The Hottentot Apron and the Hottentot Venus I

In an earlier essay I described how I ran across the word "Hottentotism" to describe verbal stammering or stuttering. I used that essay as an occasion to probe how Europeans came to name and describe this most interesting people from SW Africa. I argued there that the word "Hottentot" was derived from the Dutch attempt to describe the unusual "click" sound made by these people when they spoke to each other. The click sounded like a "hot" and (Dutch word "en") and "tot." Thus, the name. Anthropologists now call these folk Khoisan people, and their language is similar to the Zulu, Bushmen and others of SW Africa.

But before the modern study of these people developed, all kinds of stories circulated about the Hottentot. We saw that they even made it into Wizard of Oz (the cowardly lion's line, "What makes the Hottentot so hot?"). Mostly, however, the stories that permeated the European consciousness in the 17th to early 20th centuries had to do with the filth, paganism and lower mental ability of these apparently God-forsaken people. Missionaries were sent to convert them from their "Hottentotism," as if there was a philosophy derived from the clicks of their tongues.

One indication that the Hottentot were occupying more than their share of RAM space in the European mind at this time was in the proliferation of "Hottentot terminology." The Century Dictionary (early 20th century) provides good examples of it. We not only have entries for "Hottentot" and "Hottentotic," but also there is Hottentot's-bread; Hottentot's-head; and Hottentot's-tea. The OED got into the act even further, by mentioning, in addition, Hottentot's bean (tree); Hottentot's cherry; Hottentot's fig; Hottentot fish; Hottentot's god (a praying mantis); Hottentot's head; Hottentot pie and Hottentot rice. One other dictionary I consulted even had something called Hottentot's bustle, which it tastefully described as an "excessive deposit of fat on the buttocks; steatopygia." Clearly the Hottentot's could not only provide a complete meal for the Europeans, but seemed to entice their scientists and others liberally to describe the natural world with Hottentot terms.

But of all the designations of the Hottentot, one of the most controversial, if potentially revolting, was an innocent-enough sounding one called the Hottentot apron. In short, this had to do with the surprising discovery of a seemingly extra appendage possessed by Hottentot women that hung from the vulva. I almost hesitate to go too deeply into it, so as not to offend you, my esteemed readers, but I will throw those cautions to the wind in the interest of humanistic concerns. My interest in the rest of this essay and the next will be to describe how Europeans came to grips with this most unusual anatomical feature of the Hottentot women, culminating in the examination of the so-called "Hottentot Venus" by the great French paleontologist Georges Cuvier in the early 19th century.

Discovering the "Apron"

The Dutch who paused in Southernmost Africa during the 1650s were on their way to the lucrative East Indies, but they stopped long enough near the Cape of Good Hope to form some impressions of the native peoples. By the late 17th century a most remarkable book appeared by Wilhelm ten Rhyne (1649-1700), a physician of the Dutch East India Company. As John A. Baker tells the story, ten Rhyne wrote a 1673 book in Latin, whose Anglicized title (translated into English in 1703) was An Account of the Cape of Good Hope and the Hottentotes, the Natives of that Country. He said he derived the following information from a surgeon who had dissected the body of a Hottentot woman who had been strangled: "They have to themselves this peculiarity from other races that most of them possess finger-shaped appendages, always double, hanging down from their private parts; these are evidently nymphae (another word of that era for the labia minor)." In other words, there was something dangling from the vulva itself which was unique to these women.

Perhaps because the French, who were the next to write about this phenomenon, either didn't have ten Rhyne's account available or ignored it, they characterized things differently. A French Protestant (Huguenot) writer, Francois Leguat, who apparently didn't have first-hand data on which to base his statement, wrote in 1708:

"They (the Hottentot women) would not need this (clothing) to cover that bits of skin, hanging like a flounce (Falbala) from the upper part, that would conceal sufficently from the view of passers-by. Several people have told me that they have had the curiosity to see these veils, and that one can thus satisfy one's eyes for a piece of tobacco."

Though this isn't crystal clear, it appears that by the early 18th century, the physical uniqueness of the Hottentot women was also described as a sort of appendange hanging from the stomach that, as it were, "covered" the genitals. If prurient or "scientific" interest motivated a person, he could give some tobacco (which the Hottentot apparently liked a great deal) to view this anatomical phenomenon. We are not far from the "freak" culture that grew up in Europe beginning later in the 18th century.

Conclusion

At this point, then, we are plagued by two traditions of the Hottentot women. Was their unusual anatomical feature something that hung from their private parts or hung from their abdomen to cover their private parts? What indeed was this unusual anatomical feature which early Europeans attributed to them? The next essay will tell the rest of the story.

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