Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Hottentot, Bushman, Kaffir: Taxonomic Tendencies in Nineteenth-Century Racial Iconography
Author:Lindfors, BernthISNI
Year:1996
Periodical:Nordic Journal of African Studies
Volume:5
Issue:2
Pages:1-30
Language:English
Geographic terms:South Africa
United Kingdom
Subjects:images
racism
Khoikhoi
San
Zulu
colonial conquest
painting
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
History and Exploration
Ethnic and Race Relations
External link:https://njas.fi/njas/article/view/664/487
Abstract:In the 19th century native Africans were stereotyped throughout Europe as brutish, naive, and uncultured. Among men and women of conscience it was believed that blacks had to be released from oppressive physical captivity yet kept strictly confined to their proper biological niche at the bottom of the natural human ladder. The civilized and the savage had to remain distanced from one another, if only to prevent disastrous taxonomic confusion. One very effective method of distancing Africans from Europeans was through visual images. Racial arguments were advanced in media ranging from careful illustrations in scientific texts to highly exaggerated political caricatures and lampoons, from picturesque portraits in travel books to grotesque images on posters and handbills advertizing ethnic entertainments. Some of the best examples of this graphic tradition can be found in depictions of three southern African peoples: the Khoikhoi, the San and the Zulu, popularly known throughout the 19th century as the Hottentot, the Bushman and the Kaffir. What may have made these three African ethnic groups more visible in British art than others was the fact that 'specimens' of each occasionally were conveyed to England and displayed publicly as examples of uncivilized humanity. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
Cover