Kim
Kardashian may have very nearly 'broken the internet' this week with
shocking photographs of her brazenly showing off her oiled bare bottom.
But
nearly two hundred years ago, a similar posterior was put on show to
the prurient amusement of Europeans that caused a scandal that reached
around the world.
Sarah
'Saartjie' Baartman came from a herding community of the indigenous
Khoisan people in what is now known as the Eastern Cape, the remote,
rural part of South Africa.
The Khoisan,
sometimes referred to as Bushmen or Hottentots, were the original
inhabitants of southern Africa who suffered under both European
colonialists and Nguni African tribesmen who came to the area from
eastern and central Africa.
What
made them physiologically distinct were their pronounced buttocks and
Asiatic eyes. As hunter gatherers their bodies would go through periods
where food availability varied dramatically.
During bountiful times, their bodies would store fat in the buttock area often resulting in pronounced backsides.
It
was one of many physical differences that European arrivals in southern
African would use as grounds to emphasise their difference from the
indigenous people - whom they categorised as more primitive and less
evolved.
Born
around 1790, Baartman's home area was then being ravaged by a series of
frontier wars and skirmishes, sometimes within the local African tribes,
on other occasions involving white adventurers pushing out from Cape
Town.
Baartman's future husband and her father were both killed in a commando raid that left her homeless.
Little
is known about this period of her life, although the economic pull of
the city at the bottom of Africa meant she ended up there working as a
house servant, effectively a slave, for a family in Cape Town.
The
physiques of Africa’s indigenous people had long interested white
colonialists and in Baartman they had an object of great curiosity.
Although
just 4ft 7in tall, Baartman’s bottom was particularly well-developed,
something that led to her being taken to London in 1810 as 'property'
part-owned by a British military doctor, Alexander Dunlop, to be
shown-off on stage as a freak.
There
was no volition in any of this. The slave trade in Britain and its
empire had just been outlawed by abolitionists but the keeping of
slaves, exploiting them at the whim of the 'owner' was still legal.
Parallels:
As it was true in the early 19th century that people are involuntarily
drawn to gawp and comment on people who are different, human nature is
no different today. Just who is doing the exploiting isn't the same
Poked: Baartman's appearance sparked
something of a riot with female members of the audience jumping up to
pinch her skin and poke her impolitely while muttering about whether her
anatomy was 'real'
Dubbed
the 'Hottentot Venus', her first appearance on stage in St James, today
the heart of London's clubland, was well-attended, deliberately spun up
by promoters to fit in to every African cliché, the stage a muddle of
rainforest and savannah iconography.
'The
Hottentot Venus – just arrived…from the banks of the river Gamtoos, on
the borders of Kaffraria, in the interior of South Africa, a most
correct and perfect specimen of that race of people,' ran an
advertisement carried in national newspapers.
Entrance was to be charged at 2 shillings, then a considerable sum.
But
the audience was there for only one main reason and this the promoters
did not let them down on, forcing Baartman to wear a figure-hugging,
skin-tight outfit that accentuated all her curves.
The costume was deliberately suggesting, playing up to the white prejudices about sexually-unrefined black natives.
Accounts
of her first appearance on stage referred to the strings of ostrich-egg
shell fragments failing to conceal completely her nipples.
Rumours
that African beauties were 'male' in their love of smoking were played
up to. Baartman had a lit pipe in her mouth when she first stepped onto
the stage.
Her
appearance sparked something of a riot with female members of the
audience jumping up to pinch her skin and poke her impolitely while
muttering about whether her anatomy was 'real'.
A man poked her with his walking cane like an exhibit in a museum.
Curiosity: 'The Hottentot Venus – just
arrived…from the banks of the river Gamtoos, on the borders of
Kaffraria, in the interior of South Africa, a most correct and perfect
specimen of that race of people,' ran an advertisement carried in
national newspapers
The
promoters fed into this with innuendo about her genitals which were
rumoured also to be over-developed, whisking her off stage after her
first appearance to tantalize bigger crowds next time she appeared.
She
was paraded as the opposite of what a 'normal' Caucasian female is.
Ironically, within a few decades European women had begun wearing a
bustle, a framework worn under a dress that made their bottoms seem
bigger.
Together
with a corset, the overall effect was to accentuate the backside, waist
and breasts which had become an idealised form of sexual identity.
It's unknown whether Baartman was the inspiration for such a look, but some modern academics have argued she was.
After
arriving in London with Dr Dunlop and her other co-owner, Hendrik
Cesars, Baartman lived in the same house as the two men in York Street,
just off Jermyn Street in St James.
Within
a few years, she had become a cause célèbre for anti-slavery
campaigners, an icon for exploitation across racial and gender lines.
Their
campaigning did not save her from being sold in 1814 to a Frenchman who
showed her off to audiences on the other side of the Channel. There
were rumours of alcoholism and syphilis before she died in December
1815.
Even
in death the exploitation continued with a surgeon removing and
preserving her genitals while artists sketched her extensively.
Her genitals remained on display in Paris until the 1970s along with her skeleton.
It
was only in 2002, after a personal appeal by Nelson Mandela, who also
hailed from the Eastern Cape, that her mortal remains made it home to
South Africa for official burial.
By that time Baartman was an icon for racial and sexist exploitation.
'The
story of Sarah Baartman is the story of the African people of our
country in all their echelons,' Thabo Mbeki, one of South Africa's
post-apartheid presidents, said.
A
remote spot in the upper valley of the Gamtoos river was chosen for
Baartman’s last resting site. A plaque marks the site today bearing a
poem about her final journey:
Cruel: Baartmen's genitals were put on
public display in France after her death in 1815. It was only in 2002,
after a personal plea from Nelson Mandela, that her remains were
returned home and properly interned
'I have come to take you home, where the ancient mountains shout your name.
I
have made your bed at the foot of the hill, your blankets are covered
in buchu and mint, the proteas stand in yellow and white – I have come
to take you home where I will sing for you for you have brought me
peace,’ the poem says.
Of
course the case of Kim Kardashian parading her backside is very
different from that of Baartman, not least because the celebrity did it
voluntarily.
But
there are also parallels. As it was true in the early 19th century that
people are involuntarily drawn to gawp and comment on people who are
different, human nature is no different today.
0 comments :
Post a Comment