The 1895 African Exhibition at The Crystal Palace was an instance of a human zoo in London. The colonial exhibition presented around eighty people brought from Somalia along with two-hundred African animals. [1]
The 1895 African Exhibition at The Crystal Palace was an instance of a human zoo in London. The colonial exhibition presented around eighty people brought from Somalia along with two-hundred African animals. [1]
The exhibition was organised by Carl Hagenbeck and Josef Menges as an effort to rehabilitate the Crystal Palace which was becoming less popular among visitors. [2]
The Somalis were brought from Berbera, Somaliland. [3] The "exhibits" at the human zoo spent their time in a kraal but slept in covered buildings due to the cold weather. [3] They were wearing exotic animal skins and had red mud in their hair. [1] During the exhibition, they had to perform national sports and dances multiple times a day, set up and take down of their accommodation and cook food. The people also had to mimic "warfare" where different tribes attack each other until Europeans arrive to end the conflict. [3]
The display included large paintings and set pieces representing Somalia. These served as a backdrop when all the people and the animals formed a "caravan" and passed through the space. [3]
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its 990,000-square-foot (92,000 m2) exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m), and was three times the size of St Paul's Cathedral.
The Scramble for Africa was the conquest and colonisation of most of Africa by seven Western European powers driven by the Second Industrial Revolution during the era of "New Imperialism" (1833–1914): Belgium, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
A menagerie is a collection of captive animals, frequently exotic, kept for display; or the place where such a collection is kept, a precursor to the modern zoo or zoological garden.
Human zoos, also known as ethnological expositions, were public displays of people, usually in a so-called "natural" or "primitive" state. They were most prominent during the 19th and 20th centuries. These displays sometimes emphasized the supposed inferiority of the exhibits' culture, and implied the superiority of "Western society", through tropes that purported marginalized groups as "savage". They then developed into independent displays emphasizing the exhibits' inferiority to western culture and providing further justification for their subjugation. Such displays featured in multiple colonial exhibitions and at temporary exhibitions in animal zoos.
The British Empire Exhibition was a colonial exhibition held at Wembley Park, London England from 23 April to 1 November 1924 and from 9 May to 31 October 1925.
Jijiga is the capital city of Somali Region, Ethiopia. It became the capital of the Somali Region in 1995 after it was moved from Gode. Located in the Fafan Zone with 70 km (37 mi) west of the border with Somalia, the city has an elevation of 1,634 metres above sea level. Jigjiga is traditionally the seat of the Bartire Garad Wiil-Waal of the Jidwaaq Absame. The International airport is named after him.
Guy the Gorilla (1946–1978) was a western lowland gorilla who was London Zoo's most famous resident and often profiled on children's TV shows and natural history productions. The exact day of Guy's birth was unknown, but his official birthday was set by the Zoo as May 30, and he received large numbers of cards each year.
The Ajuran Sultanate, natively referred to as Ajuuraan, and often simply Ajuran, was a medieval Muslim Empire in the Horn of Africa. Founded by Somali Sultans it ruled over large parts of the Horn of Africa during the Middle Ages via control over water. Its rise to prominence began during the 13th and 14th century. By the 15th century, the Ajuran were Africa's only 'Hydraulic empire'. Through a strong centralized administration and an aggressive military stance towards invaders, the Ajuran Empire successfully resisted Oromo invasions from the west and fought against Portuguese incursions from the east.
The Somali Rebellion was the start of the Somali Civil War that began in the 1970s and resulted in the collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic in 1991. The rebellion effectively began in 1978 following a failed coup d’état and President Siad Barre began using his special forces, the "Red Berets", to attack clan-based dissident groups opposed to his regime. Backed by Ethiopia, the two earliest rebel factions, the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) and the Somali National Movement (SNM) began attacks during the against government forces during the early 1980s.
The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and other extinct animals, inaccurate by modern standards, in the London borough of Bromley's Crystal Palace Park. Commissioned in 1852 to accompany the Crystal Palace after its move from the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, they were unveiled in 1854 as the first dinosaur sculptures in the world. The models were designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the scientific direction of Sir Richard Owen, representing the latest scientific knowledge at the time. The models, also known as the Geological Court or Dinosaur Court, were classed as Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002, and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007.
Carl Hagenbeck was a German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He created the modern zoo with animal enclosures without bars that were closer to their natural habitat. He was also an ethnography showman and a pioneer in the display of members of "savage tribes" in Völkerschauen, known nowadays in English as "ethnic shows" or "human zoos", which were controversial at the time and are now widely considered racist. The transformation of the zoo architecture initiated by him is known as the Hagenbeck revolution. Hagenbeck founded Germany's most successful privately owned zoo, the Tierpark Hagenbeck, which moved to its present location in Hamburg's Stellingen district in 1907.
A zoo is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes.
The 1911 Festival of Empire was the biggest single event held at The Crystal Palace in London since its opening. It opened on 12 May and was one of the events to celebrate the coronation of King George V. The original intention had been that Edward VII would open it in 1910, however, this was postponed after his death shortly before the planned opening day. The Festival contained a display of landscapes and exhibits from the British Empire, mainly the dominion countries, to encourage emigration to those nations; and it contained a large scale pageant dramatising British history. It was described at the time as 'a social gathering of the British family' encouraging the 'firmer welding of those invisible bonds which hold together the greatest empire the world has ever known'. It has since been described as the 'ultimate imperialist propaganda showcase'.
The Pageant of Empire was the name given to various historical pageants celebrating the British Empire which were held in Britain during the early twentieth century. For example, there was a small Pageant of Empire at the town of Builth Wells in 1909. In 1911 a giant Pageant of Empire took place at the Festival of Empire at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, where thousands of amateur performers acted out historical scenes. The most notable was the Pageant of Empire which took place in London in 1924.
Zoo City is a 2010 science fiction novel by South African author Lauren Beukes. It won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 2010 Kitschies Red Tentacle for best novel. The cover of the British edition of the book was awarded the 2010 BSFA Award for best artwork, and the book itself was shortlisted in the best novel category of the award.
The Sultanate of Mogadishu, also known as Kingdom of Magadazo, was a medieval Muslim sultanate centered in southern Somalia. It rose as one of the pre-eminent powers in the Horn of Africa under the rule of Fakhr al-Din before becoming part of the powerful and expanding Ajuran Sultanate in the 13th century. The Mogadishu Sultanate maintained a vast trading network, dominated the regional gold trade, minted its own currency, and left an extensive architectural legacy in present-day southern Somalia.
Somali nationalism is a nationalist ideology advocating for the unification of all Somali people who share a common ethnicity, language, and culture, under a single banner. Its earliest manifestations has its roots in the Middle Ages with the Adal Sultanate and the Ajuran Sultanate whilst in the contemporary era its often traced back to the “Mad Mullah”, as he was known by the British Empire during the Scramble for Africa. The Somali Youth League, a political organisation founded in 1943 was one of the most influential political parties in Somalia prior to the country’s unification and independence. The Somali guerilla militia Al-Shabab is noteworthy for incorporating Somali nationalism into its Islamist ideology.
Samuel Phillips Verner was an American missionary and explorer in the Congo Free State. Verner is best known for his engagement in trade of African animals and wares that were unavailable in the United States at the time and for being commissioned to exhibit African tribespeople for the human zoo at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Gorilla sculpture by David Wynne stands beside the Lower Lake in Crystal Palace Park, in Bromley in south-east London. Completed in 1961 and installed in 1962, the black marble sculpture depicts Guy the Gorilla, a western lowland gorilla brought from West Africa to London Zoo in 1947. It became a Grade II listed structure in 2016.
The 1905 Colonial and Indian Exhibition took place at the Crystal Palace in London and is reported to have been larger and more popular than the 1895 African Exhibition and the most direct forerunner of the 1911 Festival of Empire, two other colonial events that took place at the same site.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)