Chang and Eng Bunker — ‘The Siamese Twins’
Public Domain/Wellcome CollectionSideshow performers Chang and Eng Bunker.
In the 1820s, a Scottish merchant named Robert Hunter saw an unusual sight in the water while visiting the Kingdom of Siam (present-day Thailand): two boys, conjoined at the sternum, taking a swim in the river.
The boys, Chang and Eng Bunker, had been born in 1811 in a small town near Bangkok. They were considered medical marvels, as they had completely separate bodies save for the four-inch bridge of flesh that connected them.
Hunter saw an opportunity to make a profit. Though it took the merchant five years to convince the King of Siam, he was ultimately allowed to take the twins out of the country. After paying their mother $500, he began to exhibit Chang and Eng Bunker as “The Siamese Twins.”
The brothers toured for three years, doing backflips and playing badminton for enthusiastic audiences. While they were a popular act, they barely saw any money from their performances and were often treated like property rather than people. When they turned 21, they broke out on their own.
Wellcome CollectionA poster advertising Chang and Eng Bunker, sideshow performers who were also conjoined twins.
Though they continue to tour for years, the Bunker twins ultimately retired as sideshow performers in 1839. They become American citizens, bought a plantation in North Carolina, and married a pair of sisters — with whom they’d ultimately have 21 children. Eng and Chang Bunker also owned 18 slaves, many of whom had been bought as children.
But things began to go downhill for the twins after the Civil War. They had invested a fortune into the Confederate States of America, but ended up bankrupt. Chang began drinking heavily and suffered a stroke in 1870.
In 1874, he caught bronchitis and died in his sleep from a blood clot. Eng awoke to find his brother dead and, within hours, Eng passed away as well.
George And Willie Muse — ‘The Men From Mars’
PRGeorge and Willie Muse stand with their parents after being rescued from the circus.
George and Willie Muse were born in the 1890s in Virginia. They were Black, but born albino, and soon caught the eye of a “freak hunter” named James Herman “Candy” Shelton. In 1899, when George was just six and Willie was nine, Herman abducted them from their sharecropping community and forced them to become sideshow performers.
Billed as “Eko and Iko, the Ambassadors from Mars,” the Muse brothers were compelled to grow out their hair and wear colorful, garish garments. Shelton claimed that they’d been discovered in the wreck of a spaceship in the Mojave desert, and pocketed thousands from their appearances — though the brothers saw very little of their earnings themselves.
Even worse, circus operators lied to George and Willie Muse and told them that their mother was dead, in order to discourage them from thinking about their family members or trying to escape. However, their mother Harriett was very much alive. And she was working tirelessly to find her sons.
Incredibly, she was able to free them — by attending a performance herself in 1927. The brothers, who by that point were in their mid-30s, immediately recognized their mother in the crowd. Before long, they were reunited and finally allowed to go back home with their family.
Robert StaufferAs sideshow performers, the Muse brothers were billed as “Eko and Iko.”
They then signed a new contract with better terms (though their wages were sometimes still stolen) and were able to support themselves and their family.
The brothers retired in the mid-1950s and spent their later years telling stories about their harrowing experiences. In 1972, George Muse died of heart failure. Willie lived until 2001, when he died at age 108.
