Canada's best-known author of teens and children's books, Ian M. Lawrence describes an albinism patient in a story about a child with albinism, "Children of the Moon."
He was a skinny boy, as white as a piece of chalk... his skin was like a thick piece of white chocolate, not even a single freckle. Even his eyes were very light blue, so light that they were almost transparent, like raindrops, and like fluttering dewdrops.
—Ian. Lawrence
As described in the book, albinism suffers from a variety of difficulties in life: the lack of melanin protection makes him very vulnerable to damage to vision by strong light; the snow white skin also makes him always ridiculed and bullied by other children. Today, a hundred or two hundred years ago, the situation of albinism patients must have been worse, and the only way out for many people was to enter the circus and freak shows that were popular at that time.
The story we are going to tell today is the story of a pair of twin brothers with albinism. The brothers were kidnapped while working in the fields and embarked on a long circus tour.
19th Century Freak Show and "Monster Hunter"
At the end of the 19th century, the twin brothers named George Muse and Willie Muse were born in a small town in Virginia, USA. The Muse brothers' family was cold, and at a young age, they had to go to the fields to help grow tobacco and catch pests, which was a heavy manual work, and it was even more difficult for the Muse brothers with albinism. At work, the strong sunlight hurts their eyes; when they are not yet ten years old, permanent wrinkles are already left on their foreheads; even in hot weather, they must wear long sleeves and trousers to work in the fields.
With blond hair and watery blue eyes, the Muse brothers stood out in an African-American family, and The mother, Harley, did not know what disease the children had. This melanin deficiency condition was called "albinoismsus" by the German physician David Mansfeld in 1822, which means "white", and it was not until the early 20th century that the medical community determined that it was a genetic disease.
In the early 20th century, the United States was in an era of turmoil and crisis, and horrific social events often occurred. There is a profession in society called "monster hunters" whose mission is to find "prey" that can become circus stars and forcibly bring them back to the circus. Sheldon, who abducted the two brothers, was one of them.
Shelton had many brilliant predecessors, after a British businessman found a conjoined baby brother in Thailand, which made him a windfall, and another also found dwarf twins in Ohio. And when the monster hunter saw the albinism brothers, he immediately knew: he had dug up the treasure. He lured the two brothers with candy and forcibly kidnapped them both.
When night fell, their mother, Harley, discovered that the two brothers had disappeared. Harley frantically searched everywhere, but could not find the muse brothers. Heartbroken, she never gave up the hope of finding her children in the long decades that followed.
The Muse brothers, who were taken away by Sheldon, were sent to the circus. At first, they were too young to juggle skills, and the circus announced that the brothers were "monkey men" or "Darwin's lost link" and showed them to the world. The two brothers were taken thousands of miles from home, with no salary, just working day in and day out. Even as they kept begging for a return to their mother, the head of the circus responded coldly: "Don't cry, your mother is no longer alive." ”
As the days passed, the two brothers gradually began to give up their resistance and cooperated with the circus performance.
Whether it's the Martian ambassadors, the sheepsheads, or the cannibals—the absurd stories woven by those circuses
In fact, as early as the Age of Enlightenment, there were legends in Europe that there were "white Indians" or "white blacks" in some corners of the world. However, they never witnessed it until the 18th century, when the slave trade was at its peak, when slave traders in Britain and France sent African labor to the Americas in an endless stream, but if they encountered a rare "white black man", they would stay and send them to London, Paris and other big cities for public exhibition. At first, such behavior may have been motivated by some scientific research, but the mysterious origins of these mysterious races and unusual snow-white skin unconsciously became synonymous with magic in the eyes of Europeans at that time. By the 19th century, such displays had been transformed into naked entertainment, and albinism had become a rare beast, an object that had to be paid for.
The days when the Muse brothers were at the mercy of others continued day by day. Their stage names and origins, as the circus's business strategy changed all the time, they were called "primitive monkey people", "Martian ambassadors" and "sheephead people" or more unexpected titles. The circus weaves a variety of fantasy stories, just to arouse the curiosity of the muse brothers in the world. Those pompous stories include: their Mars spacecraft crashed on the California desert, they came from the coast of Madagascar on a bamboo raft to the ocean, they are a group of mysterious people wearing sheep's heads in the southern seas, after experiencing brutal round-up and hunting, fate finally brought them to the world.
In order to make the Muse brothers more "looking", the circus people let them keep the blond curls that were rare at that time, and as long as they paid the equivalent of $30 today, they could take photos with them, and even be able to pull and pull to see if their hair was real.
One day, they became cannibals from Ecuador again. That day, when the circus photographer was taking pictures, he casually shoved a dove into the hands of the brothers, and to their surprise, as soon as the muse brothers got the instrument, they actually played an elegant melody, and the circus discovered the brothers' musical talent. It turned out that the Muse brothers only had to listen to the song once, and they could reproduce it almost perfectly with various instruments and re-play the moving music. Whether it is guitar, dove, harmonica, xylophone or saxophone, they are overwhelmed.
This made the circus people overjoyed, because in the average circus or freak show, most of the strange people have no special skills, and can only pretend to be wild people, aliens or mysterious peoples, and do some performances of biting off chicken heads and eating raw meat. Audiences will mostly find it novel at first, but will soon get tired of watching this cookie-cutter performance.
The Muse Brothers' performances offer a whole new experience: they are special in appearance, but they are also excellent music performers. Their best performance was a well-known World War I song, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," which spread throughout the streets of the United States as the circus toured.
The final stop of the tour is the hometown
However, the Muse brothers were neither cannibals nor ambassadors from Mars, they were just two young men eager to return home.
On days when there was no need to perform, the Muse brothers would always cheer each other up. They would talk about the good memories of the past, the cookies their mothers baked with corn flour, and the childhood they had lost forever. Whenever the rain first cleared and a rainbow appeared in the distant sky, the brother would always point to the rainbow and remind the younger brother of the words that his mother always hung on his lips: "That is God's promise after the rainstorm, and the storm will pass one day." I know my mother is still alive and that one day we will see her again. ”
In this way, 13 years have passed. They also did not expect that in a fortuitous coincidence, they would finally have the opportunity to re-set foot on the land of their hometown.
On October 14, 1927, the circus tour came to a small town in Virginia, just 30 minutes from the town where the brothers grew up.
The circus came to the town in a majestic way, with a team of up to 1,600 people, six stage sets and animals performing, and it took a full 100 train cars to carry them. Tents and flagpoles were quickly raised, and huge posters depicted circus stars of all kinds, such as the skinny "Skeleton Man", the "Doll Family" suffering from dwarfism, the giant-like "Jack Earl", and of course, the Muse brothers with the inscription "Are they ambassadors from Mars?" "Promotional poster with the words.
The circus's huge lineup attracted countless people to come and find out, and an old woman also came to see it, but when she stood in front of the square, she looked at the poster sheepishly, stunned for a long time, and could not believe what she saw. This old woman was none other than the muse brothers' long-lost mother, Harley Muse.
Shortly after the brothers disappeared, Harley moved to the town. In those racist days, no one would take seriously the demands of a poor, illiterate black woman. For many years, Harley was able to rely only on her own will, constantly staring at the faces of pedestrians on the street in the vast sea of people, using all kinds of ways, hoping that fate would one day bring the brothers to her again.
Just as she saw the poster with the Musi brothers, the miracle she had prayed for finally happened.
A miraculous reunion with the strength of the mother
Harley bought a ticket and followed the crowded audience into the tent. The performance soon began, and she waited with bated breath as the Muse brothers slowly stepped out of the backstage and stood in the very center of the stage, playing their most famous piece, "The Long Road to Tipperary."
"The road to Tipperary is long, the road is still long, the road to Tipperary is long... "The Muse brothers sang the song they were good at, as usual. Logically, the Muse brothers should not pay attention to the appearance of the audience, because in recent years, albinism has made their eyesight deteriorate significantly, but in the blurred vision of the brother, the mother's face is still clear.
That day, Harley wore a hand-sewn black dress, and after all these years, there were several more sad wrinkles on her forehead, but her brother quickly recognized her mother sitting in the audience. The brother suddenly stopped playing, hurriedly tapped his brother with his elbow and said loudly, "That's our dear mother." She's alive! Despite the fact that the performance was still going on, the two brothers casually threw down their instruments and ran off the stage in full view of everyone. After more than a decade of separation, they finally hugged their mother tightly again.
This scene, which was almost miraculous, made the Muse brothers and Harley cry.
However, the moving story did not last long, and the head of the circus came forward to ask the brothers to continue performing. The person in charge is a rich man with good political and business relations and huge assets, and in the face of such a powerful opponent, Harley does not back down, she clings to the children and shouts: "They are my children!" And said she would never leave the square unless she was asked to let her children go home with her.
In the end, the circus saw that things could not be cleaned up, so they compromised to let the Muse brothers leave temporarily. But the circus did not give up the cash cow so easily, and they immediately filed a lawsuit against Harley, claiming to the court that Harley had "taken away the circus's legitimate assets." They had thought that the intimidation of the law would scare Harley, but surprisingly, the poor African-American maid did not flinch and launched a counterattack with the help of a lawyer. In the end, with nothing, she defeated the circus in court with her own determination.
In 1928, the Muse brothers returned to circus work, and unlike in the past, a new contract was signed. Now, the two brothers finally have a salary and can go home to spend time with their mother during the off-season. Relying on her brother's income, her mother got out of poverty and bought a small house in the local area to support her.
The Muse brothers continued to tour the circus and even performed overseas. Until 1942, Harley died of a heart attack, the two brothers were devastated, and their story was temporarily over.
Behind the "Monster Story"
For years, the story of the two brothers has been circulated as an urban legend. It wasn't until 2016, when author Beth Messi combed through the whole story and published the book Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest, that the world refocused attention on the ins and outs of the Muse Brothers story.
This story reveals the common fate of many handicapped people forced to appear on freak shows in the 19th and 20th centuries, whether it was a "crocodile-skinned boy" with ichthyosis, a "lion-headed man" with hirsutism, or a girl with albinism and a "black and white twin" made up of an African-American twin brother. No one knows whether these handicapped people will eventually be able to enjoy their old age peacefully after being forced to work for the circus and earn a large amount of money for the circus. Many more people never see their families again in their entire lives. Although the story of the Muse brothers is sad, on this cruel stage, they may be lucky to finally meet their mother.
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