Saarti Baartman (Saartjie Baartman) - a woman with a tragic destiny of the African people Hottentot, brought back to Europe from South Africa at the beginning of the XIX century.It was shown to the public as a curiosity because of the large bulging buttocks.
With these shows begins practice of creation of human zoos as a form of entertainment of the crowd in the XIX - first half of XX century, the people who demonstrated "non-European" races in their "natural" state.
in advertising leaflets Saarti commonly was called "Hottentot Venus".
exact date of birth and the name given at birth Saarti Baartman unknown.She was born on the territory of the modern province of South Africa, it was captured by the whites who killed her parents, and it turned itself into slavery.
She was a slave in the family of rich Boer farmers in Cape Town, is the brother of its owner, on the advice visit the farm of the British surgeon William Dunlop, who noticed the unusual features of the body Saarti not asked her to go to England, saying that there she can become rich.
Lord Caledon, governor of the Cape Colony, has given his consent to the trip, but later regretted it after learning about the true reasons for it.
In 1810 Saarti was brought to London and exhibited for money in the nude citizens, attracted unusual for Europeans structural features of her body (protruding buttocks - steatopyga and elongated labia).However, it is believed that the last sign of it until his death never posted publicly.
Actually Saarti received virtually nothing from the show.It led on a leash, often exhibited in a cage like a wild animal, forced to portray the savage - rush to the trainer and fight dance "Wild Dances".
And this despite the fact that Georges Cuvier, who left the note about it in the "Memoirs of the Museum of Natural History", talked about it a great memory and fluency in the Dutch language.
In England in 1810, where in 1807 a law was passed banning the slave trade, it soon caused a scandal.The court described the degrading conditions Saarti exhibiting to the public and that this was done under duress.
Baartman was eventually not released (the court found that she had a contract with Dunlop), and - after nearly four years of stay in London - sold to a Frenchman Reo, animal trainer, who moved it to France, where a woman the sameas he exhibited in Paris and at 15 months she lived in much harsher conditions than in England.
In Paris, scientists visited it, including Georges Cuvier, who at the time led the menagerie at the National Museum of Natural History.She was the "character" of several "scientific artworks" and studied in March 1815.
After the Parisian public lost interest in her paid inspections, Baartman was addicted to alcohol and began to make the existence of prostitution.
It was during his not so long stay in France, she became a cartoon character sets, and even comic performances.
December 29, 1815 Saarti Baartman died of unknown inflammatory disease, presumably - from smallpox, but it is possible that it was syphilis and pneumonia.
body after death has undergone first opened in 1816, followed by dismemberment.
Her skeleton, brain and sex organs in alcoholized form were exhibited at the Paris Museum of Man, which remain available to the public until 1974, the skeleton was exhibited publicly for another two years.
In the XIX century the remains were shown during the lectures on anthropology as "proof" of how close to the monkeys negros (in particular, to the orangutans).
Particular requirements for the return of the remains of Baartman home began to appear as early as the 1940s.After becoming president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela formally asked the French government to return the remains to their homeland.After much wrangling, it was done, and they were buried.
In contemporary South Africa, once a number of objects named in her honor.Dramatic fate Saarti Baartman dedicated and film "Black Venus" (2010)
Photo source: marinni.livejournal.com
Articles Source: marinni.livejournal.com
