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Well past the beginning of the last century, it was not uncommon for intrepid and wealthy Europeans visiting Africa to bring along a taxidermist or two. A safari could always yield a prize rhino or lion that would need stuffing. But, in 1830, a pair of French taxidermists took their trade a further step, exhuming the body of a deceased African man from the Kalahari desert. They had the corpse embalmed and stuffed for show in Europe, its light skin polished black to make him look more "African" — a sign of an era when such racialized curiosity in other (and often subject) peoples was common throughout the Western world. The body ended up on display in a small museum in the northern Spanish town of Banyoles for the better part of century until a local doctor of Haitian descent complained about it in 1992. The ensuing controversy drummed up much support in the town among those who wanted to keep the specimen — commemorative chocolates were issued celebrating the man known simply as "El Negro" — but the body was eventually returned to Botswana in 2000 and given a full burial in front of hundreds of local dignitaries and foreign diplomats.

In 1838, after decapitating two Dutch emissaries and decorating his throne with their heads, King Badu Bonsu II, the ruler of the Ahanta tribe in present day Ghana, was himself beheaded by Dutch soldiers. For more than 150 years, King Bonsu's head was lost until an author found it stored in a jar of formaldehyde in a Dutch museum. Ghana immediately asked for the King's severed head back and, in July 2009, members of the Ahanta flew to The Hague and staged a mourning ceremony that included pouring gin libations on the floor of the Foreign Ministry before taking the head back to Ghana.

In the 16th century, St. Francis Xavier spent a lot of time on his feet, spreading the gospel throughout Spain, France, Italy, Malaysia, Japan, Sri Lanka and India, dying at sea en route to China. When a group of Christians disinterred his body a few months later, they were surprised to see it in a perfect state of preservation. But just as in life, his "incorrupt body" didn't stay at rest for long. In its first public exhibition of corpse in Goa, India, in fit of reverence, a Portuguese woman bit off his big toe. Allegedly, the toe gushed blood, and she was caught when people followed the grisly trail to her home. Today, St. Francis Xavier's toe is on display in a silver reliquary in a cathedral in Goa. And it isn't the only part of St. Xavier's corpse to travel: There's a diamond-encrusted fingernail on display in a different village in Goa, part of an arm was sent to Rome, and there's a hand in Japan.

Thomas Paine, the greatest pamphleteer in history, a hero of both the American and French revolutions and allegedly the first person to write the words "the United States of America," died a penniless drunk in Manhattan. Only six people attended his funeral, and a popular nursery rhyme at the time of his death went:

Poor Tom Paine! There he lies:
Nobody laughs and nobody cries
Where he has gone or how he fares
Nobody knows and nobody cares

Even after death, Paine couldn't catch a break. Some ten years later, overzealous journalist and Paine fan William Cobbett, exhumed Paine's body and shipped it to England where he hoped to build a proper memorial. Cobbett couldn't raise the money needed, so Paine remained in a trunk in his attic. After Cobbett's death, Paine's remains disappeared. Legend has it that his bones were turned into buttons, though in the 1930s, one woman in Brighton claimed to have his jawbone. Poor Tom Paine!

People have been fixated on Napoleon's penis since Napoleon's doctor allegedly cut it off during his autopsy in 1821 and gave it to a priest in Corsica. The penis, which was not properly preserved, has been compared over the years to a piece of leather, a shriveled eel and to beef jerky. In 1927 when it went on display in Manhattan, TIME weighed in, comparing it to a "maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace." It's enough to give anyone a complex! In 1977, a urologist living in New Jersey purchased the modern-day relic for $3,000 and stored it under his bed until he died 30 years later. His daughter inherited Napoleon's penis and has fielded at least one $100,000 offer.