A HAIRY FAMILY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2203, 21 August 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

A HAIRY FAMILY.

There are now exhibiting at the Egyptian Hall, Pincndilly, London, the two remaining specimens of the hairy family of Burmah. Thoy left Mandalay on January 16th, and after some time in Calcutta and Bombay, went to England. The 1 present members of the family who hare never betore been out of Burmnh, consist of three— Maphoon, !aged sixtythree, and her son, Moung-Phoset, aged twenty-nine, form the curiosities of the show. The third is an ordinary Burmese woman who was nt one time maid of honour to the Queen of Burmah. The old lady who is seated on an old improvised platform rarely makes any movement beyond fanning herself, i« quite blind, and, with the exception of her hands and feet, is more or let>B oovered with long hair as soft as silk. She is not at all repulsive in appearance, while her voice is particularly soft and sweet. Her son, who is of medium height, is by no means averse to a close inspection. His skin is pale brown, and the whole of his face is, similarly to his mother's, even to the drum-* of his ears, covered with soft hair, while on his body, arms and legs, there is nn abundance of a silky eoatinjr, in places it is as much as five inches long, but it is not, however, anything like as thick in growth as the hair on his face. This is the fourth generation of the family known of, each generation has been 7 in number, three of each being hairy and the other four displaying no extraordinary phenomena. Colonel Yule, when on a mission to the Court of Ava in September, 1833, was shown the old lady who is now to be seen, and his account of her is given below. The description of the lady applies exactly to her present condition, as well as to that of her son: "September 18th — To-day we had a singular visitor at the Residency. This was Maphoon, the daughter of Shwemaang, the ' Homo hirsutus' described and depicted in Crawfords narrative, where a portrait of her, as a young child, also appears. Not expecting such a visitor, one started anil exclaimed involuntarily as there entered what at first seemed an absolute re.il/.atiou of the dog- headed Anubia. The whole of Maphoon's face was more or less covered with hair. On a part of the cheek and between the nose and the mouth this was confined to a short down, but overall the rest of the rest of the face was a thick silky hair of a brown colour, paling about the nose and chin, four or live inches long. At the base of the nose, under the eye and on the cheekbone, this was very fully developed, but it was in on the ear that it was most extraordinary. Except the extreme upper tip, no part of her ear was visible; all the rest was filled and veiled by a large mass of silky hair, growing apparently out of every part of the external organ, and hanging in a dependant lock to a length of eight or ten inches. The nose, densely covered with hair as no animals's is that I know of, and with long fine locks out of pendant like the wisps of the Skye terrier's coat, had a most strange appearance. The beard was pale in colour, and about four inches in length, seemingly very soft and silky.'' Maphoon has the dental peculiarity that her father had ; the absence of the canine teeth or grinders, the back part of the gums presenting merely a hard ridge. The singular correlation existing between the absence of molars and premolars, and the abnormal growth of hair is one that cannot escape the notice of naturalists. In Moung-Pho«et's upper jaw are two incisors and two welldeveloped canines ; in the lower there are the full complement of incisors and canines, but beyond these the jawu are absolutely toothless.