Historically Speaking: Hottentot Venus

I found the bit shown in class on the “Hottentot Venus” really disturbing and outrageous, but I guess it was the way exotic cultures were interpreted back then, which of course does not make it right.

I think that if Ethnology was born out of these “Ethnological Zoos” where public exhibits of human beings was in their “natural” or “primitive” state were common it’s a sad reflection on the anthropological field of study. These human exhibits were a form of visual documentary and they were common until the 20th century. In the article The Other History of Intercultural Performance, Coco Fusco writes that though human zoos as they were back then no longer exist “the desire to look upon unpredictable forms of Otherness from a safe distance persists” (154).

The short clips of the history of Saartjie Baartman, who was a member of the Namagua tribe, better known as the “Hottentot Venus” were just so sad and vile it’s hard to imagine what her life must have been. She was on display in London until her death in 1815. The people that were exhibiting her allowed spectators to touch her especially touch her buttocks in exchange for payment.

Coco Fusco performed inside a cage with a friend of hers and she says that “after the ritual surprise of encountering caged beings, audiences invariably revealed their familiarity with the scenario to which we alluded” (154) which is a very sad statement because I would want to think that we have come a long way since the times of the human zoos, but for people to see familiarity in such a vile spectacle is not encouraging.