Venus Glossary

Venus: I was drawn to her as a subject because of her name, Venus, love and I write a lot about love in my work. Venus (1996) is about the life and death Sara Baartman, known to the world as the Hottentot Venus. Baartman, a Khoisan woman from South Africa, was taken from her country and displayed across Europe in the early nineteenth century. In the play, we see Venus travel from a place of voyeurism as a freakish entity and possible victim of slavery and then to a place of medical observation as a biological anomaly. Both spectators and anatomists marvel at her large Steatopygia, her buttocks ultimately, the "tail end" of the hyper-sexualized stereotype of African American women seen today. Venus examines how mainstream culture re-generates and re- produces the stereotype of black bodies, specifically black female bodies, for consumption even after their deaths. Metatheatrically, Parks positions her audience radically different to challenge the audience-performer relationship in the theater and historical spectatorship. Parks creates a space of transaction in the performer-audience relationship. She not only challenges audience expectations about watching theatre, but also how the theater itself conditions audiences to watch performance. Thus, staging a production of Venus not only changes the nature of how audiences position themselves and engage in the performance, but also how actors perform the various roles Parks writes.

~Suzan-Lori Parks

(LEARN more about Baartmans story in the Historical Timeline) The Brother1: The character of the Brother might be a merging of both Hendrik Cesars and Scottish surgeon Alexander Dunlop. Baartman moved into Cesars small holding, Welgelegen (Happily Situated) with his wife, Anna Staal in 1803. Five years later, in 1808, Hendrik Cesars, displays Baartman to medical patients in the military hospital in Cape Town to pay off his debts. Cesars was deeply indebted to Jacobus Johannes Vos, a wealthy merchant and usurer. Dunlop came to the Cape in 1806 facing mandatory retirement from the military within a few years. He faced financial penury and had a great incentive to find a way to make

1

Lewis, Megan. Venus Timeline.

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money. He was appointed medical superintendent of the Slave Lodge and by April 1808; he had begun treating sick Hottentots and others. Both Dunlop and Cesars negotiated to bring Baartman to England. They even developed contracts to bring her overseas, but Baartman was not included in the deal. Notably, she refused to go to England without Cesars. The Mother-Showman2: Possible merging of Henry Taylor and Reaux, the last two men who handled Baartman before Georges Cuvier procured her. By the time Baartman met her last two handlers, she had already been abandoned by Cesars and Dunlop. Taylor took Baartman to Paris, while Reaux displayed animals as a showman in Paris. Interestingly enough both Taylor and Reaux had encounters with Cuvier concerning Baartman. Taylor actually wrote to Cuvier at the Museum of Natural History, claiming he had the original Hottentot; however, Cuvier declined Taylors offer in 1814. Then in the following year, Reaux approached Cuvier, who had been looking for the missing link and wanted a Hottentot to add to his collection. The Man: The Man, in colloquial Black English, is a synecdoche for white men of power beyond question3 Seemingly, Parks bases this character on an actual trader named Pieter Cesars, the employee of a wealthy Cape merchant and butcher named Jan Michiel Elzer. Baartman was sold to Cesars between 1795-6 and taken to Cape Town just as her people, the Gonaqua, were disappearing as an independent people. She left a rural life for an urban one in the city of Cape Town. As a colonial woman, Baartman first lived in Strand Street, in the heart of the city, as Elzers servant. It is likely that she experienced sexual exploitation, as many slave women did at the time. Baartman served as P. Cesars wet nurse for his infant son once his wife, Johanna Staal, died in 1800.4

Lewis Venus Timeline p. 8 Thompson, Debby. Digging Fo-fathers. Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook p. 176 4 Lewis. Venus Timeline.
3 2

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The Baron Docteur5: The Baron is based on the historical figure Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), a French anatomist. Crais and Scully note that Cuvier was the man of nineteenth-century French science, and his influence spread far beyond the era in which he lived, and beyond the boundaries of France.When he met [Baartman] he was a professor of comparative anatomy at the Museum of Natural History and served on the council of the University of Francethanks to his relationship to Napoleon (131). Significantly, Cuvier is responsible for dissecting Baartman shortly after her deathmaking a full body cast and then preserving her brain and genitals. A year after her death, he published his findings, concluding that the Hottentot was a closer relative to the great apes than of humans (Crais & Scully 140). The Negro Resurrectionist6: A person who illegally exhumes bodies in order to sell them to anatomists; a bodysnatcher. Cf. resurrection man A person who brings something to light or notice again; a reviver of a disused practice or operation. colloq. A person who sells renovated or reconditioned merchandise. Obs. In other words, a resurrectionist is a gravedigger. Parks has an affinity for digging in her work. In fact, one of her plays in particular, The America Play (1990), features an African American gravedigger who impersonates Abraham Lincoln in a re-enactment amusement park. For a small fee, he allows various customers to play the role of John Wilkes Boothe, Lincolns assassinator, and shoot him dead.

5

Crais & Scully Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com

Venus Glossary
8 Human Wonders The Human Wonders are based on real people put on display as freaks and curiosities in human exhibitions, or zoos. The tradition of human exhibits stems from European explorers and their discoveries of new worlds and its peoples. Consequently, their findings and descriptions of indigenous people pitted the so-called natives as savage and primitive. The desire to show the savage sparked a Western tradition of taking various indigenous people from their homes and displaying them for profit. There is also a Western tradition of exhibiting people with disabilities, deformities, extreme body types, and/or odd talents. A contemporary example of this would be the circus. On the next page is a photograph of two prominent circuses that are still around today: Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey.

Congress of Freaks, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1924 taken by Edward J. Kelty

(READ more about this phenomenon in from Human Exhibition section)

Venus Glossary
For the Love of Venus7: The source for Parks play within a play is a one act French comic opera called La Vnus Hottentote, ou Haine aux Franaises (1814)translated as The Hottentot Venus, or Hatred of French Women. The piece, written by Thaulon de Lambert, premiered in Paris at Thtre du Vaudeville across the street from the palais. The story is about a young man who is supposed to marry his cousin, but he does not find her exotic enough. His cousin then disguises herself as the Hottentot Venus and the young man falls in love with her. This rather ridiculous vaudeville illustrated the growing popularity of Sarah Baartman in Paris. Moreover, theatre scholar Roger Bechtel indicates, The basic plot of For the Love of Venus generally doubles the basic plot of Venus, both being centered on a white mans erotic obsession with a black African woman, in the former the Hottentot Venus, and in the latter chiasmaticallythe Venus Hottentot.8 Chiasmus is a literary technique in which a reversal in the order of words so that the second half of a statement balances the first half in inverted word order; a form of antitheses.9 (READ more about La Vnus Hottentote in Creative Material section) Order of scenes10: Noticeably, the order of scenes is backwards. Parks begins with an overture that leads us into the first scene, Scene 31. In general, Parks work draws attention to ideas of chronology and sequence (Holder 22). Theatre scholars Alice Rayner and Harry Elam, Jr. write that Parks refigures narrative history in a vertical

Strother, Z.S. The Display of the Hottentot Venus. Africans on Stage ed. Bernth Lindfors p. 56; Lewis Venus Timeline p. 7; Boetsch, Giles and Pascal Blanchard. The Hottentot Venus: Birth of a Freak (1815) p. 64; Altick The Shows of London p. 271 8 Bechtel At First Sight: Suzan-Lori Parkss Venus and Erotic History in Past Performance: American Theatre and the Historical Imagination p. 223 9 Shaw, Harry. Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms p. 52 10 Holder Strange Legacy: The history plays of Suzan-Lori Parks from Suzan-Lori Parks: A Casebook
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spiral rather than a horizontal line (qtd. in Holder 22). Elinor Fuchs, another theatre scholar, adds that Parks plays do not offer a chronology of events over time, buta great space of simultaneous experience (qtd in Holder 22). Heidi Holder observes, Counting and numbering indicate the ordering of things[Parks] repetition of lines, actions and scenes is tracked by a parallel fascination with numbers (23). (READ Parks essay Elements of Style) Jean-Luc Godard, Masculin*Fminin Le travail humain Ressucite les choses Dentre les mortes Masculin fminin (1966), directed by ruthless stylist and iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard, introduces the world to the children of Marx and Coca-Cola, through a gang of restless youths engaged in hopeless love affairs with music, revolution, and each other. Godard fashions a candid and wildly funny free-form examination of youth culture in throbbing 1960s Paris, mixing satire and tragedy as only Godard can.11 Film critic Adrian Martin writes: In 1966, Masculin fminin expressed a suspicious wariness on Godards part toward the youngand offered him a way to project some of the misanthropy, even misogyny, that he may have been feeling at the time. This is nowhere clearer than in the films rather sour typing of gender. Although no one really comes off well in the filmall the characters are alienated poseurs of one kind or anotherthe masculine-feminine divide

The Criterion Collection. Film info: Masculin fminin (1966), http://www.criterion.com/films/508- masculin-feminin
11

Human labor Resurrects things From among the dead

Venus Glossary
signaled in the title is laid out relentlessly : boys talk politics and paint slogans, while girls play with their hair and shop. Martin further notes: It is striking to realize that Masculin fminin is Godards final film to employ a relatively conventional model of character psychology There is a great deal unsaid, a theatrical subtext haunting the interactions of the five central characters note all the personal queries that are not answered at all or are handled cagily or that return unexpectedly at other moments.12 When thinking about Venus in relation to Godards film, there are characters in the play who are alienated poseurs of one kind of another, particularly the Chorus. For instance, the Chorus becomes archetypes of sideshow freaks (8 Human Wonders) and the people who pay to watch them (Spectators). They enact the various roles in the Courtthe judge; witnesses; etcand ultimately, the anatomists who survey Baartmans body. Like Godard, Parks leaves a great deal unsaid, especially when she employs her spells. In Authors Notes, Parks explains that her spells create a place where the figures experience their pure simple state (iv).

Martin, Adrian. Masculin feminine: The Young Man for All Times 19 September 2005, http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/384-masculin-feminin-the-young-man-for-all-times
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Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts Following Virginia Woolfs suicide, Hudson Strobe, a writer for the New York Times, wrote the following in his review of Woolfs last novel: Between the Acts (1941) is one of Mrs. Woolfs most seemingly simple books: the plot well integrated, the fancy under deft control. There is even a new calmness, a new clarity. She is not lost in webs of speculation, thin-drawn to incommunicability as in "The Waves," where she wrote, "I desire always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams." Yet in her "easier" last book, ingeniously the story is played out on three levels--a pageant within a pageant and all within the vaster pageant of creation and infinity. The Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts animal plane, the human and the spiritual, each has (1939) Cover design by Vanessa function and counterpointal significance. As to actual plot, Bell. despite the disciplined guidance, what does it amount to, and who seriously cares? Strobe goes on to say: The cream of Between the Acts lies between the lines--in the haunting overtones.the play is not really the thing at all. It is merely the focal point, the hub of the wheel, the peg on which to hang the bright ribbons and dark cords of the authors supersensitive perceptions and illuminated knowledge. It is in [Woolfs] imagery, in her felicitous gift for metaphor, for cadence, for exciting association, in her "powers of absorption and distillation" that her special genius lies.13 Something that Parks Venus does is play with meta-theatricalityshe comments on theatrical conventions (i.e. the fourth wall) by presenting a play-within-a play. In parallel, Woolfs last novel comments on theatrical conventions in literary form by

Strobe, Hudson. The Genius of Virginia Woolf: In Her Last Book the English Novelist Again Says the Unsayable, the New York Times 5 October 1941, http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/08/reviews/woolf- acts.html
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writing a pageant-within-a-pageant; therefore, sparking questions about the plot what does it amount to, and who seriously cares? in the words of Strobe. We can ask similar questions of Baartmans story in Venuswhat does her story amount to? Why should we take it seriously? The difference between these two works is that Parks piece is meant to be performed, while Woolfs piece is only meant to be read. Even though he was referring to Woolfs Between the Acts, Strobe says it best: [T]he play is not really the thing at all. It is merely the focal point, the hub of the wheel, the peg on which to hang the bright ribbons and dark cords of the authors supersensitive perceptions and illuminated knowledge. (Strobe) This quote applies to Venus because Parks sets up a blueprint that draws our attention to the historicity of Baartmans body and the career she made of it. Parks challenges us to not only explore, but also question the history of looking for both spectators and the person/thing that is looked upon. p. 3 The Negro Resurrectionist: I regret to inform you that thuh Venus Hottentot iz dead. The actual specifics about Baartmans death (i.e. date of death and cause of death) are conflicting. What is even worse is that there was not any motivation to get it right. Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully report the different days Baartman died. For instance, Georges Cuvier said that she died on 29 December 1815. Annales, Politiques, Morales et Literaires said that she died the following day of a fever. An even later date was offered by the Journal General de France, which reported on 31 December, on its second page, that the Venus Hottentote, who was exhibited to the publicdied this morning at 7 am after a short illness of 3 days.(138). Crais & Scully further note that major English papers covered Baartmans death. In fact, newspapers reported that she died of smallpox, which her doctors mistakenly
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understood to be some form of respiratory ailment. With a poor diet and a terrible cold, Baartman most likely died of pneumonia (138). When looking at Parks work, Heidi Holder encourages us to read Parks works in the context of historical spectacle because several of her plays deal with death, endings and aftermaths at work (19). For example, several of Parks pieces begin with the deaths of her main characters. After the characters introduce themselves in Parks The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, they inform the audience that the title character is dying. Then, in the America Play, the character of Lesser Known impersonates Abraham Lincoln at an amusement park. Customers pay to play the role of John Wilkes Booth and assassinate him. The Negro Resurrectionist: Diggidy-diggidy-diggidy-diggidy14. Diggidy-diggidy, a common scat refrain in Parks plays, announces rhythmically an aesthetic of digging. Along with historical remains (a statue, wooden teeth, a rock with writing under it, pickled genitals, freedom papers), Parks digs discourses. Digging emerged in Black vernacular (and is now standard in American spoken dialect more generally) as a word for liking or enjoying or understanding: You dig? But the world, like that three-pronged fork, can also be an instrument for stabbing and jabbing. To take digs at something is to poke it and critique it. The Man: I say:/ Perhaps, /she died of drink: Richard Altick notes that towards the end of Baartmans career: [S]he possessed, in addition to the fondness for trinkets customarily attributed to savages, an even stronger for the bottle. Thus debilitated, she was in no condition to fight the smallpox, which, in collaboration with a doctor who mistakenly treated her for a catarrh, a pleurisy, and dropsy of the breast, killed her at the end of the year [1815]. (272)15

14 15

Thompson, Debby. Digging the Fo-fathers. Contemporary African American Women Playwrights p. 172 Altick, Richard. The Noble Savage Reconsidered, The Shows of London

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p. 8 A Chorus Member: Coco candy colored and dressed in au naturel16 French etymology. In the natural state; cooked plainly; uncooked; undressed 1905 Mrs. H. Ward Marriage of William Ashe x. 181 You would have preferred ankles au naturel? p. 19 Southern Africa, early 1800s

British map of the Cape, circa 1800 17 Sara Baartman was born in the Gamtoos River Valley in South Africa into the Gonaqua tribe of the Eastern Cape, a subgroup of the Khoisan (KhoeKhoe) people, the first aboriginal inhabitants of the southern tip of Africa.18

Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com British Map of the Cape, 1800. http://www.lasalle.edu/~mcinneshin/344/wk10/SnAFRmaps1500- 1800.htm 18 Lewis Venus Timeline p. 2
17 16

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The Man: A Menagerie19:/ Gods Entire Kingdom All Under One Roof.

A collection of wild animals in cages or enclosures, esp. one kept for exhibition, as in a zoo, etc. Also: a place or building in which such a collection is kept. Travelling menageries which presented live animals in cages (normally distinct from circuses, where the animals typically perform tricks and other feats) were extremely popular from the 1830s, and died out around 1930. Two of the most famous in Britain were Mander's Royal Menagerie; and Bostock and Wombwell's Menagerie. Blanchard et al. note that early menageries were collections of a variety of animals which were initially reserved for the enjoyment of Western aristocrats.20
Bullocks Museum, 22, Piccadilly. From The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics. London, 180929.

Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com Blanchard et al. Human Zoos: the Greatest Exotic Shows in the West. Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires p. 2
20 19

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Poster advertising the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London, 1834 (print), English School, (19th century) / Royal Armouries, Leeds, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library
21

Art, culture & history images, Bridgeman Art Culture History Online. http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/424787/English-School-19th-century/Poster-advertising-the-Royal- Menagerie-at-the-Towe
21

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p. 11 The Man: Scheme #3 remember?/ You went to Timbuktu22. The popular statement, "From here to Timbuktu," conjures up images of remote, isolated and distant parts of this earth. Very few people are aware of this ancient city's location, and fewer still ascribe any kind of civilization to this historic area. Timbuktu is located in the western African nation of Mali at the edge of the Sahara. The historic town of Timbuktu, founded by the Tuareg Imashagan in the 11th century, is located at the precise point where the Niger flows northward into the southern edge of the desert. As a result of its unique geographical position, Timbuktu has been a natural meeting point of Songhai, Wangara, Fulani, Tuareg and Arabs. According to the inhabitants of Timbuku, gold came from the south, the salt from the north and the Divine knowledge, from Timbuktu. Timbuktu in French, Tombouctou means "well of the woman named 'Bouctou'". And "Bouctou" is a word that means, "belly button".23

Timbuktu Educational Foundation. The History of Timbuktu, http://www.timbuktufoundation.org/history.html 23 Heller, Dan. Timbuktu, Mali: Mali, West Africa, Dan Heller Photography, http://www.danheller.com/timbuktu.html
22

Map of the Timbuktu area of Mali showing the Niger River and Kabara

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p. 12 The Brother: Theres a street over there lined with Freak Acts but not many dark ones, thats how well cash in. There place he is referring to is Piccadilly Circus, a busy square in the heart of London and an entertainment hub. It is famous for its fountain, which was installed at the end of the 19th century. Piccadilly Circus was built in 1819 with the aim of connecting Regent Street and Piccadilly Street, which was famous for its ample shopping opportunities. The name Piccadilly originates from a 17th century frilled collar named piccadil.
Piccadilly Circus, 1910

Roger Baker, a tailor who became rich making piccadils lived in the area. The word 'Circus' refers to the roundabout around which the traffic circulated. When Shaftesbury Avenue was built in 1886, Piccadilly Circus lost its iconic circular shape, but not its well- established name.24 Notably, Baartman was displayed for the masses in 225 Piccadilly on a number of occasions during her career in London. p. 13 The Man: (Scheme #1?) The Brother: (Marriage with the Hottentotthats her?) In actuality, Baartman had both a romance and a common law marriage with another Hendrik (van Jong), a young drummer in the 22nd Battalion of the Batavian infantry, which lasted about three years (1803-1806). She walked between (Hendrik) Cesars house in Papendorp to Hout Bay, on the other side of Table Mountain, to be with him.25

24 25

Lewis Venus Timeline p. 3

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The Man: Saartjie. Little Sarah.: In a brief section in her article, Lucille Davie notes that, For decades [Baartman] has been referred to as Saartjie, an Afrikaans diminutive form of Sara, the name appearing on her British baptism certificate. Nowadays, the diminutive form tjie is thought to be patronizing, hence the renaming Sarah.26 p. 14 The Man: Thats what they call em/ freaks, oddities, curiosities. 1. FreakEtymology: Not found before 16th cent.; possibly introduced from dialects, and cognate with Old English frcian ( Matt. xi. 17) to dance a. orig. and chiefly U.S. colloq. (derogatory). A person regarded as strange or contemptible, esp. because of markedly unusual appearance or behavior. b. slang (freq. derogatory). A person who enjoys unorthodox sexual practices; a fetishist. c. U.S. slang (esp. in African-American usage). An attractive young woman or (rare) man. Also derogatory: a promiscuous or easy woman. 2. Oddity a. An odd characteristic, feature, or trait; a peculiar habit. b. An odd or peculiar person. c. An odd, peculiar, or grotesque thing; a strange-looking object; a strange event. d. The quality or character of being odd or peculiar; strangeness, oddness, peculiarity, singularity. 3. Curiosity Etymology: Old French curioset (Anglo-Norman curiouset ), Latin crisitt-em, crisus, Subsequently conformed more closely to the Latin, both in French as curiosit, and in English as curiositie, -ity. a. Scientific or artistic interest; the quality of a curioso or virtuoso; connoisseurship. Obs. b. The quality of being curious or interesting from novelty or strangeness; curiousness. c. An object of interest; any object valued as curious, rare, or strange.

26

Davie Sarah Baartman, at rest at last, http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/saartjie.htm#ixzz2IaDsdBMt

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p. 15 The Brother: How would you like to go to England? The Girl: England! Well/ England. Whats that? The Brother: A big town. A boat ride away. On April 7, 1810: Sara Baartman, Hendrik Cesar, Alexander Dunlop and Matthias (a slave boy) set sail for England on the Diadem, a military transport ship. As the only woman on board, Sara confined for most of the trip below deck in tiny, dank quarters (for her own safety, as was custom). The 4-month journey took them up the West Coast of Africa, to Saint Helena, Ascension Island, the Cape Verdes, and to Lizard Point, England.27 The Brother: Well split it 50-50. In actuality, Dunlop began negotiations with Hendrik Cesars to bring Baartman to England. The men negotiated contracts, but she was not included on the deal. She refused to go to England without Cesars.28 p. 16 The Girl: A Princess. Me? The Brother: Like Cinderella.29 Cinderella is one of the most recognized stories around the world. The themes from the story appear in the folklore of many cultures. Sources disagree about how many versions of the tale exist, with numbers conservatively ranging from 345 to over 1,500. The most familiar Cinderella tale is the one published by Charles Perrault in his Histoires ou contes du temps pass in 1697. When most people think of Cinderella, a version of Perraults tale is the one they imagine. [THINK Disneys Cinderella]

Lewis Venus Timeline Lewis Venus Timeline 29 Heiner, Heidi Ann. History of Cinderella, taken from her book Cinderella Tales from Around the World, http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/cinderella/history.html
28 27

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Perhaps the most regrettable element of Perraults Cinderella is her level of passivity. The known Cinderellas that preceded her were less passive, as are most of the lesser- known variants from all around Europe, which postdate her. His Cinderella is rewarded for practicing goodness, obedience, and patience by primarily waiting to be rescued, often in tears. She does little else to help herself. Her character has served as a rallying point for modern audiences who want to label fairy tales as anti-feminist or teaching outdated values for women. Yet, the majority rules, so Cinderella, in this iteration, remains the most popular when there are literally hundreds of others to choose instead. *German folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm wrote a version of Cinderella in 1812. p. 17 The Brother: Yd make a mint! Etymology: Cognate with Middle Dutch munte , muynte , monte , moente (Dutch munt ), classical Latin monta money n.
1. Money; coinage. Also (cant): gold. Obs. 2. Chiefly with of. A quantity of money coined; a vast sum of money. Freq. to make

(also lose, etc.) a mint (of money) . Also (in extended use): a vast quantity or amount.
3. In extended use: a place where something originates or is generated; a source of

invention or fabrication; a prolific source or fount of something. p. 19 The Chorus of the 8 Human Wonders: Everythings coming up roses? 1. (V.) A phrase meaning that everything is turning out okay. Usually used after you reveal that something really horrible happened, or as sarcasm.30 2. Figuratively . Everything is really just excellent. Life is prosperous; something that you say when a situation is successful in every way 31

30

Urbandictionary.com

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p. 26 The Young Man: His place in the Great Chain of Being32 is then to him and to all that set their eyes upon him, thus revealed. Since the ancient Greeks, it has been common to think and write about animals as if they were part of a linear hierarchy. For instance, Aristotle said that man is the most perfect animal, and he suggested ranking animals in terms of their mode of reproduction and body temperature. Significantly, the medieval cultural conception of such a natural hierarchy is known as the Great Chain of Being (Marks 68). French anthropologists mile Durkheim (1858 1917) and Marcel Mauss (18721950) famously observed that the way people organize nature The chain of being, from Charles Bonnet, replicates, in some fashion, their own social uvres d'histoire naturelle et de philosophie, 1779-83 relations; that is, the way in which they organize themselves. The Great Chain of Being is an excellent example of this. In a social environment structured as a rigid linear hierarchyfrom the king, princes, and various ranks of nobles down through vassals, peasants, and perhaps even slaves, all occupying particular slots in vertical relation to one another (Marks 68). Eighteenth-century scholars of natural history were increasingly pulled in two directions as they tried to reconcile their inferences about nature to their interpretations of scripture. The leading social issue of the day was slavery, which was increasingly being rationalized by recourse to the supposed inferiority and lesser humanity of the non-European races. However, science seemed to link the other races to apes through measurements of the skull and face, at least according to scholars concerned with justifying the practice of slavery by dehumanizing Africans (Marks 69).

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs 2002; Cambridge Idioms Dictionary 2006, http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Everything's+coming+up+roses 32 Marks Great Chain of Being Encyclopedia of Race and Racism pp. 68-73
31

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The Bride-to-Be: My Love for you is artificial/ Fabricated much like this epistle33. 1. A communication made to an absent person in writing; a letter. Chiefly (from its use in translations from Latin and Greek) applied to letters written in ancient times, esp. to those which rank as literary productions, or (after the analogy of 2) to those of a public character, or addressed to a body of persons. In application to ordinary (modern) letters now used only rhetorically or with playful or sarcastic implication. a. Until the 19th century it was common to speak, e.g., of Cicero's or Pliny's epistles; but letters is now the usual word in such cases. 2. A literary work, usually in poetry, composed in the form of a letter. p.28 The Negro Resurrectionist: Footnote #2 (Rest)/ Historical Extract. Category: Medical. Autopsy report A year after his dissection of Baartman, Cuvier published his findings in a book most likely entitled Le Rgne Animal distribuee daprs son organization et dintroduction a lAnatomie compare (1817). In his findings, Cuvier determined that Baartman was closer to a primate than man.

33

Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com

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p. 32 The Mother-Showman: 8th being from the bottom, what I call my Wonder 1: The Bearded Gal. Julia Pastrana was history's most famous bearded lady. In the 19th century, she fascinated spectators as part of a traveling circus, dancing and singing in clothes that showed off her hairy visage and limbs. In 1857, The Lancet documented Pastrana as a "peculiarity," but modern medicine shows that she suffered from a real disorder known as congenital generalized hypertrichosis terminalis (CGHT), sometimes called "werewolf syndrome."34
Hirsute. Julia Pastrana became famous as a "bearded lady."

The Mother-Showman: After 1 comes Wonder 2 one step closer to the monkeys. Uh Fireman who dines on flame./ He claims the Devil his creator/ but really hails from thuh Equator. Richard Altick notes, fire-eaters were always acceptable entertainment in the Shows of London (263). For instance, Ivan Ivanitz Chabert delved into the inflammatory arts in 1818 and was the only Really Incombustible Man. Chabert was known for the following acts: He forged a bar of hot iron with his feet and danced on it, drank boiling oil and washed his hands in what was leftate burning coal, inhaled the flame of a torch, bathed his feet in molten lead,rubbed a red-hot shovel on his arms and legs, etc. (Altick 263) According to Debby Thompson, the Mother-Showmans presentation of the fire-eater connotes anthropological, religious and imperialist discourses, while remaining disparate (177). She further notes:

34

Thomas, Claire. Solving the Mystery of the Bearded Lady. 21 May 2009. Science Magazine, http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2009/05/21-01.html

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The evolutionary model of human descent from a common ancestor with other primates flickers into a religious discourse of human creation by a creator and a moralistic discourse of good and evil, which flickers into a discourse of exploration and cartography. (177)

F. Appel, Paris, circa 1890. The Folies-Bergre has hosted numerous acts for which there remains little or no surviving information. This is one such duo twin Mephistopheles tossing and breathing fire for a turn-of-the-century audience. From the archives of the Folies-Bergre.35

Wonder #2:Im goin tuh Hell! Hell in uh handbasket! The expression Hell in a handbasket is c.1941, perhaps a revision of earlier heaven in a handbasket (c.1913), with a sense of "easy passage" to whichever destination.36 To be 'going to hell in a handbasket' is to be rapidly deteriorating - on course for disaster.

35 36

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/13474484_folies-bergre-les-dante-ca-1890 Harper, Douglas. Hell Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hell

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Venus Glossary
It isn't at all obvious why 'handbasket' was chosen as the preferred vehicle to convey people to hell. One theory on the origin of the phrase is that derives from the use of handbaskets in the guillotining method of capital punishment'Going to hell in a handbasket' seems to be just a colourful version of 'going to hell', in the same sense as 'going to the dogs'. 'In a handbasket' is an alliterative intensifier, which gives the expression a catchy ring.37 The Mother-Showman: Next rung closer to thuh lowest: Wonder 3: Thuh Spotted Boy38. Hes covered black and white all patchy George Alexander Gratton was a black child with a skin pigmentation disorder known as piebaldism, what we know today as vitiligo. For much of his short life he was exhibited for show, described as the Beautiful Spotted Negro Boy and a fanciful child of nature formed in her most playful mood. George was born to black African parents who were slaves on a plantation on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. From birth George attracted attention and curiosity, and as a baby he was displayed in his local town for a fee of one dollar. When he was just 15 months old he was transported to Bristol where he was delivered into the care of a travelling showman named John Richardson, who paid 1,000 guineas [ ] for him, a huge amount of money for the day. He was baptised at Newington Church in Surrey on 22 July 1810. George was the star attraction in Richardsons travelling theatre. He was exhibited at fairs and shows, and was shown privately to wealthy patrons. Although Richardson was said to have behaved with great kindness George was often exhibited for up to twelve hours a day.

Martin, Gary. Going to Hell in a Handbasket, The Phrase Finder, http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hell-in-a-handbasket.html 38 George Alexander Gratton. Museum of London, http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Docklands/Whats- on/Galleries/LSS/Map/BlackPresence/People/113.htm
37

23

Venus Glossary
This schedule may have affected his health. George died on 3 February 1813 of a tumour in the jaw. He was buried at All Saints Church in Richardsons hometown in Marlow. By his own request, Richardson was later buried in the same vault as George and their tombstones were bolted together. p. 33 The Mother-Showman: Thuh Fat Mans next: 12 hundred pounds, uh warnin to us all. Daniel Lambert (1770-1809) was, at the time of his death, the heaviest man around. Even today, the Leicester man retains a place in the Guinness Book of Records for his size.39 Lambert was born in Leicester where his father, John Lambert, was the keeper of the county bridewell or correction house. At the age of 14, he was sent to Birmingham where he served an apprenticeship, learning the craft of engraving metal dies. A biographical account of the famous Mr. Lambert, published in

Mr. Daniel Lambert in Lysons Collectanea, 1750-1770 The British Library, London, Great Britain

1807, records that until 1803 he was extremely active in all sports of the field, was a keen walker and swimmer and was fond of riding until prevented from doing so by his weight. Records of his weight, however, cast doubt on the likelihood of this. In 1793, he weighed around 32 stone (203kg) [448 lbs] and by 1804, this had increased to 49 stone (311kg) [686 lbs]. In 1806, he decided to use his obesity to supplement his income. Despite his aversion to being stared at, he had a carriage specially built to take him to London to exhibit himself as a natural curiosity. There he rented a flat in Piccadilly where he charged five

Leicesters Largest Son BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2009/06/23/daniel_lambert_feature.shtml
39

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Venus Glossary
shillings (about 8 today) for members of the public to visit him. Over the next two years he travelled to London, Birmingham and Stamford to receive the visits of the curious. At the time of his death in 1809, at the age of 39, he weighed 52 stone 11 pounds (335kg) [739 lbs].40 Furthermore, Andrea Stulman Dennett, a professor at Long Island University, acknowledges the stigma of being fat. She notes, Being fat is so stigmatized in American culturethe fat person is perpetually rejected by society, which disregards his or her needs: buses accommodate wheelchairs; most buildings have ramps; but in public vehicles and buildings, no larger chairs exist for the larger person. Seats are actually smaller, so that restaurants, buses, airplanes, and movie theaters can enlarge their seating capacities (353).41 The Mother-Showman:Bound that way theyll die that way/ mano a mano42 lip tuh lip (pronounced mah-no a mah-no) Etymology: Spanish mano a mano on an equal footing (1615); at once, immediately (mid 13th cent.); a confrontation, especially in a bullfight (20th cent.), lit. hand to hand 1. Any confrontation, contest, or duel (lit. and fig.); (Bullfighting) a corrida in which two matadors compete in turn against two or more bulls. 2. Of a contest or fight (lit. and fig.): head-to-head, one-on-one. 3. In direct competition or rivalry; head to head, face to face. The Mother-Showman: Jawohl Jawohl!43(pronounced yah-vuhl) 1. German, military:

Macintyre, Iain. Daniel Lambert (1770-1809) Surgeons News http://archive2.surgeonsnews.info/content/content.aspx?ID=853 41 Dennett The Dime Museum Freak Show Reconfigured as Talk Show, Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body ed. Rosemarie Garland Thomson pp. 315-326 42 Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com 43 Urbandictionary.com
40

25

Venus Glossary
The only (correct) answer to any (reasonable) order given by a superior rank (or any other rank in a temporary position of authority), usually followed by a swift execution of said order. Also more often than not followed by some form of swearing/bitching directed against the superior, when out of his/her hearing range (mostly done by conscripts in the first half of their 9-month military service or senior enlistees who consider the ordered task a nuisance and/or beneath them). 2. Meaning: Affirmative, Yes. Used as: A response to an order. 3. A sarcastic affirmative response to an overly strict or domineering person. The German military root of the word implies a reference to Hitler, as his officers would have given the same emphatic response to his orders. p. 34 The Mother-Showman: Almost thuh lowest to thuh bottom is a freak called Mr. Privates. Hes from thuh South/ what we carry down here he wears up here/ in thuh place of his eyes and his nose and his mouth. Le Senying by Lam Qua, 1838 According to the doctors consulted by the Gordon Museum: Squamous carcinoma of forehead with possible metastases Credit: Courtesy of The Gordon Museum44

The Mystery of Lam Qua, http://www.historicalvoices.org/lamqua/lamqua_view.php?record=1C-9E- 42
44

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Venus Glossary
The Mother-Showman: On the bottom yesterday was the Whatsit, people, #8. / So backward that her Cyclops eye/ will see into yr future. Interestingly enough, there was a man by the name of James Jim Nugent better known as One-Eyed Jim and Rocky Mountain Jim in the 19th century. He arrived in Estes Park, Colorado around 1868 and is considered an important figure in the early history of the park. As a jovial and generous desperado, Nugent lost an eye while fighting a bear in Middle Park, which is near Grand Lake. He is also known for marrying Isabella Bird, a British woman who wrote A Ladys Life in the Rocky Mountains (1873). 45 Most likely, Wonder #8 probably lost an eye due to an accident. Another layer to the character is that Parks implies she is also a clairvoyant, a psychic who can see into the future. Her exclamation of seeing black suggests that there is a foreboding outcome in the near future as well as not being able to see out of one of her eyes. p. 36 The Negro Resurrectionist: Footnote #3: Historical Extract. Category: Literary. From Robert Chamberss Book of Days Robert Chambers (1802-1871) was a prolific, Scottish writer who is most famous for his enjoyable reference books. Along with his older brother William (1800- 1883), he began in business as a bookseller in Edinburgh (1819), and wrote in his spare time. In 1832, the brothers combined to form a publishing (and printing) house, W & R Chambers. As authors and publishers, they exercised great influence on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1835, the brothers started work on Chambers' Educational Course, a series of short works and schoolbooks. There were eventually more than 100 titles in this series on

DeVine, Christine. Isabella Bird and Mountain Jim Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies http://www.ncgsjournal.com/issue32/devine.htm; Rocky Mountain Jim http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/berkeley/rensch3/rensch3f.htm
45

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Venus Glossary
almost every subject. 1859 brought the first part of Chambers' Encyclopedia, published in 520 parts between 1859 and 1868, and edited by Dr. Andrew Findlater. In 1867, they published their first dictionary, Chambers' Etymological Dictionary, by James Donald, with a larger version, Chambers' English Dictionary in 1872. By the end of the 19th century, W & R Chambers' was one of the largest English-language publishers in the world. Success continued with Chambers' Biographical Dictionary in 1897, and a compact edition of the English dictionary, Chambers' Twentieth Century Dictionary, in 1901. The Book of Days was designed to consist of46: 1. Matters connected with the Church Calendar, including the Popular Festivals, Saints' Days, and other Holidays, with illustrations of Christian Antiquities in general; Phenomena connected with the Seasonal Changes; Folk-Lore of the United Kingdomnamely, Popular Notions and Observances connected with Times and Seasons; Notable Events, Biographies, and Anecdotes connected with the Days of the Year; Articles of Popular Archeology, of an entertaining character, tending to illustrate the progress of Civilization, Manners, Literature, and Ideas in these kingdoms; Curious, Fugitive, and Inedited Pieces.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

November 26th Entry from Chambers Book of Days (1869)47:

46

About the Author: Robert Chambers, http://www.thebookofdays.com/about_chambers.htm

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Venus Glossary
THE HOTTENTOT VENUS Early in the present century, a poor wretched woman was exhibited in England under the appellation of the Hottentot Venus. With an intensely ugly figure, distorted beyond all European notions of beauty, she was said by those to whom she belonged to possess precisely that kind of shape which is most admired among her countrymen, the Hottentots. Mr. Bullock, proprietor of a Museum in which many exhibitions were held in those days, was applied to in 1810 by a Mr. Dunlop, surgeon of an African ship, to purchase a beautiful camelopard skin. On account of the high price asked, the negotiation broke off; but at a second interview, Dunlop informed Mr. Bullock that he had brought a Hottentot woman home with him from the Cape, whom he had engaged to take back again in two years; that she was an object of great curiosity; and that a person might make a fortune in two years by exhibiting her. Mr. Bullock, however, did not close with the offers made to him, and the black woman was sold for it appears to have been virtually a sale by the surgeon to another person. Then came forth the advertisements and placards concerning the Hottentot Venus. She was exhibited on a stage two feet high, along which she was led by her keeper, and exhibited like a wild beast; being obliged to walk, stand, or sit, as he ordered her. The exhibition was so offensive and disgraceful, that the attorney general called for the interference of the lord chancellor on the subject. He grounded his application on the fact, that the poor creature did not appear to be a free agent, and that she was little other than a slave or chattel. She and her keeper both spoke a kind of low Dutch, such as is known on the Hottentot borders of Cape Colony. It was observed, on one occasion, while being exhibited, that on her not coming forward immediately when called, the keeper went to her, and holding up his hand menacingly, said something in Dutch which induced her to come forward. She was often heard, also, to heave deep sighs in the course of the exhibition, and displayed great sullenness of temper. A Dutch gentleman, on one occasion, interrogated her how far she was a willing participator in the exhibition; but her keeper would not allow her to answer the questions. The publicity given to the matter in the Court of Chancery, soon caused the disappearance of the Hottentot Venus from the public gaze, but of the subsequent history of the poor woman herself we have no information.

47

November 26. Book of Days, http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/nov/26.htm

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Venus Glossary
p. 38 The Mother: Have you tried whist? Whist is a game of cards played by four persons, of whom each two sitting opposite each other are partners, with a pack of 52 cards, which are dealt face downwards to the players in rotation, so that each has a hand of 13 cards; one of the suits (usually determined by the last card dealt, which is then turned face upwards) is trumps; the players play in rotation, each four successive cards so played constituting a trick, in which each player after the leader must follow suit if he holds a card of the suit led, otherwise may either discard or trump; the winner of a trick becomes the leader of the next trick; points are scored according to the number of tricks won, and in some forms of the game also by the honors or highest trumps held by each pair of partners.

Playing the whist by Boris Kustodiev, completed 1905 30

Venus Glossary
Dummy whist, duplicate whist, a form of the game in which the hands played are preserved and played again by the opposing partners. long whist, a form of the game in which the score is ten points with honours counting. Short whist, the form now usual in England, in which the score is five points with honours counting.48 The Mother: Have you tried canasta? Etymology: Spanish, lit. basket, ultimately < Latin canistrum ,canister A card game of Uruguayan origin, in which two packs are used with four jokers, combining features of rummy and pinochle; canasta is also the name of a meld of seven cards.49

48 49

Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com

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Venus Glossary
p. 42 The Mother-Showman: Oh yes, this girls thuh Missin Link herself. The Missing Link refers to Darwins theory about the missing link between man and monkey. The theme itself suggests hybridity between man and monkey and has been used repeatedly in the presentation of freaks in human exhibits. Rosemarie G. Thomson discusses Krao Farini, a hirsute female from Laos and a famous example. She reports: In the 1880s, when she was still a child, she started her freak career as Darwins Missing Link, portrayed as halfway between human and monkey. Even though she remained Darwins Missing Link throughout her career, as she entered her teens she began to be
Krao, the Missing Link", Great Britain, flyer, 1887

presented as a cultured, intelligent lady who spoke five languages. (33)50

Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. The Social Construction of Freak, Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body
50

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Venus Glossary
p. 43 The Mother-Showman: Plucked her from thuh Fertile CrescentRipped her off thuh mammoth lap of uh mammoth ape! The "Fertile Crescent" refers to an ancient area of fertile soil and important rivers stretching in an arc from the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates. It covers Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. The Mediterranean lies on the outside edge of the arc. To the south of the arc is the Arabian Desert. On the east, the Fertile Crescent extends to the Persian Gulf. Geologically, this corresponds with where Iranian, African, and Arabian tectonic plates meet. Orientalist James Henry Breasted is credited with introducing the term fertile crescent, according to Albert T. Clay*. The term was part of "the fertile crescent, the shores of the desert bay". The area covered Breasted defines as: "This fertile crescent is approximately a semicircle, with the open side toward the south, having the west end at the southeast corner of the Mediterranean, the center directly north of Arabia, and the east end at the north end of the Persian Gulf."

51

51

Image of Fertile Crescent, http://www.yahwehsword.org/s-abraham/images/image001.jpg

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Venus Glossary
p. 44 The Negro Resurrectionist: Footnote #4: Historical Extract. Category: Newspaper Advertisements. AN ADVERTISING BILL: From Daniel Lyons Collectanea: A Collection of Advertisements and Paragraphs from the Newspapers Relating to Various Subjects (London, 1809). Daniel Lysons (1762-1834) was the eldest son of Rev. Samuel Lysons and Mary Peach Lysons of Gloucestershire, England. He graduated from Oxford and served as the curate of Putney (London, England) from 1789 to 1800. He was a noteworthy antiquary and topographer and published the Environs of London in four volumes from 1792 to 1796.52 Lysons Collectanea, was just thata collection of advertisements and paragraphs about various subjects. Seemingly, Lysons had a fascination with curiosities because he included ads of both Baartman and Lambert. p. 45
Daniel Lysons, Topographer and Rector of Rodmarton by Thomas Lawrence, Gloucester Museums Service Art Collection

The Mother-Showman: Ladies and Gents: The Venus HottentotThe very lowest rung on Our Lords Great Evolutionary Ladder! This is another reference to the Great Chain of Being, a natural and social hierarchy that posits man at the top of the ladder and animals at its base.

Lysons family letters from Hester Lynch Piozzi: Guide Harvard University Library http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou00269
52

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p. 46 The Mother-Showman: Thuh kicks is native for them HottentotsUh whole language of kicks/ very sophisticated/ for them of course. Parks employment of kicks rhymes with clicks, which is associated with the Khoikhoi dialectthe descendants of Baartmans tribe. An important thing to note is that Europeans had several early encounters with the Khoikhoi. In fact, anthropologist Kenneth Parker observes that European knowledge of Africa between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries could easily be relocated to the Cape [Colony].53 According to Z.S. Strother, a professor of Art History and Archaeology, several scholars overlook the pivotal role of European astonishment at Khoikhoi click languages in the formulation of the Hottentot mythos (2). She further explains: It was the European inability to recognize Khoe, with its many clicks, as true language that lay behind the initial creation of a separate discourse on the Hottentots.Language was central in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century thought because it marked the common frontier separating humanity from the beasts, and the Khoikhois acquisition of true language was in doubt. (3) As an example, Strother quotes the playwright Saintine who wrote a short story about the Hottentots in 1825, in which he describes their language as: This bizarre and very difficult language resembles no human speech, and by its hissing, its croaking, its shrill cries, its inarticulate sounds, it appears to serve as the natural link between the language of men and that of the animals. (4)

53

Parker quoted in Strothers Display of the Body Hottentot Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business

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Venus Glossary
p. 47 The Negro Resurrectionist: Footnote #5: Historical Extract. Category: Literary. From The Life of One Called the Venus Hottentot As Told By Herself. There were several newspaper interviews with Baartman before her death that employed her voice; however, Crais & Scully note that these so-called stories were fabricated by those who wrote them. Jennifer Larson makes an interesting connection between Baartman and Harriet Jacobs, a former slave who wrote her own book about her experiences as a slaveIncidents of a Slave Girl (1861). Larson reads both Venus and Jacobs through the lens of deliberate calculation, choosing a life based on personal choice rather than external forces. A component of the Abolitionist movement, which was occurring in England at the time of Baartmans career sting, was the slave narrative. Notable former slaves who participated in this movement include Frederick Douglass, Phyllis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano. p. 53 The Mother-Showman: Oh boy: Uh Diva. Etymology: Italian diva goddess, lady-love, fine lady, < Latin dva goddess, female divinity, feminine of dvus divine, god, deity. 1. A distinguished female singer, a prima donna.54 2. A diva is a female performer, usually an opera singer, who is extremely talented but very imperious and temperamental. But the distinguishing factor is that her talent permits somewhat uncouth behavior. A diva is not necessarily difficult to work with; she is just very professional and has a low tolerance for incompetence.55

54 55

Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com Urbandictionary.com

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Venus Glossary
p. 57 Mother-Showman: The Law wants to shut us down/ we create too many disturbances so/we gotta move about go hopping you know town to town./ A Whirlwind Tour! This a reference to Baartmans controversial trial in the following scene. The impetus for the Whirlwind Tour is to continue displaying Mother-Showmans sideshow for however long is possible. p. 62 Scene 20A: The Venus Hottentot Before the Law In November 1810, the attorney-general, on behalf of the African Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa, appealed to the Court of the Kings Bench to discontinue Dunlops exhibition of Baartmanshe had been brought to England and exhibited without her consent and was being mistreated.56

Court of Kings Bench, 1805. From the Georgian publication Microcosm of London

56

Worthern, W.B. Drama: Between Poetry and performance p. 180

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Venus Glossary
KING'S BENCH. The name of the supreme court of law in England. It is so called because formerly the king used to sit there in person, the style of the court being still coram ipso rege, before the king himself. During the reign of a queen, it is called the Queen's Bench, and during the protectorate of Cromwell, it was called the Upper Bench. It consists of a chief justices and three other judges, who are, by their office, the principal coroners and conservators of the peace.57 (READ more about Baartmans Trial in Court section) (Footnote #6: Historical Extract: Musical. From R. Toole-Scotts The Circus and the Allied Arts) Raymond Toole-Stott (1910-1982) was a British author, journalist and compiler of the multi-volume Circus and Allied Arts: A World Bibliography, as well as other writings on the circus, conjuring, and Somerset Maugham. Toole-Stott also worked as a free-lance journalist for twenty years, eight of which he spent as the Chief Feature writer to Bertram Mills Circus at Olympia. During a few seasons in the 1930s, he managed a circus on his own. Among his other credits, Toole-Stott was the founder and original editor of the Sawdust Review, a precursor to the British circus journal King Pole. Recognized as the pre-eminent

From A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856, http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/King's+bench
57

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historian/bibliographer on the circus, he spent the later part of his life collecting numerous books related to the circus, while compiling and writing his four-volume bibliography. Toole-Stott's accomplishments as a scholar and circus aficionado are particularly notable, considering that he worked full time in the Treasury Solicitor's office as a civil servant. Prior to his death in 1982, he had started to write the fifth volume in Circus and Allied Arts series, which has since been published posthumously.58 p. 64 The Chorus of the Court:We begin with a writ of Habeas Corpus59: (hay-bee-us core-puss) n. Latin for "you have the body," it is a writ (court order) which directs the law enforcement officials (prison administrators, police or sheriff) who have custody of a prisoner to appear in court with the prisoner to help the judge determine whether the prisoner is lawfully in prison or jail. The writ is obtained by petition to a judge in the county or district where the prisoner is incarcerated, and the judge sets a hearing on whether there is a legal basis for holding the prisoner. Habeas corpus is a protection against illegal confinement, such as holding a person without charges, when due process obviously has been denied, bail is excessive, parole has been granted, an accused has been improperly surrendered by the bail bondsman or probation has been summarily terminated without cause. Historically called "the great writ," the renowned scholar of the Common Law, William Blackstone, called it the "most celebrated writ in English law."

University of California. Biographical History: Raymond Toole-Stott (1910-1982). http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=toole-stott-raymond-1910-1982-cr.xml 59 Hill, Gerald and Kathleen. The People's Law Dictionary, http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=848
58

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p. 67 The Venus: Baptised 1 December 1811. The ceremony took place in Manchester, the clergyman being Reverend Joshua Brookes. Baartman was baptized as Sarah Bartmann in the Manchester Cathedral by the Reverend Joshua Brookes, who had sought out special permission from the Bishop to do so. Her baptismal record also indicated that she married at the same time. Dunlop signed the record. Could he have been her husband? Was she pregnant?60 p. 68 The Negro Resurrectionist: 2nd Witness:/Historical Extract: Mr. Charles Mathewes visited the Venus and related this scene to his now widow According to Richard Altick, Mathews widow also told readers in 1839 that the novelty of [Baartmans] figure could be sufficiently appreciated only by those aware of feminine beauty prevailing in 1810: In those days, when bustles were not, she was a curiosity, for English ladies then wore no shape but what Nature gave and insisted upon; and the Grecian drapery was simply thrown upon the natural form, without whalebone or buckram to distort or disguise it.61 p. 70 The Venus: Exhibit B:/ A feather from the head of the/ so-called Venus H. There is no indication that Baartman wore feathers as part of her attire in her exhibit. According to Crais and Scully, she did have a tortoiseshell necklace in her possession that she received after her first menstruation as she began to learn about sexuality and the obligations of men and women (12). Both scholars note: Stories of the tortoise were in part masculine stories speaking of a womans body, of the temptations of sex, and the responsibilities of elders

60 61

Lewis Venus Timeline p. 6 Altick, Richard Daniel. The Shows of London p.269

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Venus Glossary
to teach the young the ways of the worldSara brought the tortoiseshell necklace to Europe, her last, her only physical connection to a world she had lost. (12) Yet, Parks inclusion of a feather does hold some significance, particularly in African cosmology. According to Credo Mutwa, a celebrated South African sangoma (witch doctor), birds are beautiful fertilizers of the earth. He explains: Our people believed that, like the animal herds that used to criss-cross the face of Africa, birds were bringers of fertility. We believed that the great bird migrations that used to come into our skies at certain times of the year brought fertility to or fattened the land. For this reason, a bird, any bird, is called the fertiliser or the fattener ingonyi.62

p. 71

The Chorus Leader: We call to the stand/ a noted Abolitionist. The son of a Scottish minister, Zachary Macaulay from Inverary was working in a merchant counting house in Glasgow when he was sent to Jamaica at the age of 16. He started work on a sugar plantation where eventually he became a manager. After eight years working in the West Indies, he returned to Britain. Through his brother-in-law Thomas Babington, a colleague of William Wilberforce, he became a member of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Macaulays experiences in Jamaica had made him a committed opponent of slavery and the slave trade. In 1794, he took the post of Governor of the Sierra Leone colony established in 1788 for freed slaves in West Africa. In 1795, Macaulay travelled as a passenger on a slave ship to find out what it was like to sail on the Middle Passage. He was Governor of Sierra Leone until 1799. When he returned to Britain from Africa his major contribution to the anti-slave trade was his first-hand experience and his work in collecting and collating of evidence and the drafting of reports that highlighted the horrors of slavery and the slave trade. In the 1820s, Macaulay focused his attention on securing the total abolition of slavery. He was

62

Wild Campus Life, BirdsAfrican Folklore, www.wildlifecampus.com/Help/PDF/Folklore_Birds.pdf

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Venus Glossary
a founder member of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, later called the Anti-Slavery Society, in 1823. He was editor of the Anti-Slavery Reporter. He died in London in 1838 and a memorial to him is in Westminster Abbey.63 p. 72 The Negro Resurrectionist: Historical Extract. Category: Journalistic. A letter of protest appearing in The Morning Chronicle, Friday, 12 October 1810. Macaulay published anonymously as An Englishman in the Morning Chronicle on the condition of the wretched creature he had seen the day before. In their biography of Baartman, Crais and Scully quote from Macaulays letter: This poor female is made to walk, to dance, to shew herself, not for her own advantage, but for the profit of her master, who, when she appeared tired, holds up a stick to her, like the wild beast keepers, to intimidate her into obedience. (89)64 p. 75 The Chorus of the Court: Are you here of yr own free will/ or are you under some restraint? Crais & Scully note that this particular question, and by large Baartmans trial, has set a precedent in international law. Baartmans trial forever links her to the debate over liberty and freedom, compassion, and the right to intervene to stop the pain of others (83). (READ Baartmans Trial section)

Zachary Macaulay, BBC Scotland Learning http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/hist/abolition/?section=abolitionists&page=macaulay 64 Lewis, Megan. Venus Timeline.
63

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Venus Glossary
The Chorus Leader: Her kind bear Gods bad mark and, baptised or not,/ they blacken- up the honor of our fair country. This phrase Gods bad mark refers to the Curse of Ham, a son of Noah (he built an ark to protect his family and a bevy of animals from the flood). In Genesis 9:20-27, Noah becomes intoxicated and falls asleep naked in his tent. Ham sees him and tells his brothers, Shem and Japheth, who cover their father with a blanket. Noah curses Ham, saying of Hams son Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren (Gen. 9: 25). Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Europe traded more directly with sub- Saharan Africa and became deeply involved in the continents slave trade. Until now, few Europeans had had contact with Africas darker-skinned populations. The more of these Africans they saw, the more they wondered why they had dark skin. At the same time, they had trouble justifying their enslavement. The Hamitic Curse solved both problems. Although all men were descended from Noahs sons, Hams line was to serve the descendants of his brothers. The story itself never mentioned race, but the idea that it involved some identifying feature, such as black skin, had been around for centuries. Only now, with increased exposure to black Africans and the need to justify their servitude, did the idea gain widespread acceptance. Blacks became Hamites, destined for slavery.65 Notably, this belief of the Hamitic Curse was part of the cultural belief of much of Western society up until the mid-twentieth century. p. 76 The Venus: I came here black./ Give me the chance to leave here white. Venus statement here is an example of Homi Bhabas concept of mimicry. In her chapter on Postcolonial Criticism, Lois Tyson summarizes Bhabas concept. She writes: Mimicry reflects both the desire of colonized individuals to be accepted by the colonizing culture and the shame experienced by

Deschamps, Chris, A Cursed Race: How the Story of Ham Justified Centuries of Racism Suite 101 http://suite101.com/article/a-cursed-race-how-the-story-of-ham-justified-centuries-of-racism-a350803
65

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Venus Glossary
colonized individuals concerning their own culture, which they are programmed to see as inferior (421). p. 77 The Negro Resurrectionist: The year was 1810, three years after the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade had been passed in Parliament. A strong movement emerged in 18th-century Britain to put an end to the buying and selling of human beings. This campaign to abolish the slave trade developed alongside international events such as the French Revolution, as well as retaliation by maroon communities, sporadic unrest, and individual acts of resistance from enslaved people in the British colonies. On March 25, 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act entered the statute books. Although the Act made it illegal to engage in the slave trade throughout the British colonies, trafficking between the Caribbean islands continued, until 1811.66 With the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act by the British Parliament in 1807, the attention of campaigners against the slave trade switched to slavery itself. Even though the slave trade had been banned, nothing had been done to free the existing enslaved workforce in the British Empire. The Slave Emancipation Act passed in August 1833, giving all slaves in the British Empire their freedom, albeit after a set period of years.67

Rights: Abolition of the Slave Trade. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/abolition.htm 67 Rights: Emancipation. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/emancipation.htm
66

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p. 83 Mother-Showman: A mint!/ A fortune!/ Fort Knox! Fort Knox is a U.S. army base located 35 miles from Louisville, KY and encompasses 109,000 acres in three Kentucky counties. Currently, Fort Knox has a population of over 40,000 soldiers, family members and civilian employees. Built in 1918 during World War I, the base is named in honor of General Henry Knox, Chief of Artillery during the Revolutionary War and the First Secretary of State.68 Fort Knox is widely known for safekeeping the U.S. mint. In other words, Fort Knox has a highly secure gold vault. The list below includes several facts about the vault: Amount of present gold holdings: 147.3 million ounces. The gold is held as an asset of the United States at book value of $42.22 per ounce. Size of a standard gold bar: 7 inches x 3 and 5/8 inches x 1 and 3/4 inches. Weight of a standard gold bar: approximately 400 ounces or 27.5 pounds. In the past, the Depository has stored the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, Lincoln's Gettysburg address, three volumes of the Gutenberg Bible, and Lincoln's second inaugural address. In addition to gold bullion, the Mint has stored valuable items for other government agencies. The Magna Carta was once stored there. The crown, sword, scepter, orb, and cape of St. Stephen, King of Hungary also were stored at the Depository, before being returned to the government of Hungary in 1978.

68

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Venus Glossary
The Depository is a classified facility. No visitors are permitted, and no exceptions are made.69 *Parks was born in Fort Knox, KY because her father was in the military. She calls herself an Army brat.70 p. 86 The Baron Docteur: Sweetheart, how would you like to go to Paris? In 1814, Baartman travelled to Paris with Henry Taylor. She arrived in Paris as The Hottentot Venus, an identity she ultimately died with. The Palais-Royal was Paris pleasure dome, a long parade of shops, cafes, brothels and entertainment spaces. Crais and Scully write, In the palais, where reality and performance blurred into a kaleidoscope of sensation, one could delight in all pleasures, licit and illicit (120).71 (READ MORE about Baartmans stay in Paris in the Timeline)

The United States Bullion Depository Fort Knox, KY, http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/fun_facts/?action=fun_facts13 70 Lenahan, Edward. Suzan-Lori Parks, http://web.archive.org/web/20100115040630/http://spinner.cofc.edu/temples/parks.html?referrer=webclus ter& 71 Lewis Venus Timeline
69

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Venus Glossary
p. 91 Scene 16: the Anatomical Theatre of Tbingen: The Dis(-re)memberment of the Venus Hottentot, Part I Anatomical theatres were utilized as spaces to teach anatomy. The space was usually a room shaped like an amphitheatre and in the centre was a table on which the dissections of human or animal bodies occurred. Around this table were several circular, elliptic or octagonal tiers with railings where students or other observers could stand view of the dissection. Memento mori, or, freely translated, "Remember,
Thomas Eakins, Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic), 1875

you will die," was commonly written on banners.72

Avoirdupois: Actual body weight p. 92 The Baron Docteur: Forthcomin in The Royal College Journal of Anatomy. Presumably, the Baron is referring to his publication of his dissection on Baartmans body. p. 93 the malar region: two small bones forming the prominence of the cheek

72

Wikipedia.org Anatomical Theatre

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Venus Glossary
Conjunctiva: mucous membrane lining the eyeball Septum. Nostrils, Gentlemen, were patulous: septum: the inner wall of the nose separating the nostrils Septum narium/nares: the inner nasal area p. 94 On the pubes: the pubic region 1. The lower part of the abdomen, especially the region surrounding the external genital organs. 2. The hair that appears on this region at puberty. 3. Plural of pubis The forward portion of either of the hipbones, at the juncture forming the front arch of the pelvis. Also called pubic bone.74 labia majora: the outer vaginal lips The Baron Docteur: The mammae, situated exactly over the fourth and fifth ribsThey were soft, flaccid and subpendulous: Mammaethe breasts
73

patulous: spread widely apart; open; distended73

Flaccidlacking firmness, resilience, or muscle tone75

Patulous. Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers. 2007 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc., http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/patulous 74 From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 2009, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pubes

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Venus Glossary
Subpendulousthis particular term was used in James Millars Encyclopedia Britannica (1810) and Pantologica (1819) to describe the ears of dogs. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, however, the word pendulous refers to a part of the body tending to droop heavily, lacking firmness; flabby, sagging, flaccid. In addition, the term pendulous can also mean resembling or imitative of the movement of the pendulum; swinging from side to side.76 What remains of the external characterswill be revealed toward the end of my presentation under the head of Generative or Reproductive Organs.77 Generative: Etymology: < Anglo-Norman and Middle French generatif (French gnratif ) of or relating to the generation of offspring, having the power or function of reproducing (1314 in Old French; frequently in membres generatifs (plural) genitals) 1. Of or relating to the generation of offspring; having the power or function of reproducing; procreative, reproductive. 2. That generates, produces, or gives rise to something, or has the power or ability to do so; productive, creative; originating, causative. Reproductive: Etymology: < re- prefix + productive adj., after reproduce v. Compare French reproductif (1760, earliest in spec. use in economics). 1. Biol. Of or relating to biological reproduction; bringing about reproduction in animals or plants. Also in extended use 2. gen. Of the nature of, relating to, or effecting reproduction.

Flaccid. The American Heritage Medical Dictionary Copyright 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company, http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/flaccid 76 Oxford English Dictionary, Pendulous. OED.com 77 Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com
75

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Venus Glossary
p. 95 Baron Docteur: The Depressor anguli oris and the Depressor labii inferioris The depressor anguli oris muscle is one of the muscles of the mouth. Its action is to depress and laterally displace the angle of the mouth.78 The Depressor labii inferioris is a muscle that depresses the lower lip and moves it laterally.79 she picked up/ uh bit of English, French and even Dutch, all patois, the native language of this woman is said/ to have consisted entirely/ of an almost uninterrupted succession of clicks and explosives. According to Crais & Scully: One of the many tragedies of Sara Baartmans life is that the more she grew accustomed to Europe, to being European, the more Europe rejected, for her, the possibility of change and becomingSara could speak Dutch, English, and a little French. Writers remarked on her facility with language, but they could not see beyond the Hottentot Venus.Europeans insisted on Sara Baartman being primitive and savage.Both scientific and popular understanding placed her within an imaginary Khoekhoe culture that allowed for no learning, no movement, no history. (116) The mastoid process: the bone behind the ear, part of the jaw The Attollens and Attrahens aurem: the muscles of the ear

78 79

http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/simplepage.cfm?ID=-684392371 Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. 2009, Elsevier, http://medical-

dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Depressor+labii+inferioris+muscle

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Calvarium: the skull lacking the lower jaw The Sterno-mastoid: a large muscle passing downwards along the front of the neck p. 96 the clavicle: the collar bone The Omo-hyoid muscle: a muscle of the neck, passing across the side of the neck Trapezius: a muscle covering the upper and back part of the neck and shoulders The scapula: the bone comprising the back part of the shoulder Latissimus dorsi: a large flat muscle covering the lumbar and lower half of the dorsal region Dorso-epitrochlear muscle: a muscle similar to the Latissimus dorsi found in nonhuman animals Levator anguli scapulae: a muscle at the back and side of the neck Tubercles: the protuberance near the head of the rib
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Venus Glossary
Serratus magnus: a muscle in the chest Levator claviculae: a muscle of the clavicle area first noted by Dr. McWhinnie Though the name was first recognized in human mycology by Dr. Wood: Reverend John George Wood (1827-1889), a popular and prolific writer of the nineteenth century, was the eldest son of John Freeman Wood and Juliana Lisetta. Being a weakly child he was educated at home and led an outdoor life, which gave scope for the development of his innate love of all natural history pursuits. Wood's writings were in no sense scientific, and do not comply with the standards of modern scientific research. Conscious of his shortcomings, he did not make any attempt at fine writing, and was least successful in those books in which a systematic treatment of the subject was imperative. Wood's single objective was to popularize the study of natural history by rendering it interesting and intelligible to non-scientific minds. Timely as his books were, he was thoroughly successful at this, turning public attention to the subject of natural history.80 In his 1868 book entitled The Natural History of Man, Wood described how Francis Galton, Charles Darwins cousin, had an encounter with a Khoikhoi woman who had a similar body type as Baartman. Galton wanted to take his own measurements, but his hosts were missionaries (who also acted as his interpreters). He could not figure out how to request such an examination. Wood then goes onto cite Galtons words:

Whipple Library: Nineteenth Century Collections University of Cambridge http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/library/specialcollections/nineteenth.html
80

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Venus Glossary
I profess to be a scientific man, and was exceedingly anxious to obtain accurate measurement of her shape; but there was a difficulty in doing this. I did not know a word of Hottentot, and could never, therefore, explain to the lady what the object of my foot-rule could be; and I really dared not ask my worthy missionary host to interpret for me. I therefore felt in a dilemma as I gazed at her form, that gift of bounteous nature to this favored race, which no mantua-maker, with all her crinoline and stuffing, can do otherwise than humbly imitate. The object of my admiration stood under a tree, and was turning herself about to all points of the compass, as ladies who wish to be admired usually do. Of a sudden my eye fell upon my sextant; the bright thought struck me, and I took a series of observations upon her figure in every direction, up and down, crossways, diagonally, and so forth, and I registered them carefully upon an outline drawing for fear of any mistake. This being done, I boldly pulled out my measuring tape, and measured the distance from where I was to the place she stood, and, having thus obtained both base and angles, I worked out the result by trigonometry and logarithms. (243)81 Moreover, the term mycology refers to the scientific study of fungi; in addition, the characteristics of a region as they relate to fungi or the study of fungi.82 Splenis colli: a muscle at the back of the neck Transverse process: a muscular like lever which serves as the attachment of muscles which move the different parts of the spine Cervicalis Ascendens: a neck muscle near the upper ribs

81

Wood The Natural History of Man; Switek The Tragedy of Saartje Baartman http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/02/27/the-tragedy-of-the-hottentot-v/ 82 Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com

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Venus Glossary
Sacro-lumbalis muscle: located in the external portion of the erector (lower) spine Trachelo-mastoid: a muscle running from the jaw area around to the back Occipitalis muscles: the muscle at the back of the skull Humeral origins (bone): the upper arm bone Teres minor: the narrow muscle of the shoulder area p.97 Extensor minimi digitii: a slender muscle running through the arm and into the hand Annular ligament: a large muscle in the wrist Metacarpo-phalangeal: the hand and finger bones Extensor communis digitorum: a muscle of the forearm Dorsum: the back surface of an area

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Venus Glossary
The Bride-to-Be: My Love, which will/ Stretch back and forth and reach all through all Time/ Deep from my heart, to pri-mordial slime. Primordial: 1. Of, relating to, or existing from the very beginning of time; earliest in time; primeval, primitive; (more generally) ancient, distant in time. 2. That constitutes the origin or starting point from which something else is derived or developed, or on which something else depends; fundamental, basic; elemental. Extensor primi internodil pollicis: the smallest muscle of the arm Fascia: a sheet of connective tissue Gluteus maximus: the muscle of the buttocks Gluteus medius: the muscle on the outer surface of the pelvis covered by Gluteus maximus Flexor brevis digitorum pedis: a muscle in the middle of the sole of the foot The long flexor tendon: A muscle that when contracted acts to bend a joint or limb in the body.83 Os calcis: the heel bone

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flexor
83

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Venus Glossary
The relation of the arrangements of the muscular system of Man/ to that of the inferior Primates as we know/ was first clearly described by Dr. Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) was a pioneering biologist and educator, best known for his strong support for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Huxley was born in London on 4 May 1825, the son of a maths teacher. When he was 10, Huxley's family moved to Coventry and three years later he was apprenticed to his uncle, a surgeon at the local hospital. He later moved to London where he continued his medical studies. At 21, Huxley signed on as assistant surgeon on HMS Rattlesnake, a Royal Navy ship assigned to chart the seas around Australia and New Guinea. During the voyage, he collected and studied marine invertebrates,
English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, circa 1860

sending his papers back to London. When he returned he found that the papers had been read and admired

and in 1851 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1854, Huxley was appointed professor at the School of Mines in London. He met Charles Darwin in around 1856 and was won over by his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin's The Origin of Species was published in 1859. It provoked a storm of controversy because it challenged the Christian belief that God created life on Earth. Huxley's repeated and passionate defence of the book earned him the nickname of 'Darwin's Bulldog'. In June 1860 in Oxford, Huxley took part in a famous public debate on evolution with Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. Wilberforce had been coached by Richard Owen, an eminent Victorian scientist, who was to be Huxley's most significant opponent.84 Then, in 1861, Huxley gave a lecture entitled On the Zoological of Man with the Lower Animals, in which he assessed that Baartmans brain was less complicated than that of Europeansan assessment made earlier by French anatomist Louis Pierre Gratiolet. Huxley wondered whether Baartmans brain could be representative of a certain stage of mental evolution from ape to human. He observed:

Historic Figures: Thomas Henry Huxley, BBC History http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/huxley_thomas_henry.shtml
84

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Venus Glossary
The cerebral hemispheres of the Bosjesman [Bushman and Khoikhoi] (and to a certain extent of the Negro), so far as the evidence before us goes, are different from those of the white man; and the circumstances in which they differviz., the more pointed shape of the cerebral hemispheres, the greater symmetry of their convolutions, and the different development of certain of these convolutions,are all of the same nature as most of those which distinguish the apes brain from that of man. In other words, if we place A, the European brain, B, the Bosjesman brain, and C, the orang brain, in a series, the differences between A and B, so far as they have been ascertained, are of the same nature as the chief of those between B and C. (491)85 in his Hunterian lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons earlier this year. The Hunterian Lecture is named after John Hunter (1728- 1793), an anatomist, obstetrician, doctor, and dedicated collector of oddities. The lecture series is an annual event sponsored by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS). Past lecturers include Sir Richard Owen, Sir William Flower, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Sir Arthur Keith, who presented major new concepts in the evolutionary theory and human origins.86 RCS was established as the Company of Barber-Surgeons in 1540. The Company was a trade guild and a London Livery Company that apprenticed and examined trainees within the City of London. In 1745, the Company of Barber-Surgeons was split by an
John Hunter, a pencil drawing by George Dance, circa 1793

85

From The Scientific Memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley, Volume 2 by Thomas Henry Huxley; Switek The Tragedy of Saartje Baartman 86 Filler, Aaron G. Glossary. The Upright Ape: A New Origin of the Species, http://www.uprightape.net/UA_Glossary.html#Gloss_H_anchor

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Venus Glossary
Act of Parliament into two bodies at the request of the surgeons. The Company of Surgeons built a new hall with an anatomy theatre near Newgate Gaol so it could teach and dissect the bodies of executed criminals. In 1796, the Company bought property at Lincolns Inn fields and applied for a new constitution that would modernize it. At the same time, the government bought the museum of the late surgeon and scientist John Hunter and gave custody of it to the Company. This was done on condition that they opened the museum to medics and students. In 1800, the Company was finally granted a Royal Charter and The Royal College of Surgeons in London was born. The buildings at Lincolns Inn were prepared and the Hunterian Museum moved to its new home in 1813. The Museum was an active part of the College and continually increased in size and importance. Jumping forward to contemporary times, the Royal College of Surgeons opened the doors to its new state-of-the-art clinical skills unit, known as the Eagle Project in 2010. The three-phased project transformed the College's education facilities into a national centre of excellence for surgical education, training and assessment and will provide the UK with one of the most advanced surgical teaching facilities in the World.87 p. 101 The Baron Docteur: Quatorze, treize, etc. Counting backwards in French from 14 to 1. This is just another example of Parks employment of playing with the structure of her piece. Venus: Voil: (pronounced vwah-la) Here it is!

History of the CollegeThe Royal College of Surgeons http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/about/history-of- the-college
87

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Venus Glossary
p. 104 The Venus: You could be whatshisname: Columbus. The Baron Docteur: Thats been done. This is a reference to Christopher Columbus discovering the New World in 1492. In her essay, Debby Thompson notes that the Baron Docteur logs his scientific observations [like] an explorer would log his discoveries of the flora and fauna of new lands (179). She explains: Medical exploration, too, creates a cartography, mapping out alien bodies and placing them under its power-knowledge. Medicine, again, is not simply colonization by other means, but nor are they opposites. Empire and empiricism share a common will to order. (179)88 Moreover, Thompson takes into account our contemporary relationship with the medical world. She states, A patients submission to a doctors eyes and hands is so naturalized, at this point, that nobody would think of calling it exploitation. On the contrary, such surveillance is understood as humanitarian beneficence, for the patients own good (179). According to Boetsch and Blanchard, Columbus also participated in bringing exotics and savages overseas to put on display. In 1492, he brought the Arawaks from the Americas to Ferdinand and Isabellas court in Spain.89

88 89

Thompson, Digging Fo-fathers, From Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook Boetsch and Blanchard. The Hottentot Venus, p. 62.

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Venus Glossary
p. 105 The Venus: Petits Curs: (pronounced peh-tee cuhr) little hearts of solid chocolate

90

Rhum Caramel: (pronounced room care-uh-mel) cube-shaped, dark chocolate with light caramel; crme frache and rum flavor inside crme frache: After milking the cows, separate and set the fresh cream aside. Let the natural lactic bacteria take over, creating a thick, smooth, tart result known as crme frache. That was how they made it on the dairy farm in Brittany, France. Crme Frache is exquisitely rich, with a cultured, nutty flavor and creamy texture. A staple of French Cuisine, crme frache can be used as an ingredient for sauces, pastry, custard, or as a topping on pie, fruits and soups. 91

90

Thermomix. Petits Coeurs en Chocolat: Espaces Recettes, http://www.espace-recettes.fr/node/32310

91

Crme Frache. http://www.vermontcreamery.com/cr%C3%A9me-fra%C3%AEche-1

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Venus Glossary
Pharaon: (pronounced fair-ohn) a solid lozenge, either dark or buttercream, with the image of a pharaohs head stamped upon it

92

Bouchon Fraise: (prounounced boo-shuhn freh-ze) cupcake-shaped, either dark chocolate or buttercream, filled with either strawberry crme or cognac flavor, respectively

93

92

http://www.chocolat- deneuville.com/uploads/dyn/compositions/968acbb91726628985e08d3e24569395.jpg 93 http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/02/86/1b/3d/filename-bouchon8-jpg.jpg

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Venus Glossary
Escargot Lait: (pronounced esse-car-go lay) fashioned in the shape of a snails shell; milk chocolate with praline inside

94

Enfant de Bruxelles: (pronounced on-fohn do Bru-sell) dark chocolate lozenge with an image of a little African child stamped upon it; coffee and chocolate crme frache inside

95

Namur: La Maison des Desserts: Escargot Lait. http://www.maison-des-desserts.be/famille/la- chocolaterie/ma-maison-des-desserts.htm?lng=fr&pagination=2 95 Bruxelles version tout chocolat. Le Vif (Weekend), 3 October 2012, http://weekend.levif.be/tendance/culinaire/gastronomie/bruxelles-version-tout-chocolat/article- 4000187503762.htm
94

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Venus Glossary
Capezzoli di Venere: (pronounced kah-pee-zee-olee dee veh-neh-reh) the nipples of Venus, breast-shaped mounds in dark or light chocolate with a red or white iced nipple on top; crme frache often inside

In Chocolat (2000), Juliette Binoches character prepares capezzoli di venere to try to seduce puritannical town patrons. The sweet treats sexy aura dates back to the invention of pralines itself, where, in some stories, womanizer du Plessis-Praslin demanded a treat that would excite court ladies, which resulted in the praslin, or pralines.96 p. 107 The Venus: Wear this uhround yr neck and never take it off. Is uh good luck feather. Uh sort of amulet. It might help. In his discussion on birds, Credo Mutwa points: To African people the vulture was the symbol of fertility. It was the grandmother, who laid many eggs according to one story. Eggs out of which emerge not little vultures, but any kind of animal that there is on earth. Some tribes believe that the vulture was the original great earth mother. And our people believed that where there are vultures, there,

Tatler, Asia. Eating Your Own Words, 11 August 2011, http://www.asiatatlerdining.com/thailand/eating-your-own-words
96

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Venus Glossary
there is safety, there, there is purity, there, there is life. In the language of the Zulu people, a vulture was called Inqe, which means the purifier, the one who cleans off the land. In the language of the Tswana speaking people a vulture was known as Lenong. Again, we see the word, Nong, which has to do with fertility, with the fatness of the land. Thus, the vulture is the fertilizer of the earth, the one who makes the earth fat.97 p. 109 Tragus: the prominence at the front of the opening of the ear p. 112 Anatomist #8: Throws all those throw-back theories back in the lake. Throw-back theories refer to atavism, (Latin, atavus, a great-grandfather's grandfather, an ancestor), which expresses the reappearance of characters, physical or psychical, in the individual, or in the race, which are supposed to have been possessed at one time by remote ancestors. Very often these suddenly reappearing characters are of the monstrous type, e.g. the three-toed horse. The appearance of such a monster is looked upon as a harking back to Tertiary times, when the ancestor of the modern horse possessed three toes.98 p. 115 vertex: the top of the heap formal cartilages tip: also known as the xyphoid process, the cartilage at the tip of the breastbone

97 98

Wildlife Campus BirdsAfrican Folklore Atavism Catholic Encyclopedia Online, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02032c.htm

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To the umbilicus: the belly button To the perineum: the muscle between genitals and anus p.116 the patella: the knee bone p. 117 Thorax: the chest cavity Axilla: the armpit Pelvis at the crest of the ilium: the top crest of the hip bone Trochanters: the upper part of the thigh bone p. 118 Humerus: The bone of the upper arm, extending from the shoulder-joint to the elbow- joint; the homogenetic bone in other vertebrates.99 Radius: the arm bone on the thumb side

99

Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com

65

Venus Glossary
Ulna: the arm bone on the little finger side Femur: the thigh bone (the longest, largest and strongest bone in the skeleton) Tibia: the leg bone between the knee and the ankle p. 119 the upper border of the atlas: the part of the spine that supports the head the tip of the coccyx: the tail bone p. 124 Pudendum: external genital organs, especially of a woman p. 128 Shes pregnant. The Baron Docteur: God. Is there anything we can do about it. Ive a wife. A career The Venus: Where I come from its cause for celebration. In actuality, Baartman actually had a few pregnancies during her life; however, all of her children died. Baartman never identified the father of her first childCrais & Scully speculate that Pieter Cesars or a servant helping him might have impregnated her in Cape Town. Notably, she never discussed her child, who died in the same year, except to Pieters sister-in-law and to De Blainville, a French anatomist (38).

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Venus Glossary
Both pregnancy and birth called for celebration in the Eastern lands; however, it was a different story in Cape Town. In fact, slave owners disliked their slaves becoming pregnant. Then, Baartman conceived her second child with her husband Hendrik Van Jong in 1804. Yet, her second child died. Lastly, she became pregnant by Jonge the Mozambican slave. Crais & Scully question whether Baartman was in a relationship with Jonge or if he raped her. Once again, her last child died. p. 135 The VenusThe Docteur will introduce me to Napolon himself: Oh, yes yr Royal Highness the Negro question does keep me awake at night oh yes it does. Crais & Scully provide insight on whether Baartman crossed paths with Napolon Bonaparte. Both scholars believe that it is possible that he might have read about Baartman in the papers. They also provide some background on Bonaparte in the following passage: Crowned in 1804 after rising during the 1790s to be one of the three consuls who replaced the Jacobin terror, Napolon threatened English supremacy with his plans to conquer Europe. Admiral Nelson thwarted the emperor in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, but into the next decade Napolon continued to look east to Russia and to neighboring states such as Spain. In 1814, the Congress of Vienna ended his expansion, sending him off to the island of Elba. When Baartman arrived in Paris, Napolons title as emperor was relinquished. However, Napolon did return to France during the last year of Baartmans life and launched his final attempt to reclaim his control of France 100 In regards to the Negro question, Crais & Scully note that less than 2,000 people were legally recognized as mulatto or black lived in France during the first two decades of the 19th century. Interestingly enough, France was not as progressive as Britain during this time in terms of abolition.

100

Crais & Scully Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venu: A Ghost Story and a Biography p. 117

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p. 136 The Baron Docteur: What are you doing? Venus: Oh. Im sunning myself. Baron Docteur: Then you should have a parasol. Something that gives shade from the rays of the sun; spec. a screen or canopy, usually in the form of a small light umbrella, often ornamental or brightly coloured; (hence more generally) a sunshade, sun-umbrella. The parasol or sunshade was originally used by persons of high rank in South and South-East Asian countries, and was later adopted in Western countries where it became fashionable as a woman's accessory, esp. in the 19th century.101 The Baron Docteury: Little Hotsey-Totsey. Hotsy-totsy: slang (orig. U.S.) Wonderful, delightful; just right. Also (in later use): pretentiously fashionable. (In the 1924 quote below, perhaps the term is simply an interjection expressing enthusiasm.) 1924 I. Gershwin Whole World's Turning Blue in R. Kimball Compl. Lyrics I. Gershwin (1993) 41/3 Hey! Hey! Hotsy-totsy too! Dey! Dey! Red, white, and blue! 102 p. 137 Venus: Theyre lascivious. Etymology: < late Latin lascvis-us (Isidore), < Latin lascvi-a (n. of quality < lascvus sportive, in bad sense lustful, licentious) Inclined to lust, lewd, wanton.103

101

102

Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com Oxford English Dictionary. Hotsy-totsy, OED.com

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p. 143 Baron Docteur: ShesShes got the clap. Etymology: Of uncertain origin. Compare Old French clapoir, bosse, bubo, panus inguinis; clapoire, clapier, lieu de dbauche, maladie q'on y attrape
1. Obs. in polite use. Gonorrha.[Gonorrhea]104

There have been many theories on why gonorrhea is sometimes called clap. For one, it is believed that clap refers to the old French term, clapier, which means brothel. Before, gonorrhea was easily spread through these places. However, there is also another theory, which referred to how the infection was treated. To treat gonorrhea, it involved slamming a heavy book or any object down the penis so that the discharge would come out. This might not sound like a good treatment since it involved smashing the penis. Another probable reason why gonorrhea was referred to as clap is that it was a bastardized form of a word. During the World War days, gonorrhea was very common among the GIs. It was said that the personnel who treated the patients would refer to the GIs as having the collapse. As a bastardized form of the word collapse, it was called the clap.105 Grade School Chum: We could clap her into jail for that. This statement is a reference to the Contagious Disease Acts, passed in Britain during the 19th century. Inspired by prostitution laws in France and Spain, this series of legislature regulated prostitution. For instance, a woman suspected of prostitution had to register with the police and receive a compulsory medical exam. If the exam revealed disease, the woman would be confined to a lock hospital until she was pronounced clean. The specific goal of the acts was to reduce the sexually transmitted diseases

Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com Oxford English Dictionary, OED.com 105 JRay.Why is Gonorrhea Called the Clap? 25 July 2010, http://www.knowswhy.com/why-is- gonorrhea-called-clap/; Lende, Daniel. Gonorrhea and the Clap: the Slap Down Treatment. Neuroanthropology PLOS Blogs, http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology/2010/09/17/gonorrhea-and-the- clap-the-slap-down-treatment/
103

104

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that plagued the British military. Thus, the acts applied to specifically named ports and garrison towns.106 p. 149 nymphae: the inner lips of the vulva labia minora: the inner vaginal lips p. 149 Grade School Chum: You used to unearth bodies for my postmortem class. An illegal craft as I remember. Bodies for dissection were in short supply in the early 1800s as only executed criminals could be dissected legally. In the United Kingdom, body-snatchers also known as resurrectionists robbed the graves of the newly deceased, often in the middle of the night, and then sold the corpses to anatomists. Those that could afford them might have chosen to use heavy iron mortsafes to protect coffins and their occupants. First appearing around 1816, they came in a range of designs. The sheer weight of the lid was expected to put off even the most desperate body-snatcher. Then, the English Anatomy Act of 1832 allowed unclaimed corpses at hospitals and workhouses to be available to medical schools for dissection.

McElroy, Wendy. The Contagious Disease Acts, Future Freedom Foundation, http://fff.org/explore- freedom/article/contagious-disease-acts/
106

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p. 150

Iron mortsafe, 1801-1822 Credits: Science Museum London

Grade School Chum: Once a digger always one. In a 1994 interview with Han Ong, Parks explains her usage of the term digger and its context in her play the America Play (1993). She states: [H]umor is the only way to remember, because the relationship between throwing up and laughing is so close. (Laughter) Humor crosses that gap between what you know and what you think, what you know and what you don't know. Laughter and that joke crosses that gapthere's a lot of really serious stuff going on in The America Play, but I swear, I can only think of the jokes. The jokes led me to write America. The relationship between "nigger" and "digger" was the whole play for me. When I could allow myself to have a little chuckle about "nigger" and "digger," I knew who those people were in the play. (48)107

107

Ong, Han and Suzan-Lori Parks. Suzan-Lori Parks Interviews. BOMB 47 (Spring 1994): 46-50.

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p. 155 Venus: A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHOCOLATE: Debby Thompson suggests that this historical account on chocolate is also a metaphor for black women; like chocolate, they have been discursively and imagistically aligned (180). She explains that discourse on chocolate has circulated through geographical conquest and imperialism, Christianity, commerce and medicine. In fact, the same discourses that produced and regulated chocolate, have simultaneously produced and regulated black women and discourses of race to the extent that black women are imagistically equated with chocolate (180).108 p. 155-156 Venus: Chocolate is the damnable agent of necromancers and sorcerers, said one French cleric circa 1620. As chocolate increased in popularity throughout Europe, it fell under religious scrutiny. For nearly two centuries, Catholic Ecclesiastics hotly debated whether chocolate was a food or a drink, and whether imbibing it during fasts was a sin.109 In his Annotated History of Chocolate, Ari Weinzweig elaborates that the Catholic Church initially opposed the introduction of chocolate in 1620. As a result, one French cleric wrote: [Chocolate is] the damnable agent of necromancers and sorcerers. It is well to abstain from chocolate in order to avoid the familiarity and company of a nation so suspected of sorcery [Spain].110 This denunciation, however, increased interest in the exotic beverage (405).111

108 109

Thompson The Rich History of Chocolate: Chocolates European Debut, 16th to 17th centuries, http://www.allchocolate.com/understanding/history/old_meets_new.aspx 110 Ehler, James T. The Food Reference Newsletter, 3.33 (September 2002), http://www.foodreference.com/html/vol_3_no_33.html 111 Weinzweig, Ari. Annotated History of Chocolate. Zingermans Guide to Good Eating: How to Choose Breads, Cheeses, Olive Oil, Pasta, Chocolate and Much More. (2003)

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The Pilgrims in America. Some said they fled England because of chocolate. The strict and conservative Protestant Pilgrims who fled England for the Netherlands in 1690 took up residence next to a chocolate house in Amsterdam. The partying next door so offended their austere beliefs that they dubbed chocolate Devils Food. When they later immigrated to Plymouth in North America, they outlawed chocolate completely from their colony. Years later, dark chocolate cakes in Amsterdam were named Devils Food Cakes in honor of the stern Pilgrims.112 p. 158 Venus: I always dream of home in every spare minute. It was a shitty shitty life but oh I miss it. Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhaba coined a concept called unhomeliness, which he defines as, the condition of extra-territorial and cross-cultural relations (13). He further explains, To be unhomed is not to be homeless, nor can the unhomely be easily accommodated in that familiar division of social life into private and public spheres. The unhomely moment creeps up on you stealthily as your own shadowthe borders between home and world become confused; and uncannily, the private and the public become part of each other, forcing upon us a vision that is as divided as it is disorienting. (13)113 Another way of defining what it means to be unhomed is best described by Lois Tyson. She writes:

112

Chocolates European Debut, 16th to 17th centuries, http://www.allchocolate.com/understanding/history/old_meets_new.aspx 113 Bhaba, Homi K. Introduction Unhomely Lives: The Literature of Recognition. The Location of Culture (2012)

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To be unhomed is to feel not at home even in your own home because you are not at home in yourself: your cultural identity crisis has made you a psychological refugee. (421)114 p. 161 Venus: Loves corpse stands on show in museum. Please visit. Remarkably, Baartmans image is still in circulation historically. Although her body has been laid to rest in her homeland, her image is reiterated on the Internet and her story has been re-told almost 200 years after her death. In her essay With Deliberate Calculation, Jennifer Larson provides another argument: The end of Venus bottom line is just another paradox. Even as the Venus dies, a victim of the exploitation of her spectators, she still craves more viewers (209).115

114 115

Tyson Postcolonial Criticism Critical Theory Today: A User Friendly Guide pp. 417-449. From Reading Contemporary African American Drama: Fragments of History, Fragments of Self. Ed. Trudier Harris and Jennifer Larson. New York: Peter Lang, 2007

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