Around the penultimate turn of the century, exhibitions of exotic people were immensely popular in Europe. Not only circuses, but also fairs, zoos and world exhibitions showed hundreds of groups of people between 1870 and 1940, who were special because of their skin color, clothing and customs.
'Later I heard numerous examples of noble savages who, because of the craze for exotic humans, ended up in a bigger cabinet of curiosities than we did. The Mohawk Indian Synchneta, who was shown in the Amsterdam inn Blaauw Jan, the Tahitian Omaï, the Hottentot Venus, who could prick her buttocks for little money. Sophie told me how Willem visited a group of Bushmen from the Orange River in The Hague, and I myself once ripped off some posters in a fit of rage on which Carl Hagenbeck advertised his exhibition of Somalis, complete with tents, horses, camels and sheep, while, according to newspaper reports, 'black children were scurrying around like little monkeys'. (from:Arthur Japin, The black with the white heart, Arbeiders Pers, Amsterdam 2001, p. 177)
Around the penultimate turn of the century, exhibitions of exotic people were immensely popular in Europe. Not only circuses, but also fairs, zoos and world exhibitions between 1870 and 1940 showed hundreds of groups of people, who were special because of their skin color, clothing and customs. During that period, visitors were able to meet almost daily with North American Indians, inhabitants of Patagonia, Greenland, Ceylon, Somalia and Samoa, often against the backdrop of their recreated huts, temples and palaces. War dances and musical performances were held there, while religious processions and wedding feasts were sometimes attended by tens of thousands of visitors.
Exhibiting exotic people was not a nineteenth-century invention. Columbus already took Arawakindians from the Antilles with him from his maiden voyage. After that, Amerigo Vespucci took care of another 200 natives from his four American travels, which were exhibited at fairs in Spain. In 1533 an entire village was reconstructed for the Brazilian Tupinamba tribe in Rouen. Later discovery herons such as Louis Antoine de Bougainville and James Cook also took people for exhibition in addition to plants and animals.
They were living proof of distant peoples and foreign cultures, which one could lay claim to as a colony. They represented overseas wealth, but their different build and lifestyle also emphasized the superiority of the white race. No wonder people spoke of "savages" when they spoke of them. In Europe they seldom got further than collector's and exhibition objects, or as black servants at court or among the well-to-do bourgeoisie. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, exotic people remained a rare sight here.
Rarities
Although people could already be seen on a small scale at royal courts, at fairs and in the circus because of their innately deviant appearance, P.T. Barnum exhibiting people with the discovery of the conjoined twins Chang and Eng about 1835 on a professional level. In his footsteps, the Hamburg zoo owner Carl Hagenbeck organized extensive folk shows from 1870, by letting people come along with the strange animals he imported. Völkerschau, negro villages, or human zoos were called these exhibits, which could be seen all over Europe. The world and colonial exhibitions were not inferior to them by moving entire villages from their colonies. In 1881, the Colonial Exhibition in Amsterdam featured Surinamese negroes and Indians, but also residents of the Dutch East Indies. Even at the Brussels World Fair of 1958 a Congolese village was set up.
In a short time so many exotic people were brought in about whom hardly any scientific data was known that anthropologists were given the opportunity to conduct research before or after their performance. Photos were taken of many people, the measurements were taken and plaster casts of the skulls were also made several times. This material formed the basis of many civilization ladders or was used for the hierarchy in racial theory. This information is in sharp contrast to the colorful posters, handbills and picture postcards that were used to entice the European public.
However, the enormous human spectacles did not lead to fraternization or a better insight into other cultures. Rather, they fed the idea that there was a hierarchy of races and that colonialism was advisable. They stimulated the white sense of superiority. Many tens of millions of visitors for the first time in their lives got a very colored view of differently colored and dressed people. Rarely did this lead to respect. Usually the clichés and stereotypes were emphasized correctly. 'Watching monkeys' as a form of entertainment has still not disappeared, if one sees the viewing figures of the Flemish TV program Toast Kannibaal and the SBS program Groeten uit de rimboe and Groeten Terug, in which indigenous peoples have been discovered as extras for so-called groundbreaking television.