2024 Author: Adelina Croftoon | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 02:07
A century ago, the famous Circus of Freaks showed not only people with congenital or acquired anomalies of the body, but also exotic "savages" from all over the world. The more grotesque and shocking these natives looked, the more popular it was
In the late 19th - early 20th centuries, circus performances were very common in the United States; it was the main form of entertainment for regions far from large cities.
Circus creators have always tried to find something new that will surprise people and make them come to watch the performances. And the more exotic and grotesque it was, the better.
Circus often showed all kinds of "freaks": people with extra arms and legs or no limbs at all, Siamese twins, bearded women, extremely obese or emaciated people, microcephalics (born without the frontal lobes of the brain) and so on.
Also, the so-called "savages" were very successful - representatives of primitive tribes brought from Africa or Oceania. Their unusual looks and bodies, often covered with intricate tattoos or feather and bead ornaments, attracted large crowds of curious onlookers.
In 1924, naturalist researcher Dr. Eugene Bergonier came to Africa, in a region called the Sahel, which was wiped south of the Sahara Desert. He did not come there in search of exotic tribes, but in fact, together with the French automaker Citroen-Peugeot, to explore the possibility of traveling in Africa by car.
But when Bergonier faced the tribe Sarah Kaba, then he was completely captivated by its singularity and uniqueness. The people of the Sara Kaba tribe considered the most important decoration of their bodies to be excessively stretched lips, into which they inserted wooden discs. With the discs inserted, their mouth looked more like a bird's beak or the mouth of some animal.
Bergonier thought that people from Western countries had never seen such a tribe and for them it would be a great wonder. Then he persuaded the group Sarah Kaba to go with him on a world tour.
First, Bargonier brought the "savages" to Montevideo. Uruguay, and from there he took them to Paris, where the public received them with great enthusiasm. In those years in Europe, the so-called "human zoo" was often shown for which a variety of peoples from Asia and Africa were brought and exhibited for public viewing in pavilions, dressed in national costumes.
The "savages" sang, danced or simply walked around the pavilion with bows and arrows, demonstrating their "primitive savage" nature to the "civilized" Europeans.
After Paris, Bergonier took Sarah Kaba to the USA and then they became an absolute sensation. They immediately attracted the attention of the largest American circuses Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, who hired Bergonier and began to show the Sara Kaba tribe in a performance called "African Village".
It was a large big top tent, inside of which everything was decorated with jungle and thatched huts. The huts were inhabited by representatives of various African tribes, including Sarah Kaba. For the Americans, they looked extremely exotic.
The natives were often denounced as "cruel savages" or even "missing links in human evolution" and were specifically ordered to behave as ferociously and primitively as possible for the amusement of the audience. One of the most popular representations was "attack" on white "explorers" followed by battle, capture, and then "boiling" them in large cauldrons.
In order to fit the Sara Kaba tribe into all this, they first of all changed their name, now they were called "Ubangi Tribe", as it sounded "more African". And then on the posters they began to write "Ubangi savages with duck mouths" and paint the natives in the form of aggressive warriors.
In fact, the Sarah Kaba were a very peaceful tribe of pastoralists who rarely quarreled with anyone. But who cared about the truth.
For several years this show toured all over America, performing with great success, and then they were taken to England and Germany. In 1932, the natives of Sara Kaba were transferred to the possession of the Al G. Barnes Circus, but their owner was still Bergonier, who made huge money on Sara Kaba.
Themselves Sarah Kaba were not stupid people and they have long understood that they are simply exploited, paying them only a very small fraction of what the owners of the circuses receive. Every year their discontent grew, and when Bergonier sent them to the Barnes circus and their salaries became even less, the natives' patience snapped.
Sarah Kaba began to directly accuse Bergonier of being a swindler and taking their money, and when he brushed aside their accusations, they threatened him with an ancient curse, which their sorcerers-sorcerers allegedly masterfully wielded.
Bergonier had seen enough in his lifetime to accept the threat as real, but instead of trying to settle the conflict with the natives, he left all the affairs to his assistant, and he himself went away from the circus in Sarasota, Florida.
However, already being in Florida, he continued to be in great fear and said that he was sure that he had already been cursed. Soon he fell ill and became seriously ill. Doctors could not recognize his illness and soon Bergonier died.
When doctors carefully examined his corpse, they found a small, inflamed pimple on his leg and concluded that Bergonier had died of septic pneumonia. This seemed to be a very unusual cause of death and, coupled with the words of Bergonier about the curse, rumors soon spread that he was really killed by the intrigues of the native sorcerer.
When members of the Sarah Kaba tribe learned that their "master" had died suddenly, they were immediately satisfied that, yes, it was their black magic that was to blame. After that, their circus career was, of course, over.
It is impossible to know if Bergonier was actually killed by black magic, but this is certainly a creepy story. Whether something supernatural has happened here or not, it's like looking into another era, with completely different views on things compared to the present.
It's amazing to think that in that era it was all so normal, the exploitation and objectification of these people was a perfectly legitimate form of entertainment. These were the days of the so-called "human zoos" and today even the thought of such a thing is shocking.
Maybe Bergonier bit off more than he could chew and pissed off the wrong people? Maybe one of the competitors ruined him, having envied his wealth? We will probably never know the real reason.
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