History.

An official eventually told her that the cerebellum

had probably been cremated

sometime between 1908 and the 1950s.

Smithsonian documents listed at least eight

other brains as "Condemned & Destroyed."

Most were marked as "desiccated," or dried up.

Janna asked where the cerebellum was cremated

so she could visit the site,

but the Smithsonian couldn't provide a location.

The Smithsonian later told The Post that it could not verify

the identity of the person whose cerebellum was taken.

Exhausted, she traveled to the Philippines

to visit family in January 2023.

This time, Maura found her.

Janna's work prompted The Washington Post

to investigate the Smithsonian's human remains.

The Post spent a year looking into the brain collection,

Hrdlicka's network and Maura's story.

While reporting this project, we were in touch with Janna.

Searching through old archives, we found Maura's death certificate

and a newspaper article

about her body being shipped to the Philippines.

The article stated that the year after Maura's death,

a Filipino man petitioned to have his brother's body returned.

As a result, at least six bodies would eventually be

sent back to the Philippines by ship.

One was Maura's.

We emailed Janna to tell her the news.

Janna happened to be traveling to Maura's

home province that morning.

Her family urged her to visit the Suyoc community.

She looked for the descendants of the people

that she had come to know from her research.

They talked about Maura,

speaking a mix of Tagalog, Ilocano and Kankanaey.

In Suyoc, overlooking the hills where Maura once lived,

Janna stopped to honor her.

The search for Maura's burial site continues

in the Philippines.

Residents of Suyoc are hoping to build a memorial in her honor.

Janna is seeking resolution for the

three other brains taken from Filipinos

during the 1904 World's Fair.

Months after reporting on the story began,

the Smithsonian contacted

the Embassy of the Philippines

to inform it of the human remains

in the Smithsonian's possession.

The secretary of the Smithsonian,

Lonnie G. Bunch III,

apologized for the way the institution

collected many of its human remains in the past

and said it was his goal to return as many as possible.

As of August 2023, the Smithsonian has repatriated

a total of four brains from what Hrdlicka called

his "racial brain collection."

The other 255 brains remain in museum storage.