Máximo and Bartola (also known as Maximo Valdez Nunez and Bartola Velasquez respectively) were the stage names of two Salvadoran siblings both with microcephaly and cognitive developmental disability who were exhibited in human zoos in the 19th century. Originally from near Usulután, El Salvador, the siblings were given by their mother to a merchant who promised he would take them to Grenada to be educated and exhibited. They then went through several guardians afterwards. They were eventually billed as "Aztec Children" and an elaborate story was constructed of how they were found in the temple of a lost Mesoamerican city by the name of Iximaya.[1] They toured the U.S. and Europe, appearing before various regents and dignitaries.[2][3][4][5][6]
- ^ c.f.The Aztec Lilliputans Archived 2022-03-20 at the Wayback Machine at 2:54.Retrieved 14 March 2022
- ^ "Maximo and Bartola, the Aztec Children". The Human Marvels. 5 December 2007. Archived from the original on 2015-05-02. Retrieved 2015-05-07.
- ^ Mateen, F. J., & Boes, C. J. (2010). Pinheads”: The exhibition of neurologic disorders at “The Greatest Show on Earth. Neurology, 75(22), 2028-2032.
- ^ Bogdan, R. (2014). 14 Race, Showmen, Disability, and the Freak Show. The Invention of “Race”: Scientific and Popular Representations of Race from Linnaeus to the Ethnic Shows: Scientific and Popular Representations, 195.
- ^ Hartzman, M. (2006). American sideshow. Penguin.
- ^ Bogdan, R. (2012). Picturing Disability: Beggar, Freak, Citizen, and Other Photographic Rhetoric. Syracuse University Press.