Hottentot Venus

by Barbara Chase-Riboud

  —Probably in no former period of the world has the destruction of any race of animals whatever been affected over such wide areas and with such startling rapidity as in the case of the savage man . . .

  —One can roughly divide the nations of the world into the living and the dying—the living nations will fraudulently encroach on the territory of the dying.

  —Like jackals.

  —Or cannibals, I thought to say out loud. The fervor of dogma mounted in the stifling room.

  —What is the function of steatopygia? Does it function like the tail of the fat-tailed sheep or the hump of a dromedary?

  —A change in the environment, said another voice, causes changes in the needs of organisms living in that environment, which in turn causes changes in their behavior. Altered behavior leads to greater or lesser use of a given structure or organ: use could cause the organ to increase in size over several generations, disuse would cause it to disappear. Wouldn’t this be the case with the Hottentot apron? The natural degree of lasciviousness and voluptuousness of the Hottentot has evolved into the perfect organ!

  —Hear! Hear!

  —That is brilliant.

  Cuvier nodded, trying to get to the crux of his lecture, but the anatomists were enthusiastically debating this riveting question, tripping over one another in the stampede to assert their opinions.

  —The average standard of the Negro race is two grades below our own based on my intelligence chart. The Lowland Scot and the English North Countryman is a grade superior to the ordinary English. The ancient Greeks were very nearly two grades higher than our own, that is about as much as our white race is superior to the African Negro.

  —There is a vast difference, a British naturalist insisted, between the prognathous and the orthognathous people of Britain. The Irish, Welsh and lower classes are prognathous whereas all men of genius are orthognathous. It is part of my theory of Nigressence, which links the Irish to Cro-Magnon man and the Africanoid races . . .

  —Look at the Hottentot. Is he shaped like any white person? Is the anatomy of his frame, his muscles, or organs like ours? Does he walk like us, think like us, act like us? What an innate hatred the Saxon has for him!

  —A death sentence is justified against those unavowed by God, those who have defrauded natural reason and those who are neither nations in right nor nations in name!

  —The decisive events of history are determined by the iron law of race, asserted another French anthropologist. Human destiny is decreed by nature and expressed in race.

  Cuvier allowed this to resound throughout the hall as a rallying call and a litany before he reined in his apostles.

  —Let us now, continued the baron, come to the crux of our examination: our Hottentot’s sinus pudoris, or curtain of shame, better known as the Hottentot apron.

  A sudden hush came over the room. I had been busily sculpting the Venus and had hardly followed Cuvier’s lecture and the discussion that had taken place. But when I looked up, I saw that the Venus’s light brown eyes were still upon me after all these hours. Sarah Baartman and de Blainville were at present having a tugging match as she tried to retain the white handkerchief that covered her pubis and de Blainville tried to snatch it away. Each time, Sarah won and de Blainville, angry and frustrated, glanced at Cuvier in despair while the Venus stared at me, defying the ogling scientists by hiding through careful compression of her thighs the very object of their desire. I had to laugh. She stood as frozen as my perfect sculpture, which in the tumult seemed to take on a life of its own.

  —It was Péron, continued the baron, in the second volume of The Voyageto the Austral Lands, who approached the subject in a different way, stating that the apron didn’t exist in Hottentots, but in Bushwomen, who also have excessively developed buttocks, and that this apron was not the development of any other part of the female anatomy but a special organ added on by nature.

  —Linnaeus reported that it was the primitive vestige of the Hottentot’s animal origin. He also reported finding it in the female Homo troglodytes, his second and lowest species of humans. John Ovington wrote in his Voyage to Saratt in 1689 that women who had these aprons were hermaphrodites. Voltaire argued that these women must belong to a separate race. Levaillant called the sinus pudoris a product of depraved taste and insisted that these aprons were merely caprices of fashion and coquetry.

  —Peter Kolb suggested that it served as a natural fig leaf. Sir John Barrow added that it guarded Hottentot women against rape since it was impossible to penetrate an aproned woman without her consent. He believed that it was a hypertrophy of the labia and nymphae caused by manipulation of the genitalia and considered beautiful by Hottentots and Bushmen as well as tribes in Dahomey and Basutoland.

  —For us today, the most important question concerning what is variously known as the female tablier, the tablier égyptien, Hottentot apron, joyau, longinympha, macronympha or, as Linnaeus called it, the sinus pudoris,or curtain of shame, is: Is it a product of nature or human manipulation? Or is it like mermaids, sirens and centaurs, an illusion that is entirely imaginary and chimerical? All this speculation must give way to scientific facts.

  —The Hottentot apron exists. We have before us a living specimen, a genuine Hottentot of the race described by Jensen, Barrow and Levaillant; one everyone here has been able to view during her eighteen-month stay in our capital . . . Sarah Baartman’s genitalia and buttocks summarize her essence. The remarkable development of her labia minora or nymphae which is so general a characteristic of the Hottentot and Bushman race, is sufficiently well marked as to distinguish these parts at once from any of the ordinary varieties occurring in the human species. I contend that the apron is a morbid development of the inner vaginal lips divided like two wrinkled, fleshy petals which, if raised, form the figure of a heart. These two rounded appendages are different lengths in different subjects, some not more than a half inch, in others three or four inches. Although I am a dedicated monogenist, this may be one of the anatomical marks of the nonunity of the races . . . which . . .

  The baron turned to watch de Blainville silently struggle with Sarah Baartman.

  —Nothing proves the primitive character of our Hottentot like her exaggerated sexual organs. Advanced humans are sexually restrained. Animals are overtly and actively sexual. Sarah’s exaggerated sexual organs are proof of her inferiority and animality. Which we will explore in tomorrow’s session since Miss Baartman seems unwilling to cooperate with Monsieur de Blainville today. I conclude on this note.

  —May I contest that? I interloped, suddenly exacerbated, almost crying with rage. Humans are the most sexually active primates and humans have the largest sexual organs. Thus a human with larger than average endowments is in proportion, if anything, more human—not to mention the connection between human sexuality, the brain and conscious imagination . . .

  —Mr. . . . Tiedeman, the animalist, I believe. We will have to take this up tomorrow. We have run out of time and any willingness on the part of Madame Baartman to accommodate us, said the baron. I therefore bring this session to a close and reconvene the conference, here, tomorrow at eleven o’clock.

  The regiment of scientists filed out of the auditorium as if they were an expedition of explorers trekking through the wilds of Africa. They traversed the elegant gardens Indian file, staying close together for safety, each following behind the other across the immaculate paths to the reception tent.

  The quartet’s music wafted across the neatly tended diamonds, squares, circles and crescents of the pink-pebbled walks, the blossoming sumac, fleabane, goldenrod, geraniums and multiflora roses. It flooded the low hedges trimmed to perfection, the decorative sculptures, the medicinal plants, flowering bushes. I adjusted my sunglasses as I emerged from the auditorium and surveyed the expanse of garden. I spied Sarah in the distance, a wide hat hiding her face, her white skirts wrapped closely around her in the slight breeze. She was more than alone. She seemed the most solitary figure I had ever seen: a
mysterious doomed character out of a romantic novel, the eternal Other . . . She stood close to the aviary, outlined by its wire mesh and ironwork. I wondered if she was contemplating freeing all those birds. That, I thought, would enrage the baron all right, perfect French bureaucrat that he was, for the birds belonged to the state, which owned the museum. I wondered if I should walk over to her instead of joining the others. I had known many artists’ models, had seen many women’s bodies, had drawn, engraved and sculpted them. I was not shy or embarrassed that I had created her form in clay from life. I was anxious only because from afar, Sarah Baartman seemed so uniquely remote, and unapproachable; it was as if she were indeed a whole race unto herself . . . But I didn’t dare approach her.

  But then, she spied me in my artist’s smock, felt hat, long wavy hair and wide black bow and beckoned to me. Later that afternoon she told me that I was the only man in the entire room of physicians whose eyes hadn’t made her feel naked.

  19

  Thus, if the viscera of an animal are so organized as only to be fitted for the digestion of recent flesh, it is also required that the jaws should be constructed as to fit them for devouring their prey; the claws must be constructed for seizing and tearing it to pieces; the teeth for cutting and dividing the flesh; the entire system of limbs or organs of motion for pursuing and overtaking it; the organs of sense for discovering it at a distance.

  —BARON GEORGES LÉOPOLD CUVIER,

  Discourse on the Revolutionary Upheavals

  on the Surface of the Globe

  Twisted Ears, the English month of March, 1815. At first, I didn’t mind. The slow, beelike droning of Master Cuvier’s soft voice in my ear lulled me into a trance. I stood; I walked, I jumped, I bent over, I turned around; I raised my arm, I lifted my foot, I held out my hand; I turned my head from side to side as in a dream. And as in a dream, the world was turned upside down. I kept my eye on the artist who was producing the effigy of me out of red clay. Not as red as his flaming red hair which fell in long waves to his shoulders, which were broad and sloping. His eyes were the color of the ocean under thick straight red eyebrows, and his face was painted with tiny red dots. After studying so many white faces, I judged his not only handsome but good. He wore a loose dress gathered at the neck in a bow. He had beautiful large hands which squeezed and molded the clay. I kept my eye on him because his eye on me was attentive, respectful, almost tender. The scientists were brusque, frightening and contemptuous. They interrupted each other, raising their voices or talked over each other, each tripping over the other’s words and finally ending in shouts. Their voices ranged from low and dignified to rowdy, from cool politeness to utter rage; their mouths worked, spittle flew, hands waved, elbows gesticulated, arms swayed, feet tapped. It was like a slow-motion dance, with each man calling on his rainmaker for rain, in supplication or as a command. Words in a language I didn’t understand flew about; sometimes like a gnat I would catch one or two: Hottentote, tablier, Africaine, Cap de Bonne Espérance, belle, bête, sauvage . . . I was indifferent to all that. I had been commanded to appear and I had done so against my will. For three days now, Master de Blainville had been trying to get me to drop the white handkerchief I held in front of my sex so that the baron could examine my apron. I refused. He pleaded. I resisted. My eyes appealed directly to the baron, whose long sharp stick tapped me gently from time to time as his discourse got more and more animated. Master de Blainville tugged at my handkerchief and I tugged back. I was determined that my apron would remain what it had always been to these men: a mystery.

  By the third day, I was exhausted and numb with shame. I began to understand the contempt these men had for my body, for my color, for my humanity. I could have been a dog, a Siamese twin, a two-headed turtle. It was all the same to them. They were only interested in my monstrosity, Homo monstrosis, they called me, a new species of mankind. Like Hottentots baying for war, they farted and belched, coughed, stamped their feet, rolled their eyes, bared their teeth, spat, hawked, scratched their balls, slapped themselves, played with their ears, pulled at their hair, arranged their clothing as if I could not observe them—as if I could not return their rude gazes and bold scrutiny. As if they were in their water closets; as if they, not I, were naked. Their voices, their argumentative tones, their questions and answers flew past me like a hail of poisoned arrows, each one finding its mark, wounding my flesh so viciously I sometimes wondered whether they were only words. I experienced waves of nausea. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t understand what they were saying since I felt it in my flesh, as I had with the vaudeville play. They were out to prove that I, Sarah Baartman, was not human.

  On the last day, Master de Blainville offered me a gold napoleon to lower my handkerchief and show them my apron. He held it in his outstretched hand exactly as Master Dunlop had done years ago. He stood there, in his peacock clothes, his plastered-down hair, his chirping, smirking arrogance, and disrespected me for the last time.

  —I know you love money, he said. This is no different from your circus performances. I’ve paid my money, now I want my show!

  It was as if I had seen a ghost or worse, as if !Naeheta Magahâs herself, the horrible dwarf, the fantastical witch, the thing-that-should-never-have-been-born, had risen up before me, shaking her braids and, in the supreme insult of a Khoekhoe, showing her ass. I screamed back at her in Khoe, pleading and bowing, cajoling and begging forgiveness. Then, as the rainmaker lunged towards me, I jumped back and struck out, hitting, of course, not Magahâs but Master de Blainville, almost knocking him off his feet. He in turn began to curse at me, consigning me to hell and purgatory as a heathen. Our shouting match went on for minutes, as I leapt around from one foot to the other like a monkey, my movements jerky, frenetic and hardly human, before the baron intervened, seizing me and holding me against his chest.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the sculptor leave the room in disgust, throwing down his tools and covering my image with a cloth. He didn’t return for the final session. The other artists remained until the final moment, desperately working to finish their paintings. At last, I stepped down from my pedestal. I had won the war with Master de Blainville and he slumped, dejected, on the steps of the podium.

  That night, my last appearance as Venus over, I was half asleep in my tent. Alice, who had come to fetch me, snored on the camp bed beside mine. Suddenly, the flap of the tent lifted and two dark figures loomed in the moonlight. Alarmed, I let out a little screech, which woke Alice. I knew it couldn’t be Sieur Réaux. Alice leapt to her feet, grabbing a heavy stool as a weapon, croaking,

  —Who’s there?”

  By that time, I was on my feet as well, a sheet pulled across my body, leaving, I remember, one breast exposed. My eyes were red and my lips trembled. I had been dreaming of the massacre.

  —Don’t be alarmed, came the silky voice of Master Cuvier out of the darkness. It is only I . . . with your Emperor. His Majesty wants to inspect you.

  Master Cuvier’s face appeared first, lit by a twelve-armed candelabra which shook a little, making the light flicker and giving his familiar face a sinister glow. Just behind him appeared the face of the Emperor. I knew him by sight even though he was wearing neither his three-cornered hat nor his crown. He was bareheaded, his thin brown hair combed forward and pasted to his forehead in fringes. His bright round eyes shone in the candlelight. The shadows of the tent hardened the contours of his face, yet it was a young face, I thought in surprise. My mouth had fallen open, my left hand clutched the sheet in front of me. I remained upright, frozen, while Alice dropped to her knees in a curtsy.

  —Sire . . .

  I almost laughed out loud, and to stop myself, I too curtsied low. The Emperor, I thought, in the King’s Botanical Gardens. To visit a freak show in the middle of the night. Would my tormentor take His Majesty to visit the baboons after he left here? I wondered. Or would it be the king-size giraffe? I was trembling with rage and with cold.

  The two men stood there li
ke their effigies in Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. Master Cuvier had on evening clothes and the Emperor was in a white uniform covered with medallions and decorations. They stared at us, two naked or practically naked women, one white and one black, as if they were visiting a lunatic asylum. The whorehouse, the crazy house, the workhouse, the poorhouse, ran through my brain. These men had the power of life and death over us. Alice had called Napoleon “the Butcher of Europe” for having killed a million of his own soldiers in the name of his ambitions to conquer Europe.

  Without a word, the men circled us. With his sword, the Emperor plucked away the sheet, leaving me naked. He tapped me with his stick and made the clucking sound a coachman makes to urge his horses on. Then, thinking I did not understand French, he said:

  —True, the Venus does resemble a baboon. In ancient Egypt, she would be worshiped as a goddess. Certainly her arse is amazing; as for her resemblance to a hermaphrodite, it is an interesting idea and would explain her organs of generation . . . or is it a fusion of several organs?

  —I have examined her thoroughly and have deduced that it is not, sire.

  —You must make her part of your new report to me on the state of science in France.

  —The next report will be the state of science in Europe, sire.

  —All barbarians are more or less ugly people. Beauty is the inseparable companion of the most civilized nations. Of course the Negro is ugly. How could it be otherwise? There is nothing more contemptible than a Negro except a Jew. Let us forget Africa, never to return to it, for Africa is not part of the historical globe, it is outside history . . .

  The Emperor walked around me one last time. He stooped low because of my smallness to have a better look at my face and to peer into my eyes. His were the eyes of a jackal. He made snorting, clucking noises like a naked ape. After he had finished his inspection and was satisfied with his conclusions, the two men departed as abruptly as they had arrived, leaving us speechless.