What Were Human Zoos?

One of the off-putting byproducts of 19th century European colonialism were human zoos, living dioramas of people from far-away places made to be gawked at. Listen in to what the deeper meaning of humans zoos held people on both sides of the glass.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You should know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there,
and there's Jerry over there, and we have a special
visitor today, Chuck. Jerry's miso soup? Is that what that is? Yeah,

(00:26):
you'd lie, Jerry, that is miso soup. I don't care
what Jerry says. It's miso soup. Chuck is getting up
to sniffet. One of his beard hairs is dropped into
Jerry's soup. Jerry's miso soup. It smells like, aren't its
it's I don't know what that is. Because miso soup
smells good. I don't think that's me. So it is
generally cloudier now Josh is smelling. It smells like miso

(00:51):
soup mixed with hospital corridor. If you were smelling, why
did the soup ripple under your nose as if you
were blowing out so gross? Did not see this intro coming? Chuck?
Oh goodness, So you feel okayh yeah, okay, a little
unwieldy lately. This's gonna be that's gonna be good. This

(01:13):
is a really interesting one that a lot of people
I think don't know about. I didn't know much about this,
and I think I came across an article just randomly somewhere,
you know, human zoos. What is that? And I was like, oh, yeah,
it's like if you went to an EPCOT exhibit where
they were showing like, hey, this is what this interesting

(01:36):
tribe is like in this part of the world. Okay,
so so far kind of epcotty. Let's say Scandinavians. That
all depends on your approach, you know, as long as
it's not like, look at this weird tribe and it's like,
look at this interesting thing, right, look at this weird
tribe and maybe like throw money and bananas at them
to get them to dance for you. Well, we didn't

(01:57):
get to that part. It's like if EPCOT used humans
instead of you know, statues, and they do use some
humans to an extent, you could actually kind of weirdly
trace a line between Epcots like around the world thing
and this I don't know what that is. So you

(02:18):
know the big dome head Upcot, the geodesic domes. If
you go behind that, there's a bunch of different countries.
I went to Epcot when I was like twelve, Oh
oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's maybe a dozen countries, maybe ten,
and it's staffed with people dressed like people from those countries. Sure,
but they are from those countries, right, A lot of

(02:40):
them are, if not all, that's the deal. Like, if
you're Sweden, you're Swedish, okay, and you're coming out like saying, hey,
I'm from Sweden, how can I help you today? Have
some food? Basically the whole points to go eat. But
they're they're people kind of bringing their culture forth to
to be um enjoyed and um and to captivate the

(03:03):
people who were at Epcot. Right, Yeah, there's there's a
right way to do that. There is. The human zoos
were the exact wrong way to do this, and not
only was it the wrong way to do it, they
were done for all the wrong reasons too. Yeah, I
mean I was I wasn't trying to defend this at
all when I was researching it, but I did think

(03:24):
about the time period and like a Westerner's inherent fascination
with other parts of the world, which at its base
is like that's fine, It's okay to be fascinated with
another part of the world totally, but not like you know,
look at how weird that person is who is different
than me. Let's make fun of them because they you know,

(03:46):
we'll call them more primitive than we are, right, or
are inherently inferior to our race, which was another prevailing idea,
and the the whole the premise of this chuck started with,
like you said, just pure curiosity. It was, you know,
Europeans traveling around the world to new areas and we're

(04:07):
encountering people that they'd never encountered before. And there were
a there was a thread of people who were exploring
and like saying, hey, you want to come back to
England with me, or to France with me, or to
the Netherlands with me. Um, I can actually introduce you
to the king and the person would hop along on
board and they would go back and they would be
gawked at and and everything. But they were treated as

(04:28):
an individual. They had an identity, they were a person
even though they were different and another they still had
some sort of agency. That was step one that didn't
last very long. Well, no, because as we saw, there
was a fine line between you can go meet the
king and you can be the King's pet basically, yes, yeah, yeah,

(04:50):
So step two was really supported by this whole thing
that happened. And about the eighteen hundreds, the early early,
the first half of the eighteen hundreds, I gather something
called like biological anthropology, and it basically is that thing
that I said about the hierarchy of races, where one
race is superior to another that's inferior, and that you know,

(05:13):
there's a spectrum of human beings and UM on the
one end, or white Europeans, which under this this idea,
this auspice was the pinnacle of humanity, and on the
other end, it just kept going and going until you
basically reached um. Other primates like the apes and all

(05:34):
other peoples of the world were on the spectrum either
closer to Apes, closer to to white Europeans, but but
really nothing compared to white Europeans. And so there's this
idea that the people around the world were to be
studied and analyzed and and um poked at and prodded
and measured in this to support this burgeoning science, right yeah,

(05:58):
in the name of like study by scientists, supposedly, but
as far as the general public was concerned, something to
do on the weekend. Well that was stage three. Yeah.
Stage three is when the public is finally brought in
fully and that's when the human zoos really come in.
And that was the peak of colonialism. You remember our
Druids episode. It's just dropped today. So do you remember

(06:22):
we talked about how like Caesar and some of these
other conquering Romans were like basically writing propaganda about the Druids.
They committed human sacrifice and cannibalis and all that. So
they need to be civilized by the Romans. This is
the same exact thing, except it was you know, nineteenth
and twentieth century Europeans who were showing their people back home.

(06:42):
Look at how uncivilized these people are. Um, we need
to civilize them. This is it's good that we are
colonizing the rest of the world. Yeah. And obviously, um,
this happened in Europe, it happened in the United States
and North America. UM, in France and the eight hundreds
late eighteen hundre it's there was a a place. It
was an agricultural site. Um. And this was sort of

(07:05):
like that Epcotty idea, which was basically like let's throw
something called the Paris Colonial exposition, and let's recreate these
uh and indigenous villages from the colonies. That's always in
the background. You know. People can't forget that because it's
not Epcot. It's like, these are places we have conquered basically, um,

(07:27):
and see what life was like there. So they would
recreate this with human live human beings, um, not quite
human zoos at this point, but more like acting out
like what they did, you know, wherever they were from,
but also really playing it up to the point where
it was just totally artificial. Yeah. Well, yeah, that might

(07:49):
speak more to just all art back then there was
a lot of subtlety and right performance. But if you're
also if you're saying, look at how one civilized these are,
and then turning around to the people, be like really
kind of like play up the shouting thing. Yeah, of course.
Well they wanted to sell tickets or at least drive people,
you know, drive people's attention there. I don't know if

(08:10):
they were selling tickets, yes, said this one specifically. I
believe they were to the Paris colonial um. So the
other thing you have to remember is they weren't just
sort of like, uh, it was sort of like they
were carneys, they weren't treated well, they had terrible living conditions.
They would get sick, they would get disease, they would
be left in the cold, and if they died, they

(08:31):
would be buried in a mass grave, whether unceremoniously. Yeah,
so that's another thing, Like because the humans zoos are
horrific enough, just the idea that that they put on
these things, and then even worse than that that people
came to see and like throw money in bananas at
people and like mock them in jeer at them. Um,

(08:53):
that's bad enough, But then the idea that these people
lost their lives as a result of coming over to
Europe to put on these performances or whatever, and we're
just buried in unmarked graves. That just takes it down
just the darkest path there is, you know, like that
that you go to Belgium to to be in this
exhibition and end up buried in an unmarked grave. You

(09:16):
lost your life because you went to a place you
otherwise wouldn't have gone had Belgium not colonized Congo, you know,
in in eighteen seventy six, right, Yeah, I mean Belgium.
We can get into that a little bit what was
their exhibit called Congo Rama. Well that was the last
one of all of them, but sure, yeah, I mean
the first one they were just something. It was France Belgium. Uh,

(09:37):
like I said, it was going on all over the
place and they had congo rama spelled with the K
even well I think this's Belgian, is it? I think?
So okay? Or maybe they're just trying to sell more tickets. Um,
who knows. Uh. These were men, women and children once
again put in these basically shows that show uh what

(09:59):
they're a ley life was like like these living exhibits
where white Europeans would be behind defense. It was always important.
There was always huge offense there to sort of trump
up the idea that like beware of what you're close to,
not just that chuck. It also reinforces a sense of
separateness and otherness too. Oh yeah, you know what I mean,

(10:23):
Like there's no mingling. You weren't meeting the people, like
where you just didn't walk up to somebody and like
introduce yourself to the person who was putting on the performance.
There wasn't any co mingling. It was offense separated you
from them, and you were there to observe and watch them,
and they were there to perform for you. Yeah. And
this uh, jumping back to King Leopold the Second brought

(10:48):
over two hundred and sixty seven Congolese men, women and
children to Brussels. Uh. And this was not even for
the Congo rama exhibit. This was for his own palace basically, yeah,
saying like put them in canoes and lakes and put
them over here in the fields, and I just want
sort of like this stuff going on all over the place. Yeah.

(11:09):
He made it like a diversion. So this is a
big deal for the Congo. And King Leopold also was
just a straight up villain. If you are um fascinated
by this kind of stuff and horrified by you should
go check out behind the bastards. By our colleague Robert Evans,
he's done some work on King Leopold the Second himself.
But so Belgium gets the Congo during this this this

(11:34):
U conference in Berlin in the eighteen seventies where basically
Europe divided up Africa and so this is our colony.
That's your calling, that's you're calling me. And the Congo
went to Belgium and Belgium is like this little tiny
country and the Congo is something like sixty or eighty
times the size of Belgium. But Belgium went there and
just ran rough shot over the people who were living there,

(11:59):
to expla void it um for its rubber and to
make money off of this this possession that it now had.
But part of this also was for the king to
show these people belong to us. I'm gonna have some
come live in this in their primitive ways on the
royal grounds, and all Belgians are welcome to come see
our new possessions. And they did, like more than a

(12:22):
quarter of Belgian residents citizens came to see this, this
display the King put on. Yeah, and this was in
seven but Belgium, like they had one of the last ones,
like you said, in nineteen at the World's Fair in Brussels.
That was a Congolese village there and uh, I believe
they had almost six hundred people. Um. They were paid

(12:45):
And a lot of people will point to that and say,
like they didn't have to be there, they could leave.
They were paid, But that's sort of I don't know,
that's a bit of a whitewashing. I think so because
a lot of them died as well because of the
cold summer. And I think that's really important though to
bring up Chuck, Like if you read a lot of
a lot of stuff on this, like it's just like
these people were victims and and nothing more, um, And

(13:09):
there removes a lot of agency from a lot of
the people who went there to make money, um, off
of the the Westerners who were going to come gawk
at them or whatever, and they went back home and
they took their money with them. Um. There was there
were people who were straight up like victims, who were
straight up captives who were brought to you know, Europe

(13:32):
in America virtually against their will or or they were
um they were tricked or fooled into signing contracts whatever.
But there were a lot of people who came on
their own accord and did it because they wanted to,
because they wanted to make money or whatever. And you
have to like, the whole thing is more complex than that,
and you have to recognize that fact so that the

(13:55):
people do have agency still the agency that they did have.
But at the same time, you can't point to and
be like, see, that justifies everything the white Europeans did,
because it really justifies basically nothing. Well yeah, and they
talk about after nineteen fifty eight that was like kind
of the last Um, well, we'll talk about some sort
of modern versions of this, but like ecot no, no,

(14:18):
we love our friends at Disney. We love our imagineer friends.
You know what they're called. Yes, imagine you gotta earn
that rank. I think it's a specific kind of job
at Disney. Okay, I think, Um, I think you really
know this, but you'd have to kill me if you
really divulged. You've got the insider secrets. Um. So, yeah,

(14:40):
this is one of the last ones. And they said
that the advent of movies and motion pictures is what
really stopped it, because it's not like it's not like
they said we just shouldn't do this anymore. They were
just like, well, now we're just gonna make degrading racist
films portraying these people, like ten years later and have
and have a lot widespread, more widespread release. What was
that first documentary called like Mondo Kane or something like that.

(15:04):
I've never known how to pronounce it, but it was
like my sen I don't know, Yeah, that's right, that's
how it spelled. But it was like the predecessor to
things like faces of death or whatever. And it was
just they just took their their camera and went around
the world and looked at how savage and weird other
people were who played up everything for the camera, just
focused on weird rituals and stuff like that. But it
was the exact same thing. It was a total extension

(15:26):
and outgrowth of human zeus. Yeah, and this was this
isn't us saying weird. Just clear that up, I think so.
But we just gotta be careful. You want to take
a break, Yeah, man, let's take a break, and uh,
you want to come back and talk about Oda binga
after that? Yeah? All right, all right. So I feel

(16:07):
like we've kind of given like a good overview of
human zuos, right like basically from the last quarter of
the nineteenth century up to the middle of the twentieth century,
they had their heyday and then just became more more
and more tasteless to Westerners over time as it became
obvious like what was really going on. Um. But there's

(16:29):
one guy who kind of like had the most tragic
life I've ever encountered ever, and his name was Ode Banga. Yeah,
who was the kid kept in a box. There's been
most experience for that experiment. It's like his father too,
wouldn't it. I don't. Oh, the skinner kids, I think
so like these are the two people that come to

(16:51):
mind when I think of like worst human existence. This
is depressing. So ode Banga was um. He was a
hundred three pounds. He was four ft eleven um. He
was this this when you referenced before the break about
people that were literally sort of captured and brought over,
he fits that bill for sure. Uh. He was brought

(17:13):
over to the United States by a man named Samuel
Verner from South Carolina, Proud game Cock. He was an
African missionary and was commissioned by the St. Louis World's Fair,
which was what nineteen o four. So before that they said, hey,
why don't you go over there and bring us back
a bunch of pigmies and and he's like, all right,

(17:37):
I know that we're using that word now and they
probably won't in the future, but you shouldn't even like
say that word anymore. I see it. I've seen it.
I've seen both. Yeah, I've seen I've seen it used
like it's just you know, like calling Native Americans Indians
like some some Native Americans are like, it's well, we're
used to I've seen the same thing with Pygmy's as well,

(17:57):
although I've also seen it's extremely derogatory because it was
also back in the nineteenth century used as a term
for monkey. So like if you're calling uh an African
um Congolese tribes person um pigmy, at the time, you
were calling him a monkey. So yeah, I could see
how that would be extremely derogatory too. Well, this is

(18:19):
certainly the language they used back then. And they told
him to go over there, and he was like great.
He got letters from the U. S Secretary of State,
the president of the American Anthropological Association, the governor of Missouri.
That'll open some doors, and the Belgian Secretary of State.
Uh great name Chevalier couvaliera Um because at the time

(18:45):
Congo was still under the control of Belgium. And they
were like, yeah, go get go, round up some people
and let's bring him back for the World's Fair. And
one of the gentlemen they brought back was ode Banka. Yeah,
so I want to give a little more background Odebanka
because the fact that he was brought back to to
be in a human zoo is pretty it's bad enough,
like that's a that's a really dark chapter of anybody's life.

(19:09):
Like everything about his life leading up to that point
predicted that this was going to happen. Um When he
was a little kid, he was born into a tribe
Muti tribe in Congo in about three and one day
he went off on an elephant hunt and came back

(19:30):
and his entire family and village had been slaughtered by
the Belgians. Because remember we said that the Belgians like
came to Congo and just overran the place for rubber production. Well,
the king held a private army called the Forced Publique,
and they enforced rubber quotas. So if your village didn't meet,

(19:51):
it's you know, rubber quotas for the day or the
month or the week or whatever. The Force public might
come in and kill everyone, or they might hold like
some public amputation to make an example of somebody Um,
or do basically any horrible thing you can do to
another human being, all to keep people in line and
to keep the rubber flowing for the king's coffers. Right,

(20:11):
this happened to Oda Banga's family. So he finds himself
Um a little hundred pound, like less than five ft
tall oda banga Um basically wandering the congo alone, and
he was in short order captured by by slave traders
who enslaved him and sold him to a labor camp. Yeah.
His uh if you see pictures of him, he has

(20:33):
these fangs for teeth. His teeth were fied filed down
per the you know Congolese um customs and traditions. So
at first I thought that the Americans did that, but
he had already did that. But they they were like,
oh yeah, this like plays into our narrative perfectly. It's
gonna sell so many tickets. Yeah, so they they trot

(20:55):
him out at the St. Louis World's Fair. Um. But
that's not where his story is because he went from
there to the Bronx Zoo in New York. Um on
display in a literal cage with animals with with chimpanzees
sometimes and orangutans, I think was his his most frequent companion. Yeah,

(21:16):
and it's really, I mean just devastating, like people would
pokem and prod him and throw bananas at um. And
the New York Times wrote about I mean, I think
they're harold their headline was bushman shares a cage with
Bronx park apes. Um, and the New York Times was
just it's not like they were writing an article of outrage.

(21:36):
They were saying, like, come check this out. They were
actually responding to the outrage. So very short order. Um,
the Colored Minister's Convention is what it was called. Um,
the some of the black ministers around New York got together.
We're like, dude, um, this has to end immediately. We like,
there's a black guy in a zoo and he's being

(22:00):
he's being held in a cage on public display with
a monkey. Yeah, and this is like forty something years
after the end of slavery, right, So um, they banded
together and mounted protests and and eventually, in pretty quick
short order, got um Odobanga released to their their custody
and care. Um. But the New York Times like published editorials,

(22:23):
at least one of them saying like, what's all the
hubbub about? Like the guys on the low end of
the spectrum, you know, Um, as far as this hierarchy
of races is concerned, so why wouldn't we put him
in a cage and study him and observe him like
of course there's much to be learned, right, So that
really kind of gets it at the heart of of
what was driving this at the time, public curiosity, colonization,

(22:46):
but also that completely racist science that would eventually lead
to eugenics, the eugenics movement in the West in the
United States. Yeah, he was turned over to um one
of the leaders of the Colored Baptist Minister's Conference, Reverend
James Gordon. Uh, he was a superintendent of the Howard
Colored Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn. And his quote is like

(23:08):
one of the saddest things I've ever read, he said,
And this was like, this is how he tried to
explain that it was bad. He said, our race, we
think is depressed enough without exhibiting one of us with
the apes. We think we are worthy of being considered
human beings with souls. Like the very fact that he
had to point out that fundamental, like so obvious thing

(23:31):
is just so sad, you know. I mean, he had
to actually make a press statement saying, by the way,
he's a human, like you understand that, right, And we've
got enough problems here trying to gain agency in this country. Uh,
can you help us out here? And so they turned
him over to him. Uh. He lived the rest of
his life. He almost went back to Africa UH in

(23:53):
nineteen fourteen, but World War one broke out and that
stopped all. Like passengership. He he did go back to Africa,
want he visited. He wanted to move back in nineteen fourteen.
So this is what I understand that. Um. Samuel Verner,
the guy who originally negotiated UM for Odobanga to come
with him back to the World's Fair, negotiated well. He

(24:14):
negotiated with the slaves traders. Um. He took Odebanga back
to the Congo, and Odebanga, from what I read, said,
there's no place here for me anymore. I'll come back
with you. Came back to the States and didn't feel
any more comfortable or at home in the States and
decided he did want to go back to Africa and

(24:35):
never made it back that last time. Yeah, thanks to
World War One. Um. He lived in Virginia. He worked
at a tobacco company. Um. Apparently it was a good
worker and a good employee. Uh. And killed himself. Yeah,
shot himself in the chest with a borrowed revolver somehow
borrowed makes it even worse. You know what I mean?

(24:57):
Does it? Yeah, something about it? I can't I put
my finger on interesting. But Um during this time, so
this is like think about this. His whole family and
villages slaughtered. He's captured and sold into slave labor for years.
Um taken away by an anthropologist who trades a pound
assault in the bolt of cloth for him, is forced
into a human zoo. Is forced into an actual zoo

(25:20):
in a monkey cage. UM, and then he tries to
go back home, doesn't feel at home at home, comes
back to the States. It's just depressed for ten more years,
and then takes his own life with the borrowed revolver
that was the life of Oda Benga. For Gordon's part,
he tried to help him have a life in the States.
UM got him like, tried to integrate him with American clothing.

(25:42):
He got his teeth capped. UM sent him to school.
He was he was like he wanted to try and
fit in, but he he was a man without a home.
You know, he didn't fit in anywhere. Yeah, it's really
really sad. Yeah, it's super sad. So he really kind
of UM demonstrates like a mayor. Erica's involvement in this.
He was, he was prominent in the nineteen o four St.

(26:04):
Louis World's Fair, and he was put on display in
the Bronx Zoo. And again, like you said, not just
the New York Times was you know, arguing in favor
of keeping him in there. The fact that he was
in there, and that zoo attendants doubled over the previous
year the month he was there, and that, um, the
head of the Zoological Society in New York was like,

(26:25):
let's bring some monkeys in and put him in with
a cage, because apparently he was taken to the Bronx
Zoo under the auspices that he would be caring for
the animals, not that he was going to be put
on display. And once he got there there like we
have a different idea for you. Yeah, and he would
I mean, if you read accounts at the time, he
would basically just sort of sit there depressed. Eventually, after

(26:45):
a couple of weeks he got a little obviously kg
um like experiencing zukosis like an animal might. Uh. And
then they start letting him out to like walk around
the four some. He would shoot his bow and arrow some.
But then when people saw that he was in the forest,
they would come after him and he was quickly kind
of ushered back into his cage. Yeah so um, but yeah,

(27:08):
the fact that all this happened really kind of underscores
the complicity of everybody alive at the time. I mean,
there were people who protests protested against it. Obviously, the
the Colored Baptist Minister's Conference was very vocal about it
and were secured his release. But they were in the minority,
and like everybody else was just tacitly approving this, just

(27:31):
by allowing it to go on and not speaking out
about it. And some people trace this um and the
fact that human zoos ever existed directly to the undercurrent
of racism prevalent in the West today. That like that
is the basis of it, certainly part of it. So
let's let's take another break. Then we'll come back and
we're gonna talk about St. Louis. So nineteen o four

(28:16):
we talked a little bit about the St. Louis World's Fair,
but they had more living exhibits than just Oda Banga.
By the way, Odebanga made friends with Geronimo. Did you
know that? I did not know that, So they're the
enclosure for the Congolese and the enclosure for the Native
Americans were beside one another. Geronimo and Odebank actually became

(28:38):
pretty good friends. I'm hanging out. Is that a silver lining? Okay? Um?
The Philippines play a large part in this. That was
a forty seven acre area at the St. Louis World's
Fair dedicated to more than a thousand uh Filipinos of
various tribes UM specifically this uh one tribe in the

(29:01):
mountains of the Philippines, um the Ergo Rot. They in
fact that in means in Tagalog mountain people uh. And
they were unique in the world. And then they successfully
defended their land against colonization forever like they were never
Spain never got to them, uh so Ergo they were,

(29:23):
you know, left largely intact culturally, right, So they had
a reputation UM by the time the St. Louis World's Fair,
and I believe they were billed as such as being
like the most savage tribe in the world, if not
just the Philippines, but either way, which really means white
people had not been able to get to them yet.

(29:45):
So they're just slipping their nice peaceful life as they
always have. One of the things that was like made
like a lot of hay was made about the igar
rots was that they would eat dog, and that um
they would. They In reality that the rats did act
really eat eat dog, but it was under very specific circumstances.
And if a family sacrificed and ate their dog, their

(30:09):
family dog, it was it was a really bad sign
for the family. It told the rest of the village
that they were in some dire straits because the family
would sacrifice the dog basically like the dog was taking
one for the team, um, to get this family out
of whatever horrible streak of luck or whatever they had

(30:30):
going on, and then they would eat the dog and
that that ritual process will be done. It was very
very rare. It was basically done as a last ditch
attempt to reverse fortunes for this family that had fallen
on hard times or was undergoing illness or whatever. But
that did happen. It did exist. If you take the

(30:50):
Igorante people and put them in the nineteen four St.
Louis World's Fair, that happens every morning. Every morning, a
dog would be sacrificed and eaten by the agats. Yeah,
and not only that they would take like uh sacred
ego rot rituals um like crowning a chief. And it
wasn't enough just to put them on display and have

(31:11):
people look at them. Is they took their traditions, their
sacred rituals and use them as as dramatic fodder basically, Right,
So it's becomes it's like a theme park schedule to
come see these different quote unquote shows performed that were
really these ego rot uh rituals that they had held
dear and were untouched by white man until this point. Right.

(31:33):
And then let's not forget the dogs that were sacrificed
like every day because of this. Right. So here's the
other thing too. You might say, well, that's crazy. They
used to sacrifice and eat their dogs. That's that's weird.
That's other, Right, they sacrifice and their dogs for every
day for the um satisfaction of white crowds who came

(31:55):
to see them. So the igorat Um Village was the
most um successful and lucrative exhibit in the entire nineteen
o four World's Fair. There were something like nineteen something
million people who came to St. Louis for the World's
Fair that year. Of them paid an extra nickel to

(32:15):
go see the Igorott Village. Everybody went to see the
Iggorott Village is because they wanted to go see someone
half dressed sacrifice a dog and then eat it. That's
what people paid to see. It had nothing to do
with learning about their culture and nothing to do with anything.
It was about seeing somebody do something horrific and weird
for your edification. Yeah, and it was. Um. I mean,

(32:38):
there are so many people that you could pluck out
of history and sort of uh used as an example,
whether it's Otta Binga or this woman uh Sarchy Bartman, Yeah,
the hot and taught Venus. Yeah. She was South African
and she was born somewhere around seventeen eighty and she
was brought to London in the early eighteen hundreds and
put on display. And she actually had a genetic characteristic

(33:03):
um called stia tope stiatpagia. Is that right? I think
so close enough, I should tell the audience. I'm nodding silently,
but that is when you have a um. I mean
the ways described here medically is a protuberant buttocks and
elongated labia, right, not like like like genetically protuberant buttocks yeah,

(33:27):
like like very very big. Yes, that's that's clear. Um.
So they brought her over in London put her on display.
Later on she went to Paris, she was described as
having the buttocks of a mandril um. And then finally
in two thousand two, her remains were repatriated to South Africa. Um.

(33:49):
And we haven't even mentioned stuff like that. They would
dress up Odabinga's cage with bones and things like anything
just to make him seem more primitive, and he was
probably like, one, are all these bones laying around? More primitive,
more scary, more in need of civilization. Like if you
think about it, that the Igorat exhibit, the Philippines exhibit,

(34:09):
and the fact that it was even part of the
nineteen o four World's Fair, that it's the same thing
that was a colonial possession of America. The United States
had gotten into colonizing itself, and the Philippines was one
of its colonial possessions. So they were bringing the most
savage of the savage from the Philippines over here to
basically justify why America was there to civilize the Filipinos. Um.

(34:35):
And it was this. It just followed the same script
and apparently it always has. Anytime somebody goes and conquers
another another land, they have to basically demonstrate how what
they're doing is actually good for the people they're conquering,
not that they're being exploited and murdered there. This is
actually good for them. We're going to civilize them. And

(34:55):
it continued all the way up until that nineteen fifty
eight World's Fair in Belgium. Well, and some people say
it continues today while they're not rounding people up and
bringing them somewhere else. Um, you can go to what
they call human safari's when they basically will put you
on a bus or on a boat and drive you

(35:15):
to these tribes people to let you gaulk at them
from afar Uh, notably in India's on Deman Island, the
Jarawa Jarhuahua. It sounds like I'm saying they're wrong, but
it's totally right uh their tribe. Basically, there was a
video from two thousand twelve that The Guardian dug up
that showed these people just you know, it's kind of

(35:39):
the same thing, except they weren't brought over and put
in cages, but they're still gawked at. And this was
what six years ago. It's amazing that this is still
going on. I think it is so the Indian Supreme
Court outlawed it, but it's still going on. Is of
the most recent article as I was like two thousand seventeen.
So yeah, it's like a human humans of far Yeah.

(36:02):
So um. And again, a lot of people directly trace
this to the undercurrents of racism in the West today.
Something like one point for billion people saw human zoos
during their heyday from about eighteen sixty seven and ninety eight.
One point for billion people. That's a lot of people,

(36:22):
especially if you're considering that it was really just people
in Europe and America, right, Um, and that that had
to have had an effect. It clearly had an effect.
The fact that people were like, oh, I'm gonna go
check this out and maybe throw a banana at somebody
because I want him to dance. The fact that like
that was a mindset clearly is still clinging to the

(36:43):
to the international global psyche, at least in the West today. Yeah,
I mean it definitely helped reinforce that idea of Western
white superiority that's still so prevalent. So you got anything else, Yeah,
I mean we should talk real quick about this protest
art in Oslo about four years ago, four or five

(37:04):
years ago, there were these artists that did a recreation
of and this was all to bring UM, to shed
light on this. It was protest art, but they were
recreating the World's Fair of nineteen fourteen UM. In this case,
there were Senegalese environments that they were recreating UH and

(37:27):
it sort of had mixed results. Like some people got
it and we're on board and saying, yeah, I see
what you guys are doing, sort of like this meta
art approach. But then other people came out UM and said,
like it's an abusive art and really we're highly critical
of it, which is it didn't It didn't They didn't
nail it, and it didn't. Yeah, go over very well
in all quarters. Yeah, one more thing. Check that nineteen

(37:50):
fifty eight World's Fair in Belgium. Like if if everything
we've stayed up to this point seems like weird and
far off and and just past and historical. Go look
up the picture of the little girl from uh Congo
at the World's Fair UM being fed by an older

(38:10):
white woman leaning over a fence to theater. Like it
drives home everything everything we just said doesn't even compare
to this one picture. It just it's really tough to
look at, but it drives the entire thing home because
it's it's recent enough that it just feels like, oh,
this just happened. Yeah, she's in a little little American dress. Yep,

(38:32):
a little white dress. Okay, what about now? You got
anything else? Nothing else? Well, if you want to know
more about human zoos, just start looking them up around
the the internet and prepared to get bummed out. Uh.
And since I said that it's time for listener mail,
I'm gonna call this we got another elephant adopted in

(38:53):
our name. Yeah. If you remember a few weeks ago,
we read one about somebody who adopted an elephant in
her name and sent a little stuffed animal. Was very kind. Uh.
And this one goes a little something like this. Hey, guys,
loyal listener going on about ten years And I couldn't
have been happier. And to see your episode on elephants
pop up. One of the best Christmas gifts I ever

(39:14):
was given was the gift of fostering an orphan elephant
at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya. They're an
incredible organization that rescues, rehabilitates UH, and reintegrates orphan elephants
back into the wild in Kenya. And they also find
anti poaching teams and mobile vet units that respond to
entreat injured wild elephants, UH and other wildlife. UM a

(39:34):
wood turner, and I donate of all my sales to
d s w T. And I'm thrilled to be able
to foster seven orphans right now. So as a massive
thank you for raising awareness, I sent each of you
something from my wood shop and donated what I would
have made to the d s w T and foster
to sweet little Jotto in your name. Jotto is pretty cute.

(39:56):
Have you seen him? Oh? Yeah, he's an elephant. Thanks
for brightening up my commutant, satisfying my insatiable thirst for
new and interesting facts. Lowell Hutchinson parentheses, BT dubs, I'm
a woman. Thanks a lot lot exclamation point. Well, everybody,
if you want, you can go to the David Sheldrick
Wildlife Trust and look up Jotto and see our adopted

(40:21):
elephant that we're fostering now thanks to Lowell. They should
call it Josh oh or can you get the name changed?
Maybe it depends on how how much you give. I think, Um,
there's only like five elephants that they just changed the
name right, a different picture. Thanks again, Lowell and low
didn't say where what her website is for wood turning,

(40:42):
but if you need some wood turned, look up Lowell
Hutchison and hopefully her site will come up. That's right.
Uh and uh. If you want to get in touch
with us like lolded or sponsor an elephant for us,
that's great too. You can get in touch with us
by going on to stuff you Should Know dot com
and looking up our social links or sending a certain
email to stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com.

(41:09):
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