By Nathaniel Betts [Edited by Sonika Birdi and Tayyiba Nasir]
When it comes to discussing the debates surrounding the history of the imperialist European empires, it is important to understand the reasoning for colonising the native’s lands like that of British colonisation of India. One very important facet is the view that the Indian, or African, peoples were ‘barbaric’ and so needed Western influence and laws to culture and 'civilise' the people. As it will become evident in this essay, however, this was a hypocritical statement for imperial empires to make when the treatment of indigenous peoples and their remains were in its own right and definition, barbaric. This, therefore, leads onto questioning the rationale behind the collection of human remains within the European empires. This essay will take the position that the main reason behind the collection of human remains within the European empires was the view that the white man was 'superior' to the indigenous population. This will be argued by first looking at the theory of the white man being 'superior', followed on by early scientific ‘advancements’ which later becomes known as eugenics, and the way in which soldiers and commanders viewed the body as loot-like coins. All of these points have an overarching link in which white Europeans saw themselves as the 'superior' race in their empires.
European actions in the colonies of their empires were a completely racist ethos with the belief that the white man was 'superior'. Racism has been with humans from as early on as the Ancient Egyptians with their treatment of Jewish slaves but has changed slightly over the years. This was evidenced through the stigmatisation of Jewish people around the world, who were blamed for epidemics out of their hands – such as the Black Death as well as the brutality of the Holocaust.[1] In terms of European empires, and as a consequence of colonial wars with the native population, there was understood to be an apparent differentiation between the ‘civilized’ Western culture and that of the ‘savage’ natives.[2] As a result of this distinction, fighting and attitudes towards white people and non-white people were stark in the contrast. Wars between the European powers were relatively clean with clear and rational rules followed.[3] This was not the case with non-white people as soldiers saw them as less than humans, based on the belief that non-white people could not be reasoned with and so violence was the only option.[4] Because of this crass belief towards non-white people, morality was forgotten on the battlefield and mutilation of corpses or the taking of heads as 'trophies' became the normality. [5]
Furthermore, during the reign of the British Empire, violence towards the indigenous peoples was always justified and the public could see no wrong in the immoral actions of British Soldiers. This is evident in a cartoon in “Punch” magazine which depicts a personified version of “Justice” clad in traditional robes striking down rather violently the revolts in India during the 1857 Indian Mutiny. The way this cartoon was depicted clearly emulated the racist ideology of the mid-nineteenth century due to the figure of “Justice” being a white person and the dead were people of a different skin colour.
Another piece of evidence which is used to argue that racism was the core rationale for the maltreatment of human remains is the Amritsar Massacre in 1919. British officer Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered the men under his command to open fire on a crowd of protesters for ten minutes. Whilst official figures cited 379 people dead and 1200 wounded, it has been speculated to be much higher due to the lack of respect given to the dead for there to have been an accurate body count. The differences between the treatment of whites and non-whites in war were stark and rather frightening with it being argued by Andrew Bank that, “the role of British settlers in propagating a discourse of 'empire and savages'”.[6] Using their ‘superior minds’ the Europeans were able to learn about indigenous people’s culture and take advantage of their weaknesses as deterrence for rebellions. Racism was the overarching rationale behind the collection of human remains.
The collection of human remains for science was deeply rooted in racism. In 1995, Saul Dubow published a study on the correlation between science and racism and concluded that there was an ‘Illicit Union' between racism and science. This was found in different fields of science such as: physical anthropology, comparative philology and diffusionist theory, Social Darwinism and eugenics -both used by the Nazi Party in 1930s German- psychology and Christian nationalism.)[7]
This link between science and racism can be further found in the collection of heads from the dead natives. As the mid-nineteenth century had massive scientific breakthroughs, it was the ‘duty’ of British soldiers, and any explorer, to collect human remains in order to examine them, for science.[8] It can therefore be inferred from this ideology that Europeans did not see non-white people as humans but animals and specimens to be tested and examined in laboratories. This, therefore, powerfully reinforces the argument that the main rational behind the collection of human remains was the belief that the white man was the superior race.
Another reason for this ‘duty to collect’ was motivated by the field of phrenology and the need to research underpinned the justification of Western imperialism. Phrenology was a popular science field from the 1820s onwards in Britain in which a doctor judged the character of a person due to a theory that the human brain could be divided into thirty-seven faculties with distinct locations in the brain.[9] In order to properly ‘diagnose’ a character to a person, the head would have to be that of extremes – either criminally insane, mentally disabled, or an intellectual genius. There were not many recently dead geniuses, however, and so they used the criminally insane and skulls from the natives on the colonies to practice and develop their knowledge.
A major reason why indigenous peoples’ heads were important for phrenology was the base science of craniometry. Craniometry was a highly racist study in the differences of a Western man’s skull to that of an African or Asian skull. Skulls in the nineteenth century were a key measure of men with their strengths in intellect being attributed to the shape of their skull. This was one of the reasons why many people held the view that the ‘white man’ was superior and again, shows how racism was a major factor in the rational for the collection of human remains in European empires. It must also be mentioned that during the mid to late nineteenth century, Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was under immense criticism from the Catholic Church, ordinary people and scientists alike. Because of Darwin’s Theory, this encouraged more people to try and disprove him by using evidence from craniometry and phrenology, which came mainly from the indigenous peoples in the colonies, and to prove that the white man was the superior race. This therefore further consolidates the argument in which the main rationale behind the collection of human remains within the European empires was the view that the white man was superior.
A third reason for the collection of human remains was the colonisers’ view on what certifies as a trophy. The Victorians had a morbid obsession with keeping parts of bodies as keep sake, like a locket of hair.[10] It is evident through history, however, that the victor takes spoils of war: such as that of the chevauchee in Languedoc in 1355, and that of more modern times with the ransacking of the Eagle’s Nest in April 1945.[11] Many ended up taking body parts home as part of their loot.
"There must have been about 60 skulls there besides various bones etc, and an old blood bowl (which was used for catching the blood of the victims). They were, however, very old, none of them apparently more recent than 3 or 4 years ago. I got one of the best of them and also some teeth from others, a morbid taste perhaps but still after all one has heard of the Ashantee slaughterhouse one feels a great interest in these things."[12]
Due to the scientific nature and belief that the white man was superior, during the mid-nineteenth century, a lot of the loot from the colonial wars got transported to museums, like the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition at the South Kensington Museum.[13] Elaine Freedgood argues, a ‘Victorian ‘thing culture’: a more extravagant form of object relations than ours’ developed slowly but still had an important influence in the collection of human remains.[14] Bill Brown furthers this point that ‘the thing [human remains as trophies] really names less an object than a particular subject– object relation’ and that body parts become ‘things’ when ‘their flow within the circuits of production and distribution, consumption and exhibition has been arrested’.[15] With the argument that one of the rationales behind the collection of human remains within European empires was for the collection of trophies, the ‘thing’, by definition of Bill Brown, becomes a trophy and is something to be treasured. This is akin to today where hunters take photographs of them standing over their game or having the animal stuffed. Therefore, as a result of the white man’s belief of being superior, there was little difference between having a skull of a lion or a skull of a native rebel mounted on a desk of a Commander of the European empires. This furthers the argument of racism being the key aspect for the collection of human remains.
Like that of shrunken heads, colonial skulls became more of a commodity amongst Victorian households. Some were turned into ornaments such as a tobacco holder in the years 1879-1880 with very little explanation as to why this happened.[16] There was some moral back-clash questioning the rationale behind the human trophies because one was turned into a cigarette holder.
"There have lately been displayed in Piccadilly, in the shop-window of M r. Ward, the famous Taxidermist and Naturalist, numerous specimens of human skulls, neatly mounted and fitted up as cigar-cases and tobacco-holders. In the former character, the cranium is pierced with holes, through which the cigars stand out, “like quills upon the fretful porcupine.” We know nothing of the locus a quo of these ghastly relics of mortality. Probably they may be Zulu crania—war-trophies brought back by some of our young bloods, fresh from South-African warfare, and with some taint of its practices. We know that savage warriors—Maori, Dyak, and Fan—are found of turning the heads of their slaughtered enemies to account as ornaments and symbols of prowess, if not as cigar-boxes. But this appropriation of foemen’s skulls to purposes at once of use and ornament among ourselves, marks a distinct move in civilisation, and establishes another tie of fellow-feeling and common usage between us and our savage dependencies."[17]
As this piece shows, there was a line which society deemed too extreme and barbaric to cross in Britain. Yet, in France, they brought a native African woman, by the name of Sarah Baartman, and kept her on show for the world to see her abnormal physique until 2002.[18] Not only was this taking the idea of a trophy to the extreme but also again reiterates the argument of the white man being superior being the main reason for collection of human remains in European empires.
In conclusion, there were many rationales behind the collection of human remains within the European empires. Science had a major influence on this with the scientific fields of phrenology and craniometry being a driving force, as well as the rebuttals for Darwin. The idea of trophies was also captivating to the soldiers, especially when it was something more interesting than just gold coins from loot. The most important factor for the collection of human remains within the European empires, however, was the view of the white man being superior to that of the indigenous population. Had it not been for this racist mentality then there would not have been such an urge to take heads back home as trophies, nor there the acceptance for such actions. It is because of differences, such as their skin colour and skull sizes, that the human remains were taken by scientists to be studied like animals. This lack of respect, which was due to the inherent racism, was the main rationale behind the collection of human remains within the European empires. Upon debating the rationales of the treatment of human remains, it is important to see objectively the morality and reasoning of Western imperialism and how much of it was hypocritical – such as the belief that Western imperialism helped to civilise the barbaric natives. Notes [1] William Naphy and Andrew Spicer, The Black Death, A History of Plagues 1345-1730 (Stroud: Tempus, 2001), pp. 63-66. [2] Shula Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906-8 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 246. [3] Simon J. Harrison, “Skulls and Scientific Collecting in the Victorian Military: Keeping the Enemy Dead in British Frontier Warfare”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 50/1 (2008), p. 285. [4] Kim Wagner, “But from the Skulls of the Slain’: Empire, Violence and the Collection of Human Remains” (Lecture: Global Encounters, Queen Mary University London, 19 November 2018). [5] Marks, Rebellion, p. 246. [6] Andrew Bank, “Of 'Native Skulls' and 'Noble Caucasians': Phrenology in Colonial South Africa”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 22/3 (1996), p. 387. [7] Saul Dubow, Illicit Union: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Johannesburg, 1995). [8] Wagner, “But from the Skulls of the Slain”. [9] Bank, Phrenology, p. 388. [10] Wagner, “But from the Skulls of the Slain”. [11] Jules Viard and Eugene Deprez. (eds.) Chronique de Jean le Bel (France: Societe de l'histoire de France, 1904-5), p. 222. [12] T.H. Berney, Diary of the Astianti Campaign, (Unpublished, Prince of Wales's Regimental Museum Historical Records File, 1895-6), pp. 55-56. [13] Merrick Burrow, “The Imperial Souvenir: Things and Masculinities in H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quatermain”, Journal of Victorian Culture, 18/1 (2013), p. 73. [14] Elaine Freedgood, The Ideas in Things: Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 8. [15] Bill Brown, “Thing Theory”, Critical Inquiry, 28 (2001), p. 4. [16] Wagner, “But from the Skulls of the Slain”. [17] “Skulls for Cigar-Holders” (1879), Internet Archive: Punch. <https://archive.org/details/punch76a77lemouoft/page/n333/mode/2up?q=268> [Accessed 1 January 2019]. [18] Wagner, “But from the Skulls of the Slain”. Bibliography Primary Sources “Skulls for Cigar-Holders”. 1879. Internet Archive: Punch. <https://archive.org/details/punch76a77lemouoft/page/n333/mode/2up?q=268> [Accessed 1 January 2019] Berney, T.H.. 1895-6. Diary of the Astianti Campaign. Unpublished ms, Prince of Wales's Regimental Museum Historical Records File 140 Tenniel, John. September 1857. Great Britain. Justice, Punch Magazine. The Victorian Web. <http://www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/punch/54.html> [Accessed 1 January 2019] Viard, Jules. and Deprez, Eugene. (eds.) Chronique de Jean le Bel. France: Societe de l'histoire de France, 1904-5
Secondary Sources
Bank, Andrew. “Of 'Native Skulls' and 'Noble Caucasians': Phrenology in Colonial South Africa”. Journal of Southern African Studies. 22/3, 1996
Brown, Bill. “Thing Theory”. Critical Inquiry. 28, 2001
Burrow, Merrick. “The Imperial Souvenir: Things and Masculinities in H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quatermain”. Journal of Victorian Culture. 18/1, 2013
Dubow, Saul. Illicit Union: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1995
Freedgood, Elaine. The Ideas in Things: Fugitive Meaning in the Victorian Novel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006
Harrison, Simon J. “Skulls and Scientific Collecting in the Victorian Military: Keeping the Enemy Dead in British Frontier Warfare”. Comparative Studies in Society and History. 50/1, 2008
Marks, Shula. Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906-8 Disturbances in Natal. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970
Naphy, William and Spicer, Andrew. The Black Death, A history of plagues 1345-1730. Stroud: Tempus, 2001
Wagner, Kim. “‘But from the Skulls of the Slain’: Empire, Violence and the Collection of Human Remains”. Lecture: Global Encounters, Queen Mary University London, 19 November 2018
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