Ashantee
Ashantee is a prose sketch by Peter Altenberg that was first published in 1897. Altenberg's personal experiences during a Völkerschau in Vienna are discussed .
content
In 32 short sketches, the first-person narrator (later called Peter A., Mr. Peter or Sir Peter), a permanent visitor to a Völkerschau, accompanies the Ashantee (dt. Ashanti ) until their departure. Through communication with the Ashanti, a familiar relationship develops, which ranges from visiting the huts to an erotic relationship with a young Ashanti girl.
History and background
Between the summer and autumn of 1896, around 70 Africans lived during a Völkerschau in Vienna's private zoo on the Schüttel . The Ashanti live in specially built huts and go about their daily life in their village. To entertain the Viennese audience, they perform dances and fight games. The exhibition is followed with great public interest; what is known as the so-called Ashanti fever. Many newspapers reported about love affairs between the Ashanti men and some Viennese women and also about children that arose from this. Peter Altenberg visits the Völkerschau regularly and is in lively contact with the Ashanti. In 1897 he published his prose sketches under the title “Ashantee” and represented his personal cultural contact.
Criticism of the Völkerschau
Altenberg's criticism is primarily directed against the depiction of the Ashanti in the Vienna zoo. The stagings of a Völkerschau are presented as cheap ingratiation to the taste of a broad audience, since the Ashanti are only supposed to function as objects and their personal individuality is denied them. The cruelty of commercial marketing becomes clear from Altenberg in "Le Cœur":
- A cold September evening. You should have knitted English gloves. How well an overcoat would be lined with polecat pelts. […] These wonderful brown girls only wear a pagne […].
Despite the unfavorable weather conditions in cold Vienna, the Ashanti have to display their nudity, because the voyeurism of the audience should be satisfied. Furthermore, Altenberg criticizes the audience in the scene "Akolé":
- 'That should be the most beautiful' say the visitors, 'a beauté of her home. Where is this Ashanti ?! Well, for a negress - - -. She is proud, really unsympathetic. What does she think, this Mohrl ?! Should we be honored to buy your junk ?! She doesn't even want to look at us while she takes our money for Le Ta Kotsa, tooth herb. Certainly a hoax. Are you homesick?! Our saleswomen would get a bad deal. You have to be friendly, darling, no one will harm you. She's freezing, poor Hascher. No, no, no, no, just don't rebel! What are you at home ?! A lady ?! You will give it even cheaper. An arrogant face. Adieu. Nothing can be got out of her. Goodbye, Mohrl, don't do anything to yourself. It will get better. Hello. ' 'Bénjo, bénjo - - - - -!' (Go to the devil, grab yourself.)
The behavior of the audience towards the Ashanti is presented here as rude, pushy and arrogant. It is unable to establish cultural contact from both sides and characterizes the colonial thinking of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In contrast, the first-person narrator acts as an omnipresent mediator and interpreter. Thus the criticism of the Völkerschau and the associated criticism of colonial thinking can be seen as a primary motive for Altenberg.
Eroticization of the Ashanti
However, Altenberg also designs colonial images - this is particularly evident in the eroticization of the Ashanti - and can only appreciate their individuality as exotic. Because the Ashanti only act individually with regard to their exotic undressing and are not presented as full-fledged characters, but as stereotypes.
The focus is on erotic attractiveness and the clichés of the wild, beautiful body, i.e. the colonial way of thinking, take center stage. Free sexuality, which Altenberg and the Viennese press propagated, are also a characteristic of the Ashanti. In "A Letter from Accra" it says:
- I step into the hut. On the floor are Monambô, Akolé, the Wonderful and Akóschia. No cushion, no blanket. The ideal torso is naked. It smells of noble, clean young bodies. I softly touch the wonderful acole.
In return, the bourgeois conventions of love, sexuality and gender roles are exposed. In the scene “Complications”, a wealthy woman wants to buy an ashanti for her son because “She speaks no language. They are in his power. It belongs to us. "
At the same time, the prose sketches also provide instructions or a protocol for sexual seduction. Altenberg describes in detail the conditions under which the Ashanti girls are ready to love in the sexual sense. The sketch “L'homme médiocre” shows this clearly, because here it is explained that the girls are only willing to join him on condition that the man has love, which here can be interpreted as exclusively sexual desire. In contrast, the intentions of the Ashanti are portrayed as loving and innocent.
literature
- Peter Altenberg: Ashantee . Fischer, Berlin 1897 ( Fischer Collection ).
- Peter Altenberg (Author), Kristin Kopp (Ed.): Ashantee. Africa and Vienna around 1900 . Löcker Verlag, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-85409-460-9 .
- Stephan Besser: Drama of Shame. July 1896, Peter Altenberg joins the Ashanti in Vienna's zoo . In: Alexander Honold, Klaus R. Scherpe (Ed.): With Germany around the world. A cultural history of the foreign in colonial times . Metzler, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-476-02045-2 , pp. 200-208.
- Werner M. Schwarz: Anthropological spectacle. For the exhibition of “exotic” people, Vienna 1870–1910 . Turia & Kant publishing house, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85132-285-1 , pp. 187-203.
Web links
- Altenbergs Ashantee as PDF file (333 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heinz Lunzer and Victoria Lunzer-Talos: Peter Altenberg: Extracte des Lebens. On the trail of a writer . Residenz-Verlag , 2003. p. 83