User:Juliexahn/sandbox

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Additions to Sarah Baartman Section[edit]

As Sarah saw her homeland disappear behind her, she had the slightest thought that she would become an "icon of racial inferiority (racism) and black female sexuality for the next 100 years" (The Life and Times of Sara Baartman film).[1]

Hottentots (KhoiKhoi)[edit]

Khoikhoi, on average, are a little more than 5 feet (1.5 m) tall in height. In their native language, Khoikhoi meant "people people" or "real people.”[2] The name "Hottentots" originated from whites in South Africa. They called the Khoikhoi "Hottentots" because their language and way of communication differed from theirs.[3] This name was one of the main reasons why Sarah Baartman was named “Hottentot Venus.” Their religion is a combination of animism and the personification of the natural forces that produce rain. Khoikhoi tribes often practiced cross-cousin marriages between clans. Lines of descent are reckoned through the father.

The Khoikhoi believe in the existence of the soul after death (afterlife) and in a ruler of all things who came out of the east. Their graves, therefore, are oriented toward the east. The Khoikhoi may not have priestly class nor temples and places of united worship, they have healers and sorcerers who are called on to heal the sick by "magic" (African medicine). An extensive folklore exists, having many resemblances to that of the neighboring Bantu (Bantu peoples).

This ethnic group had been living in South Africa for thousands of years before colonists arrived.[4] The appearance of European colonists radically changed life for the Khoikhoi, especially for Sarah Baartman. Some of the Khoikhoi, like Sarah Baartman,[5] ended up as a servant or slave in the homes of the colonists, while others still pursued to maintain small settlements or subsumed into neighboring tribes. Only small numbers of the so-called Hottentots still exist today, particularly in very small and sometimes nomadic communities.[6]

Sarah Baartman was surely named the "Hottentot Venus" because she, for one, was a Hottentot herself, and second, because she was a desirable, loved sexual deviant (paraphilia).[7]

Minor Changes/Edits in Great Britain[edit]

Sarah Baartman, daughter of South Africa, willingly went to London seeking riches and fame (rags to riches).[8] At the age of 21, she was taken to London to be displayed as an oddity, and later taken to France to be studied by scientists. Little did she know that she would be fooled and humiliated in front of spectators and large audiences. She was caged like an animal and had to perform naked in front of audiences. She was an object of leering and abuse. Sarah was considered far from anything human because she looked different than a white woman, which made her inferior in society. They were fascinated by her large breasts, big hips, lips, buttocks (steatopygia) and also the elongated labia of some Khoisan women.

Baartman was exhibited as a "freak" and "scientific curiosity" first in London, entertaining people because of her "exotic" origin. While being exposed on stage, Sarah had to forget her own identity in order to play the role of the Hottentot Venus so it was credible to the audience.[9]

After being showcased and humiliated in front of all of London, she wasn't done being an "animal".[10] Sarah Baartman was taken to France so scientists may study her body. Doctors and medical students scribbled madly into their medical journals descriptions of her body.

She was later sold to a circus where she danced naked for the entertainment of white people.

Additions to France[edit]

"In France, as in Britain, her image proliferated - with a significant difference: where English representations exaggerated the size of her buttocks, French portrayals show attempts to be more true to life." (The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman)[11] It was then that Reaux made arrangements for the Hottentot Venus to go in for examination at George Cuvier's laboratory[12] as a subject for scientific study. Sarah Baartman wasn't in for an ordinary examination of her health and wellness, but she was a test subject for one of Cuvier's theories. Cuvier thoroughly examined Sarah's genitals to test his theory that the more "primitive" the mammal (see also evolution), the more pronounced would be the sexual organs.[13] After Baartman had died and he was able to examine her body closely and dissect it, Cuvier selected aspects of her appearance to conclude that "Hottentots" were closer to great apes than humans.[14] This social anthropologist believed Sarah Baartman was the missing link between animals and humans. She was the highest form of animal life, but the lowest form of human life.[15] In later studies, Frederick Tiedemann and Edward Charles Spitzka used Sarah Baartman's brain to draw conclusions between the relationship of intelligence and ethnic origin.[16] It was evident that she represented peoples on the lowest level of human capability,[17] which supported Cuvier's theory. Baartman's appearance within medical texts was also essential for discussion regarding Khoisan anatomy in the nineteenth century.[18] For example, Anne Fausto-Sterling has argued that "the encounters between women from Southern Africa and the great men of European science began in the second decade of the nineteenth century when Henri de Blainville ... and Georges Cuvier met Baartman and described her for scientific circles, both when she was alive and after she was dead.”[19] Not only was Sarah Baartman being examined by Enlightenment scientists, but she was also posing as a model for many Enlightenment naturalists and artists so they may capture her physical appearance with their paintbrush. De Wailly's portrait of her is drawn with evocative, poignant sensibility. In this image, the "Hottentot Venus" poses and reflects the Cnidian Venus.

After Sarah Baartman's Death[edit]

She was only 25 years old when she died, but her story didn’t end there. Even after her death, she wasn’t allowed dignity.[20] When she died, they dissected her body so they may preserve her genitals, brain, and skeleton in bottles to be displayed along with a plaster of her body at the Musee de l'Homme in Paris.[21] For 160 years, people could walk into a museum and see her fully exposed and what she looked like naked. In 1974, they finally took down her display, but still kept her remains.[22] It wasn’t until 2002 that they gave her a long, overdue proper burial in her homeland.

Sarah Baartman became the blueprint of degrading and humiliating the black woman on a worldwide level.

See Also[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ Maseko, Zola. The Life and Times of Sara Baartman: "The Hottentot Venus." Film. 1998.
  2. ^ "Khoikhoi," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000
  3. ^ "Who Are The Hottentots?" http://www.wisegeek.com/who-are-the-hottentots.htm
  4. ^ "Khoi & San People." Khoi & San People. N.p., n.d. Web.
  5. ^ Davie, Lucille (14 May 2012). "Sarah Baartman, at rest at last". SouthAfrica.info. Retrieved 2012-08-06.
  6. ^ Smith, S.E., and Bronwyn Harris. "Who Are the Hottentots?" WiseGeek.
  7. ^ To London audiences, she was a fantasy made flesh, uniting the imaginary force of two powerful myths: Hottentot and Venus. The latter invoked a cultural tradition of lust and love; the former signified all that was strange, disturbing and - possibly - sexually deviant. Holmes, Rachel. The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman : Born 1789 - Buried 2002.
  8. ^ "Among other things, Sara Baartman said that 'she came by her own consent to England and was promised half of the money for exhibiting her person—She agreed to come to England for a period of six years; she went personally to the Government in company with Henrick Caesars to ask permission to go to England...'" (Scully and Crais pg. 320)
  9. ^ Sara Baartman had to learn to act the part of the Hottentot Venus. On stage, Baartman had to erase aspects of her personal history, experience, and identity in order to make her performance of the Venus credible to the audience that was staring at her. cite web|last=Pamela Scully and Clifton Crais|title=Race and Erasure: Sara Baartman and Hendrik Cesars in Cape Town and London|publisher=The University of Chicago Press
  10. ^ Sara was literally treated like an animal. There is some evidence to suggest that at one point a collar was placed around her neck." "Searching for Sara Baartman." Johns Hopkins Magazine. The John Hopkins Magazine.
  11. ^ Holmes, Rachel. The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman : Born 1789 - Buried 2002. London: Bloomsbury, 2008. Print.
  12. ^ Frith, Susan. "Searching for Sara Baartman."
  13. ^ Frith, Susan. "Searching for Sara Baartman." Johns Hopkins Magazine. The John Hopkins Magazine, n.d.
  14. ^ Maseko, Zola. The Life and Times of Sara Baartman: "The Hottentot Venus." Film. 1998.
  15. ^ Cuvier, shown here, described Baartman’s movements as having "something brusque and capricious about them that recalled those of monkeys." Cuvier used such descriptions to demonstrate the superiority of the European races. Several "scientific" papers were written about Baartman, using her as proof of the superiority of the white race. "Sara's Story."
  16. ^ for example, one writer describing the brain of a San woman demonstrated the simplicity of her anatomy by arguing that “In this point the Bushwoman’s brain is more ape- like than even that of the Hottentot Venus”. Qureshi, Sadiah. Hist. Sci., Xlii. (2004). pg. 244.
  17. ^ John Marshall, “On the brain of a Bushwoman; and on the brains of two idiots of European descent”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, cliv (1864), 501–58
  18. ^ Qureshi, Sadiah. Hist. Sci., Xlii. (2004). pg. 244.
  19. ^ Anne Fausto-Sterling, “Gender, race, and nation: The comparative anatomy of ‘Hottentot’ women in Europe, 1815–1817”
  20. ^ "Who is Sarah Baartman?" video
  21. ^ Hal Morgan and Kerry Tucker. Rumor! Fairfield, Pennsylvania: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 29.
  22. ^ Untrodden fields of anthropology : observations on the esoteric manners and customs of semi-civilized peoples. American Anthropoligical society. Retrieved 19 July 2010. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

References[edit]

  • Fausto-Sterling, Sterling. “Gender, race, and nation: The comparative anatomy of ‘Hottentot’ women in Europe, 1815–1817”
  • Frith, Susan. "Searching for Sara Baartman." Johns Hopkins Magazine. The John Hopkins Magazine, n.d. Web. <http://www.jhu.edu/jhumag/0609web/sara.html>.
  • Holmes, Rachel. The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman : Born 1789 - Buried 2002. London: Bloomsbury, 2008. Print.
  • "Khoikhoi," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
  • "Khoi & San People." Khoi & San People. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.nieu-bethesda.com/en/history/san-a-khoi.html>.
  • Maseko, Zola. The Life and Times of Sara Baartman: "The Hottentot Venus." Film. 1998.
  • Qureshi, Sadiah. Hist. Sci., Xlii. N.p.: n.p., 2004. Www.negri-froci-giudei.com/. Web. <www.negri-froci-giudei.com/public/pdfs/qureshi-baartman.pdf>.
  • Scully, Pamela, and Crais, Clifton. “Race and Erasure: Sara Baartman and Hendrik Cesars in Cape Town and London” Journal of British Studies, Vol. 47, No. 2. April 2008.
  • Smith, S.E., and Bronwyn Harris. "Who Are the Hottentots?" WiseGeek. Conjecture, n.d. Web. <http://www.wisegeek.com/who-are-the-hottentots.htm>.
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