Savagery on show: The popular visual representation of Native American peoples and their lifeways at the World’s Fairs (1851–1904) and in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West (1884–1904)

Staged Otherness

“…A substantial literature on living displays of indigenous people, commonly known as ethnographic shows or "human zoos," argues that these performances offered Western audiences a palpable experience of their supposed racial and civilizational superiority. By portraying indigenous people as "savages" and placing them at a lower stage of human development, these shows served to justify Western imperial expansion (Atkin 2015;Ellis 2013;Lindfors 1999a;Manderson 2018;Mathur 2001;Purkayastha 2019;Qureshi , 2012aQureshi , 2012bRydell 1993;Vaughan 1996;Vinson and Edgar 2007;Welch 2011;Wiss 1994). The juxtaposition of non-European "savagery" and "barbarism" with modern technological achievements at a series of world's fairs and exhibitions (Mathur 2001;Rydell 1993;Vaughan 1996), as well as the performers' juxtaposition with audiences whose civilizational superiority as "modern man" they were meant to confirm, highlights modernity's inseparability from coloniality, as theorized by Walter Mignolo (2011).…”

“…In an attempt to nuance analyses that emphasize the unequal power relations and objectification involved in such exhibitions, some scholars have highlighted performers' agency in participating in shows and resisting unfair working conditions, as well as the variation in audience interpretations of the shows and the opportunities the shows created for interaction between spectators and performers Atkin 2015, 152-53;Ellis 2013;Qureshi , 2012aQureshi , 2012bWelch 2011). Despite these occurrences of "intercultural encounter" (Ames 2008, 88;Qureshi 2011, 8;Qureshi 2012a, 197-98), "the fundamental premise of cultural superiority and the hierarchical relationship between the observer and the observed would be shaken but never dismantled" (Ames 2008, 88).…”

“…Samoan troupes became popular in Germany after the country colonized the islands in 1900 (Akeli 2015;Balme 2007). Taking it a step further, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show promised to reenact the conquest of the American West (Rydell and Kroes 2012;Welch 2011). Another imperialist conflict in Africa served as the context for the arrival of the "Sudanese caravan" to Ljubljana in 1885.…”

“…Ethnographic shows served as a way of producing knowledge about the Other. They provided an opportunity for ordinary people to not only observe but also to "know" the Other (Welch 2011;Purkayastha 2019, 3;Qureshi 2011, 10). In the sources I surveyed, the press coverage of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show emphasized this particularly strongly.…”