Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 2:36 PM
Subject: Stuffed man arrives home


> By Alan Little in Botswana
>
> Thousands of people in Botswana turned up to view the
> remains of an African man who died 170 years ago and
> whose body was displayed in a Spanish museum for much of
> the 20th century.
>
> The body was flown from Spain to Africa and arrived in
> Botswana's capital Gabarone on Wednesday.
> The man, known in Spain as El Negro, will be buried at a
> funeral service in Botswana on Thursday.
> His repatriation is seen in Botswana as an
> acknowledgement by Europeans of the damage done to
> Africa during the colonial period.
>
> Real name
>
> An honour guard of half-a-dozen Botswanan soldiers in
> dress uniform carried the casket from the light aircraft
> that brought El Negro from Johannesburg, the last stage
> in his long journey home from Spain.
> They took his remains to a civic reception centre, where
> he lies now for viewing before he is buried.
>
> No-one knows his real name. His grave was robbed by two
> French scientists the day after his death around 1830.
>
> Taxidermists embalmed his body and took it to Europe for
> public display.
>
> Animal zoo
>
> It was the age of scientific racism and the early years
> of the eugenics movement, when European scientists
> believed they could trace perceived cultural differences
> between peoples back to differences in physical
> characteristics.
> It was also an age in which living African adults were
> captured and exhibited in Europe like animals in a zoo
> for the educational benefit of European publics.
> El Negro ended up behind glass, in a museum in the
> Spanish city of Banyoles near Barcelona, with a shield
> and spear in his hand.
>
> His skin had been polished black to make him appear more
> African.
>
> Deep resentment
>
> The practice, still common by European museums of
> exhibiting and storing mummified African bodies or body
> parts, is the source of deep resentment throughout
> Africa.
>
> Botswana's Foreign Minister, Mompati Merafhe, said he
> welcomed the return to African soil of El Negro's
> remains, but he found it repugnant and disgusting that
> so many museums continued to store the bodies of other
> African individuals.
>
> It was a reminder, he said, that long after scientific
> racism had been discredited, many of the attitudes
> associated with it remained commonplace in Europe.
>
>
>

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