you. . . .”
“Let us zit down, und I vill explain all. Perhaps dot decanter of zherry I zee dere vould help lubricate mine zpeech—”
Obliging his guest’s request, all the while keeping one eye on Dottie Baartman where she squatted on her haunches by the wall, her raffia skirt falling between her legs and revealing more of her hideous black haunches, Agassiz tried to compose himself to listen to the man’s tale.
He was not prepared, however, for his reaction to Cezar’s opening words.
“I am der zun of Hendrik Cezar, und Dottie ist der daughter of—”
Suddenly, recognition dawned. “The Hottentot Venus!” exclaimed Agassiz.
Jacob Cezar smiled. “Ach, I zee Europe ztill remembers her.”
And to be sure, Europe, in the person of Louis Agassiz, still did, though the woman in question had died when Agassiz was only eight years old, in 1815.
In the year 1810, a man named Hendrick Cezar arrived in London and set up a sideshow in Piccadilly. His exhibit consisted simply of a large cage on a platform elevated a few feet above the eager spectators.
Inside was a black woman.
Billed as the “Hottentot Venus,” she had been, before her stage career, simply the South African servant girl Saartjie Baartman.
Representing like all her fellow Bushmen a curious hybrid of bestial and human qualities, she was soon drawing spectators by the hundreds, all eager to witness this degraded representative from the lower rungs of humanity.
The guffawing men and tittering women in the audience were particularly struck by her steatopygous traits, those immense gluteal lipoid deposits which Agassiz had noticed in her daughter. This feature was exhibited sans clothing to the audience, who were free to poke and prod it, though, in a gesture of modesty, Saartjie kept her pudendum covered with a loincloth.
(But there were a few members of the audience who claimed in vague terms that the real shock of the attraction lay beneath that ventral covering . . .)
After a highly successful tour of the British provinces, Cezar and his charge departed for France, where they met with similar acclaim from layman and scientist alike.
But Cezar’s captive—who, interrogated once by representatives of a Benevolent Society, affirmed in fine Dutch that she was cooperating willingly for a share of half the profits—contracted an inflammatory ailment and died in Paris on December 28, 1815.
Setting down his glass of sherry, Jacob Cezar proceeded to divulge to Agassiz that portion of the Hottentot Venus’s fate that was generally unknown to the public.
“Upon der death of Zaartjie, mine fodder, zaddened und intent only on returning to Capetown, handed over der body of his countryvoman to der French zientific establishment at dere request, in order to zettle a long-time question of natural history. Namely, der existence of der femince zinus pudoris ,or curtain of zhame.”
Agassiz blanched. The very notion of the curtain of shame—for decades, he had assumed, merely a racy bit of naturalistic folklore bandied about when scientists foregathered—was absolutely disgusting to him. Yet, he counseled himself, as a man of reason he should face with equanimity all such quirks of the Creator.
It had long been rumored by explorers and other unsavory types that females of the Khoi-san peoples of South Africa possessed a genital appendage not shared by their more highly developed female cousins in the civilized portions of the globe. Called the “curtain of shame,” it was said to be a flap of skin attached either to the upper genitals or the lower abdomen, which hung down like a fleshy apron to hide the sexual organ.
Steeling himself for Cezar’s discussion of this physiological aberration, Agassiz was however once more shocked by the twist the man’s story took.
“Der man who performed der dissection of Dottie’s mudder vas Baron Cuvier.”
Georges. God, how he still missed that influential man! Dead for fifteen years, Baron Cuvier
“Let us zit down, und I vill explain all. Perhaps dot decanter of zherry I zee dere vould help lubricate mine zpeech—”
Obliging his guest’s request, all the while keeping one eye on Dottie Baartman where she squatted on her haunches by the wall, her raffia skirt falling between her legs and revealing more of her hideous black haunches, Agassiz tried to compose himself to listen to the man’s tale.
He was not prepared, however, for his reaction to Cezar’s opening words.
“I am der zun of Hendrik Cezar, und Dottie ist der daughter of—”
Suddenly, recognition dawned. “The Hottentot Venus!” exclaimed Agassiz.
Jacob Cezar smiled. “Ach, I zee Europe ztill remembers her.”
And to be sure, Europe, in the person of Louis Agassiz, still did, though the woman in question had died when Agassiz was only eight years old, in 1815.
In the year 1810, a man named Hendrick Cezar arrived in London and set up a sideshow in Piccadilly. His exhibit consisted simply of a large cage on a platform elevated a few feet above the eager spectators.
Inside was a black woman.
Billed as the “Hottentot Venus,” she had been, before her stage career, simply the South African servant girl Saartjie Baartman.
Representing like all her fellow Bushmen a curious hybrid of bestial and human qualities, she was soon drawing spectators by the hundreds, all eager to witness this degraded representative from the lower rungs of humanity.
The guffawing men and tittering women in the audience were particularly struck by her steatopygous traits, those immense gluteal lipoid deposits which Agassiz had noticed in her daughter. This feature was exhibited sans clothing to the audience, who were free to poke and prod it, though, in a gesture of modesty, Saartjie kept her pudendum covered with a loincloth.
(But there were a few members of the audience who claimed in vague terms that the real shock of the attraction lay beneath that ventral covering . . .)
After a highly successful tour of the British provinces, Cezar and his charge departed for France, where they met with similar acclaim from layman and scientist alike.
But Cezar’s captive—who, interrogated once by representatives of a Benevolent Society, affirmed in fine Dutch that she was cooperating willingly for a share of half the profits—contracted an inflammatory ailment and died in Paris on December 28, 1815.
Setting down his glass of sherry, Jacob Cezar proceeded to divulge to Agassiz that portion of the Hottentot Venus’s fate that was generally unknown to the public.
“Upon der death of Zaartjie, mine fodder, zaddened und intent only on returning to Capetown, handed over der body of his countryvoman to der French zientific establishment at dere request, in order to zettle a long-time question of natural history. Namely, der existence of der femince zinus pudoris ,or curtain of zhame.”
Agassiz blanched. The very notion of the curtain of shame—for decades, he had assumed, merely a racy bit of naturalistic folklore bandied about when scientists foregathered—was absolutely disgusting to him. Yet, he counseled himself, as a man of reason he should face with equanimity all such quirks of the Creator.
It had long been rumored by explorers and other unsavory types that females of the Khoi-san peoples of South Africa possessed a genital appendage not shared by their more highly developed female cousins in the civilized portions of the globe. Called the “curtain of shame,” it was said to be a flap of skin attached either to the upper genitals or the lower abdomen, which hung down like a fleshy apron to hide the sexual organ.
Steeling himself for Cezar’s discussion of this physiological aberration, Agassiz was however once more shocked by the twist the man’s story took.
“Der man who performed der dissection of Dottie’s mudder vas Baron Cuvier.”
Georges. God, how he still missed that influential man! Dead for fifteen years, Baron Cuvier
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