Hottentot Venus

by Barbara Chase-Riboud

  In this funky world of contrasts, of paradise and hell, it seems that no one had ever left this island without permission, according to the ship’s Negro cook, Fletcher. It was a gigantic penitentiary, set in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. According to legend, only two escapes had ever been successful: one in 1693 by a band of mutineers, and another in 1799 by an American artillery sergeant and five foot soldiers, who had been sentenced to hang. St. Helena, added Fletcher, was the only spot in the British Empire from which, or to which, an expedition could sail with the certainty of keeping its destination secret. We were four hundred leagues from the coast of Africa, he said, and a thousand from England. It would take us another eight weeks to arrive at our destination.

  Whatever the island enjoyed beyond air, water and watercresses, had to be brought from elsewhere said Cook Fletcher. But the garrison had everything we needed to replace our supplies: mutton and beef from the Cape, water, figs, oranges, lemons, pumpkins, pomegranates, apples and pears from the island, teas, sugar candy, nankeens, Indian silks, pepper, spices, muslin handkerchiefs, longcloths, ginghams from the warehouses of the Company, as well as flour, pease, oatmeal and pork. The rich provisions brought by North Americans, who exchanged them for stores from the East without having to make the long perilous journey to India and China, were all in the hands of the merchants, who in turn sold them to the South Americans. Water was really the only thing the island offered for free. And turtle was the only fresh meat.

  And so, in several weeks, we were repaired, dry and provisioned. We set sail once again, leaving the garrison, the fort, the pasturelands, the majestic mountains and a population of two thousand souls, not counting the soldiers, behind us, other fleets arriving to take our place as we set sail. We left behind both the part of St. Helena which was paradise and the part of St. Helena that was hell.

  After our shipwreck, everyone on board the HMS Exeter seemed more human, more generous, more kindly with one another. Our feelings of a common humanity, and the fragility of life we had so recently been reminded of, made us better people and better passengers. The whites no longer snubbed me, but spoke to me civilly for the rest of the voyage. Master Dunlop was more excited than ever, having survived many storms at sea. Master Hendrick took to saying his prayers even more fervently and to drinking even more whiskey but with more joy. The captain, who had navigated us through our ordeal, was deemed a hero. So was Master Dunlop, who had played such a heroic role in the face of danger and disaster. Even Fletcher and the sailors were less rough one with the other, grateful that no man had been crushed or swept overboard in the wake of the storm.

  For nearly eight weeks, we sailed into the northern Atlantic winds with calm seas and good weather, reaching Dover on Shit moon, the English month of September 10. Dover’s tall cliffs were the same as those of St. Helena, except that St. Helena’s were black and Dover’s were white. And the white salt canyons divided my life in two as surely as St. Helena was divided into desert and green pastures. Everything changed, as if the story of my life was just beginning. I never spoke another word of Khoekhoe. What was a person without her mother tongue? Only my lores talisman’s fine grains of sand spoke in Khoekhoe. The cliffs, as we sailed by, closed behind us like a lid and a bottom clasping. I could not bear to look back. Hidden behind those great white walls were my dead baby, my dead husband, my dead mother, my dead father, the dead Hottentots who had starved in Namaqualand. The colors of home disappeared and everything became the color of African dust.

  I put my hopes in Master Dunlop. Hadn’t he saved us all in the storm? Wasn’t he a doctor, a hero, a rainmaker? What did I have to fear? I was a free woman in a free country with a bride-price of one gold napoleon.

  On the day we docked, I took my English clothes from the trunk: a white dress with a scarlet sash with long mutton sleeves and a high neck, a straw bonnet with a scarlet veil that matched my sash, red kid gloves, red leather boots and a red parasol. I dressed carefully in my white women’s clothes. I went up on deck and stood amongst the other excited passengers. The giant schooner was towed through the locks of the great river by miniature canoes far below us. According to Master Dunlop, this was the Thames River which flowed directly through London Town. When I stepped off the ship, I was surrounded by more white people than I had ever imagined existed in the world: as many as there was elephant grass on an endless plain; bodies and faces, not one of them like mine.

  Part II

  LONDON, ENGLAND, 1810

  Slave, I before reasoned with you but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master.

  —MARY SHELLEY, Frankenstein

  7

  —BARON GEORGES LÉOPOLD CUVIER,

  Letter to the Emperor Napoleon

  on the progress of science since 1789

  SIRE,

  The brain is at the same time the last station of sensible impression and the receptacle of images that memory and imagination bestow upon the spirit. Acknowledging that relation is the material manifestation of the soul . . .

  Shit moon, the English month of September, 1810. I created a sensation on the wharf, in the customs house, in the open horse-drawn carriage we took to London piled with luggage covered with Master Dunlop’s giraffe skin. In the lobby of the hotel on Duke Street off St. James’s Square, ladies’ and gentlemen’s mouths dropped open as I excitedly exclaimed in Dutch and my few words of English over the beauty of London and the Londoners themselves.

  Dazed, I marveled at the flocks of pigeons, the noise and rumble of hundreds of carriages, the porte-chaises, the horse-drawn carts, the wagons pulled by bullocks and the new horse-drawn omnibuses. I clapped my hands over the wide magnificent boulevards that led directly to important public buildings and sumptuous palaces. My master told me that one single noble, the Duke of York, owned almost half the real estate in London. The income from the duke’s properties, he said, was greater than the King’s. Squares and circles, parks, fountains, mews, crescents abounded along with streets lined with shops and boutiques selling every possible item of luxury or necessity: hats, wigs, shirts, frocks, pictures and furniture. Around every corner were tailors, dressmakers, shoemakers, apothecaries, restaurants, pubs and coffee shops, arcades, open markets. London Town was full of trees, parks, gardens, zoos and flowering lanes. Yet it was still dust-colored compared to the Cape. I would suddenly come face-to-face with the magnificent cathedral of St. Paul’s, the houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge or the Bank of England. My heart would beat wildly as I gazed upwards at the famous Tower of London dungeon on the Thames river.

  There were plenty of amusements in the city: opera houses, theaters, circuses, gaming houses and casinos, puppet shows and dance halls, Chinese shadow plays, opium dens, and fairs of every kind. More importantly for us, there were dozens and dozens of public exhibition halls, none more prestigious or beautiful than that of the Liverpool Museum at 22 Piccadilly, known as Egyptian Hall, owned by the illustrous William Bullock.

  Egyptian Hall was the most fashionable place of amusement in London. Since the first month of its existence less than a year ago, twenty-two thousand spectators had walked through its doors, explained my master. More than eighty thousand Englishmen had set eyes on Master Bullock’s thirty-five-foot-long boa constrictor, his seven-foot-tall North American brown bear, the albino alligator from the Congo and fifteen thousand birds. The official name for the great collector’s brand-new building was the Liverpool or London Museum, but everybody in London called it Egyptian Hall because of the building which housed it. Ever since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and his scientific expedition, he said, the English had been obsessed with everything Egyptian. Bullock had surpassed himself by having his builder create a perfect replica of the great temple of Hathor at Dendera.

  Master Dunlop, who had had previous dealings with Master Bullock,
was elated. This time, he boasted, he had two curiosities in hand, a rare and beautiful giraffe skin of more than eighteen feet in length and a genuine female Hottentot.

  A few days after our arrival, we drove up to the imposing museum facing Piccadilly, which outshown all the buildings on the square. The front was covered with blue granite stone into which Egyptian pictures and writings had been carved which covered its entire surface, out of which stepped two sphinxes and two giant nude statues. Master Bullock was no ordinary member of the London amusement trade, I was told. He was a traveler and a naturalist and a member of several learned societies. He had started out by buying rare specimens from the captains and crews of sailing ships for his own amusement, which is how Master Dunlop met him and how Master Bullock had begun his own cabinet of curiosities. Many of his specimens had come from Master Cook’s voyages to the South Pacific and Master Barrow’s expeditions to Africa, he said.

  The masters passed through the ornate doors into the interior while I waited outside in a closed, shiny maroon carriage parked at the curb.

  I sat rigid and straight against the dark blue velvet plush of the vehicle in my white women’s clothes, the veil of my hat pulled down over my face. Suddenly I saw three men emerge from the doorway hurriedly. They approached, Master Dunlop leading the trio, his arms waving as he carried on a heated conversation with the third man. I half listened to them arguing as they entered the carriage. For over an hour, I had studied the stone front of Egyptian Hall, marveling at its size and richness—my eyes taking in everything, darting from the building to the street, to the crowds of quick-stepping passersby. I remained silent as the three large men jammed themselves into the carriage. I guessed that the man I didn’t know was the famous William Bullock, come to look me over. I didn’t smile. I couldn’t, I was too petrified. I merely threw him a sullen glance and remained speechless.

  —She speaks only her own language, my master insisted. Saartjie, this is Mr. Bullock.

  —Happy to meet you. I said finally.

  Master Bullock was as startled as if he had heard one of his stuffed specimens speak.

  —I thought you said she spoke only her own language. She speaks the King’s English.

  —Only a few words, said Master Dunlop, cursing his own stupidity under his breath.

  —Mr. Bullock, may I present Sarah Baartman.

  The men soon got down to business. They told Master Bullock that I was a South African prize straight from England’s newly conquered colony that would go down a storm in London, much more astounding than the most exotic of his animals. Master Bullock listened carefully, his high forehead with its sparse chestnut hair carefully combed over his baldness caught the sharp light that filtered through the venetian blinds of the carriage. Master Dunlop was leaning forward intently, waiting for Master Bullock’s reaction.

  Master Bullock’s eyes undressed me as he spoke, his lips pursed into what might have been a smile. He bounced up and down, shaking the carriage.

  —Well, since she has this monstrous arse which is an attribute of Venus—Kalipygos, meaning belle fesse, beautiful behind, lovely arse, splendid rump, whatever—wouldn’t it be fitting to call your specimen Venus? The Hottentot Venus? How’s that?

  —It’s brilliant! It’s perfect: Kalipygos, beamed Dunlop. I like it. The Hottentot Venus!

  He gesticulated with his hands, making an imaginary frame with his long narrow hands.

  —Yes, added Master Hendrick. It has a ring to it . . .

  —And it is certainly perversely descriptive, added Master Bullock dryly.

  But even as he enjoyed his birthday-song naming, I knew he wasn’t convinced. He kept asking if I was a slave. Besides, he continued, he exhibited stuffed animals, not humans. Where did I belong in the chain of evolution? Was I truly a lusus naturae, a freak of nature, or just an ordinary lower rung of humanity? Certainly he had heard of the legendary Hottentot apron. It had been described by Levaillant and Barrow, he said. Yet Master Bullock was tempted. He knew his audience, he said.

  —The English are a nation of starers, he stated. The Cape Colony we have just wrested from the Dutch represents the unknown, the darkest, the most exotic reaches of Africa. The public would want to domesticate anything that emerged from such a savage place to ensure that the wilderness, and the savages within were now theirs, their territory, their savages. Decidedly, he added, the people of London would adore her . . .

  But Master Bullock looked uncomfortable, even ill. He looked like he was going to throw up.

  —This carriage is the jungle, he said suddenly. I need some air, he complained. He opened the door of the carriage, and jumped out insisting that the rest of the conversation take place on the sidewalk not in front of me. But I peeked out at the men and heard them arguing on the pavement from behind the curtained window, pulling the lace back with my gloved hand, my feathered hat bobbing up and down as I tried to get a better look.

  I could see that Master Bullock was shaking and his paleness had turned scarlet.

  —I cannot in good conscience exhibit a live human being in an animal museum no matter how . . . extraordinary. But I will purchase the giraffe skin. I’ll give you one hundred guineas for it . . . but not Miss Baartman . . .

  —The Hottentot Venus, interrupted Master Hendrick. That’s her name now.

  —Yes, well, the Hottentot Venus then, sighed Master Bullock, wishing to escape.

  I realized Master Dunlop had failed. He was never going to get Master Bullock to exhibit me. After all his promises.

  —That’s your final word, sir?

  —That’s my final word, gentlemen. I don’t think it’s correct or proper. I can buy the hide of your giraffe, sir, but not the hide of your Venus. I don’t think the English will react positively to such a show, after all. If you’ll come back inside, we can complete the transaction for the giraffe. I know, however, several men in the London amusement trade who may be able to accommodate you.

  —In two years, you would have made a fortune exhibiting her to the public, whined Master Hendrick to no avail. It only annoyed Master Bullock.

  —If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Caesar . . . Good day.

  Master Bullock turned and walked back inside the museum with Dunlop trailing after him, leaving Master Hendrick standing on the sidewalk, blocking the quick flow of London pedestrians as well as my view.

  Having followed the heated sidewalk discussion, I realized something had gone wrong. Master Hendrick was standing with his hands on his hips, looking like he did when he had failed to break a bull. When Master Dunlop finally returned, he was too red-faced and furious. Both got back into the carriage.

  —I don’t see why we should share the profits of our discovery with a showman when we can rent a hall and do it ourselves. There’s space, according to an acquaintance of mine, at 225 Piccadilly Circus. We have a name, we have a slogan. To hell with Mr. Bullock, said Master Dunlop.

  —What name? I asked softly in Dutch.

  —I’ll tell you, said Master Hendrick, when we get back to Duke Street.

  —Why the Hottentot Venus, of course, laughed Master Dunlop. The name Mr. Bullock gave you in the carriage. You are the one, the only, African Venus! You like that?

  —What’s a Venus?

  —A beautiful arse, according to Mr. Bullock, a beautiful arse.

  —Venus is a Greek goddess. She is worshiped as a symbol of love and beauty . . . by white people.

  I adjusted my veil without speaking. I was not happy. We had been in London only a few days. But my masters were already at odds with each other on how to present me to London society. Master Dunlop wanted to advertise me first to the scientific community as the first genuine Hottentot ever to be seen on English soil.

  —We ought to go to the Explorers Club and to the Academy of Natural Science and get testimonials, he said. We need proof that she is the first Hottentot female ever to set foot here.

  —And have the surprise of her appearance usurped by a bunch of scientist
s and lords who will take her over and leave us at the back door of their private clubs? asked Master Hendrick.

  —At least one letter from an anatomist at the College of Medicine as a bona fides for the public. Lovejoy, for example.

  —I thought you were our bona fides, Alex, with your diploma from the College of Surgeons and all your connections to London’s scientific world. Saartjie, I mean the Venus, must be sold on her surprise value— Africa on Bond Street, not some academic description by Lord Paterson or anyone else. Have you seen how ordinary people stare at her? She’s a phenomenon . . . Most Londoners have never even seen a black before— why, she can’t even ride out in a carriage or cross the street without stopping traffic!

  Just then, something frightened the horses and the carriage lurched forward, throwing us all against each other, as if we were back on the ship. We continued towards home in silence, each one lost in his own thoughts.

  8

  SIRE,

  In a living body, each part has its individual and distinct composition: none of its molecules remain stable: everything comes and goes successively; life is a continual whirlwind of which the direction, as complicated as it is, remains constant as much as the type of molecule that is engendered remains constant, but not the individual molecules themselves; on the contrary, the actual living matter will soon be no more, yet it is the driving force that will constrain future matter to function in the same manner over and over again . . .

  —BARON GEORGES LÉOPOLD CUVIER,

  Letter to the Emperor Napoleon

  on the progress of science since 1789

  Shit moon, the English month of September, 1810. It was Master Hendrick who found the exhibition space for me at 225 Piccadilly, right across the street from Master Bullock’s Museum. It was a cavernous skylit hall that accommodated dozens of exhibits, each competing for the shillings of the public. These were the showcases for the English and Irish freaks who worked the London amusement circuit. As in a village square, open or closed boxes were available to any impresario or self-managed attraction on the way up or down that could pay the deposit on the rent. The exhibitions ranged from pictures to the morbid thrilling of freaks, and monsters.