Hottentot Venus

Sarah Bartmann was once called the "Hottentot Venus".  Learn more about Sarah's life:

Her life in 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. Saartje, 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 would 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.

In 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 had 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, and an abolitionist benevolent society (equivalent to a charity or pressure group) called the African Association petitioned for her release. Baartman was questioned before a court in Dutch, in which she was fluent, and stated that she was not 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 exhibits made by Zachary Macaulay of the African Institution and other eyewitnesses.

In 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.

Sarah's 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.

Whilst studying in Europe, Diana Ferrus, a South African poet of Khoisan descent, wrote "A Poem for Sarah Baartman", which includes the desire "to wrench [her] away-/ away from the poking eyes..."

Baartman became an icon in South Africa as representative of so many aspects of their history. Her remains were repatriated to her land of birth, the Gamtoos Valley, on 6 May 2002.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saartjie_Baartman