Everything about Saartjie Baartman totally explained
Saartjie "Sarah" Baartman (
1789 –
December 29,
1815) was the most famous of at least two
Khoikhoi women who were exhibited as
sideshow attractions in 19th century Europe under the name
Hottentot Venus—"Hottentot" as the then-current name for the Khoi people (see
further discussion of this now offensive term), and "Venus" in reference to the
Venus figurines.
Life
Africa
Saartje Baartman was born to a
Khoisan family in the vicinity of the
Gamtoos River in what is now the
Eastern Cape of
South Africa. She was orphaned in a
commando raid. Saartjie, pronounced "Sahr-key", is the
Afrikaans form of her name; it translates to English as "Little Sarah", where the use of the
diminutive form commonly indicates familiarity or endearment rather than a literally short stature. Her original name is unknown.
Baartman was a slave of Dutch farmers near
Cape Town when Hendrick Cezar, the brother of her slave owner, suggested that she travel to
England for exhibition, promising her that she'd become wealthy.
Lord Caledon, governor of the Cape, gave permission for the trip, but later regretted it after he gained a complete understanding of its purpose. She left for
London in 1810.
Great Britain
Saartjie travelled around Britain, showing what to Europeans were unusual bodily features, thought to be typical of her people. She had large buttocks, a condition known as
steatopygia, and visitors were permitted to touch them for extra payment. In addition, she'd a
sinus pudoris, otherwise known as the
tablier (the
French word for "apron") or "curtain of shame", all names for the
elongated labia of some Khoisan women. (Although "sinus pudoris" refers only to the labia of Khoisan woman, all
labia vary in size and shape to some degree.) To quote
Stephen Jay Gould, "The labia minora, or inner lips, of the ordinary female genitalia are greatly enlarged in Khoi-San women, and may hang down three or four inches below the vagina when women stand, thus giving the impression of a separate and enveloping curtain of skin" (Gould,
1985). Saartjie never allowed this trait to be exhibited while she was alive.
Her exhibition in London, scant years after the passing of the
Slave Trade Act 1807, created a scandal. An
abolitionist benevolent society called the African Association, the equivalent of a charity or
pressure group, petitioned for her release. Baartman was questioned before a court in
Dutch, in which she was fluent, and stated that she wasn't under restraint and understood perfectly that she was guaranteed half of the profits. The conditions under which she made these statements are suspect, because it directly contradicts accounts of her exhibitions made by Zachary Macaulay of the African Institution and other eyewitnesses.
France
Baartman later traveled to Napoleonic
Paris where an animal trainer exhibited her under more pressured conditions for fifteen months. French anatomist
Georges Cuvier and French naturalists visited her and she was the subject of several scientific paintings at the
Jardin du Roy.
She died
December 29,
1815 of an inflammatory ailment, possibly
smallpox, while other sources suggest she contracted pneumonia. An autopsy was conducted and the findings published by French anatomist
Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1816 and by Cuvier in the
Memoires du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in 1817. Cuvier notes in his
monograph that Baartman was an intelligent woman who had an excellent memory and spoke Dutch fluently. Her
skeleton, preserved
genitals and
brain were placed on display in Paris's
Musée de l'Homme until 1974, when they were removed from public view and stored out of sight.
Legacy
There were sporadic calls for the return of her remains beginning in the 1940s but the case became prominent only after U.S. biologist
Stephen Jay Gould published an account,
The Hottentot Venus, in the 1980s. When
Nelson Mandela became president of
South Africa in 1994, he formally requested that
France return the remains. After much legal wrangling and debates in the
French National Assembly, France acceded to the request on
6 March 2002. Her remains were repatriated to her homeland, the Gamtoos Valley, on
6 May 2002, over 200 years after her birth.
Baartman became an icon in South Africa as representative of many aspects of the nation's history. The Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children, a refuge for survivors of
domestic violence, opened in
Cape Town in 1999. South Africa's first offshore environmental protection vessel is named after Sarah Baartman.
Cultural references
- Dame Edith Sitwell allusively referred to her in "Hornpipe", a poem in the satirical collection "Facade".
- Diana Ferrus, a South African poet of Khoisan descent, wrote "A Poem for Sarah Baartman" while studying in Europe. It includes the desire "to wrench [her] away-/ away from the poking eyes... ."
- Poet Elizabeth Alexander explores her story in a 1987 poem and 1990 book, both entitled The Venus Hottentot.
- The science fiction author Paul Di Filippo used her story as the basis for the second novel of his Steampunk Trilogy.
- Barbara Chase-Riboud wrote a fictional biography entitled Hottentot Venus.
- Her life features in the 2007 Afrikaans romantic novel Frats by Chris Karsten.
- Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks fictionalizes her story in Venus.
- In 2006, a feminist artist and filmmaker adopted the name Venus Hottentot to direct an independent film with erotic content called Afrodite Superstar with the intention of reclaiming the strength and voice of Sarah Baartman as a sexually exploited woman of color.
- Canadian performance artist Mara Verna created a web-based project and travelling exhibition cataloguing her story.
Further Information
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