The term Circassian Beauty refers to the romanticized portrayal of women from The Caucasus: breathtakingly beautiful and feminine, slender-waisted and pale-skinned, with rosy cheeks and lustrous, big blue eyes. And the most telling feature of all: the big hair. And that, in turn, would suggest that the white American lady was, at bottom, in her unadorned, uncultured nature, no different from the Circassianand so no different from the African. Each is canceled with a stamp that reads Barnums Museum and dated April 26, 1866 (left) and December 5, 1865 (right). Thomas Gamaliel Bradford, Map of Caucasian Countries and Turkey in Asia (1835), Wikipedia Commons. This reputation dates back to the later . This resulted in the death of approximately 400,000 Circassians, mostly from epidemics or accidents during the long journey to the Black Sea. Pinterest. Circassian beauties, or "Moss-haired girls" as they were sometimes known, reflect a curious legacy of racial stereotyping and sexual titillation. [20], In parts of Europe and North America where blond hair was more common, the pairing of extremely white skin with very dark hair also present among some Circassians was exalted, even in Russia which was at war with the Circassians; Semyon Bronevskii exalted Circassian women for having light skin, dark brown hair, dark eyes and "the lineaments of the face of the Ancient Greek". [37] As the original fad faded, the "Circassians" started to add to their appeal by performing traditional circus tricks such as sword swallowing. [41], Pseudoscientific explanations for fair skin, Brookes, Douglas Scott (2010). See more ideas about women, crimean tatars, beautiful. Her sale sent home some disappointed bawlers, Who bade on till the hundreds reached the eleven, But when the offer went beyond, they knew Twas for the Sultan, and at once withdrew. Don Juan, canto IV, verse 114. The Colonial Contexts for the Harem Representation", "XLIV. [24] In Scotland, in 1862, Circassian chiefs arrived to advocate their cause against Russia and to persuade Britain to stop the actions of the Russian army at that time,[25] and upon the arrival of two Circassian leaders, Hadji Hayder Hassan and Kustan Ogli Ismael, the Dundee Advertiser reported that "the Chiefs are two remarkable looking men. Obermller and Kern, Miss Millie La Mar, Mind Reader, cabinet card (circa 1890), collection of the author. Who Are The Circassians With The Most Beautiful Women In The World Had decked her out in all the hues of heaven. Slow down please, and enjoy the info. Why the Circassian Lady as the title for this particular type of circus performer? If the interlocking themes of slavery, whiteness, Christianity, and freedom in Powerss Greek Slave resonated so deeply in the United States, it was because it hit home as a kind of portrait in racial negative of the tightening noose of slavery at home. The US Internal Revenue stamps on the back of each image were required on photographs by law, from August 1864 to August 1866, to raise funds for the Civil War. Dress of black gossamer net over white satin slip, round frock front edged with Vandyke lace. Circassian beauties, or Moss-haired girls as they were sometimes known, reflect a curious legacy of racial stereotyping and sexual titillation. in, This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 12:54. But failing in this quest to obtain Circassian slaves, the showman went on to look for women who could fake it for him. Despite that, her portrait has taken me down a path of discovery whose connections I would have never guessed. p. 46, Delaware Gazette and State Journal, 2 February 1815. The Circassians With The Most Beautiful Women In The World There are folk songs in various languages throughout the Middle East and the Balkan peninsula that describe the superior appearance of Circassian girls. But his offhand valorization of the Circassian woman as the ideal of whiteness and the Guinean man as the anti-ideal of blackness could not be more evident; while he holds that they form part of the same species, he clearly considers the Guinean man a devolution from the Circassian type, itself supposedly the most perfect form of the Caucasian. Admired for their pale and translucent skin, delicate features, light eyes and hair, small waist, good posture and elegant behavior. The combination of the popular issues of slavery, the Orient, racial ideology, and sexual titillation gave the reports of Circassian women sufficient notoriety at the time that the circus leader P. T. Barnum decided to capitalize on this interest. Zoe looks white and lives free on a plantation in the American South. Jul 31, 2017 - Explore lynda heath's board "circassian women" on Pinterest. It describes what seems to be a Greek monk on M A cool photo collection that shows what naughty ladies looked like in the 1950s. Orientalizing paintings of nudes were also sometimes exhibited as "Circassians". Clearly influenced by Powerss The Greek Slave, Bells statue depicts an octoroon, that is, a person of one-eighth African ancestry, as a naked woman in shackles, perhaps awaiting the auction block, her modesty protected only by her inordinately long hair. The beauty of the Circassian women in the 19th century were considered legendary throughout the world. "Not to be denied his harem slave, Barnum hired a frizzy-haired local woman, put her in a Turkish costume and dubbed her Zalumma Agra, Star of the EastThe Circassian beauty was an instant success, soon to be followed by a succession of imported beauties with an enigmatic letter Z figuring prominently in all their names. Barnum exhibited women he claimed to be from Circassia. But there was no mistaking the meaning of that fate, even then: as a slave, her body would be at the disposal of her buyer, and it was precisely this fact that would be staring the statues viewers in the face as they stared, in turn, at her white granite bodyor the many photographic reproductions of that body. Beautiful Hijab Cute Beauty Chapel Veil Muslim Beauty Lace Wrap Beauty A soft, lovely all-over embroidered multi-color black floral English net is trimmed in a vintage style gold leaf motif trim and includes a sewn-in clip to hold it in place! [13] Many of the Circassian women in the Ottoman harem were described as having "green eyes and long, dark blond hair, pale skin of translucent white colour, thin waist, slender body structure, and very good-looking hands and feet". [31], Bayard Taylor observed the Circassian women during his trip to the Ottoman Empire and argued that "the Circassian face is a pure oval; the forehead is low and fair, an excellent thing in woman, and the skin of an ivory whiteness, except the faint pink of the cheeks and the ripe, roseate stain of the lips."[11]. [20], According to the feminist Harriet Martineau, Circassians were the only saving virtue of the Egyptian harem where these Circassian mothers produced the finest children and if they were to be excluded from the harem, the upper class in Egypt would be doomed. It is history and has to be known. They used a concoction supposedly extracted from a vegetable native to Circassia. The gallery below presents several views of Zalumma (with the name variously spelled); a portrait of another of Barnums Circassians, Zoe Meleke (a made-up name again); and a group portrait of the freaks in Barnums Circus; note that all are white, including the whitest of the white, albinos: And so Barnum invented the Circassian Lady, or sometimes the Circassian Beauty, as a sideshow performer of a particular kind. [33] The story drew on ideas of racial hierarchy, stating that: The temptation to possess a Circassian girl at such low prices is so great in the minds of the Turks that many who cannot afford to keep several slaves have been sending their blacks to market, in order to make room for a newly purchased white girl. The play tells the story of Zoe, the octoroon of the title. Such adventures bring no lasting insight or transformation; quite the reverse, in fact: they tend to shunt a disquieting experience or question off into a limbo that has the effect of making it disappear from active reflection. Circassian-Abkhaz Beauties! - YouTube 2020. Adygheans,Circassians, Cherkess, Kabardin Kabardinka, Kabardin Beauty, Circassian beauties,Adyghea,circassia,karachay-cherkessia,real Caucasians,chechens,oss. We cannot just shrug offthis history by individual fiat. Moore Brothers, Zublia Aggolia, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1870), collection of the author. Circassian woman hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy She is of Swedish, German & British Isles descent. Those Ottomans never got past the Caucasus. Abraham Bogardus, Caucasian Girl, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1865), collection of the author. P. T. Barnum perfected the sideshow as a form of exploitation and entertainment, imitated by hundreds of carnivals and circuses throughout the nation, that allowed the visitor to depart from a customary world of limits and expectations, but only in a temporary way, and in a context that marked the experience as decisively exceptional, questionable, and quite possibly fraudulentin a word, freakish. The type included a number of key features: the woman must be pretty, or even beautiful, by Victorian standards; she would wear exotic clothing, generally more revealing than that worn by European and American woman of that era; she might display striking jewelry and other ornaments, such as strings of pearls or richly embroidered clothes. The charged ambiguity of the Circassian Beauty, straddling sexual transgression and religious transcendence, marks this type of person with a certain mystical value grounded in her freakish whiteness. In consequence, most wives and mothers of several Ottoman Sultans were ethnic Circassians, including Perest Valide Sultan, evkefza Valide Sultan, Tirimjgan Valide Sultan, Nkhetseza Bahanmefendi, emsiruhsar Hatun, Sabal Sultan, Hmaah Haseki Sultan, Hatice Muazzez Haseki Sultan, Aye Haseki Sultan, Bedrifelek I, Bidar II, Kamures I, Servetseza I, Bezmara VI, Dzdidil III, Hayrandil II, Meyliservet IV, Mihrengiz II, Neerek III, Nurefsun II, Reftaridil II, ayan III, amongst many others. Maker unknown, Barnums Circus, carte-de-visite, front and reverse (circa 1865), collection of Greg French. The article continues: Any lady must be as great an Infidel as the Grand Sultan himself, who, after receiving such authority can doubt that her skin will become as superlatively smooth, soft, white and delicate, as that of the lovely Fatima, whatever may have been its feel or its appearance before. They were typically identified by the distinctive hairstyle, which was held in place by the use of beer. In the aftermath of WWIIs significant instability came the 1950s, suburbia, and the dream of a picture-perfect family. They furnish with those beauties the seraglio of the Turkish Sultan, of the Persian Sophy, and of all of those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise. This is the case despite the fact that contemporary biological science has completely discredited Blumenbachs theory of the origins and categories of human beings. The crucifix also shows up in Powerss statue The Greek Slave, where it can be seen, along with her removed clothes, just beneath her hand on the post on which she leans. That would be a fitting end to a term for whiteness worn out long ago. Besides, she possessed a sharp intellect, which made her into a faithful advisor of my father's. They are called "Cherkesses" by the Russians and Turks, but their word for themselves is "Adighe." *Updated April 19, 2013, adding everything after But dont we now have a choice? Minor corrections made on May 22, 2013. Blumenbach was a specialist in comparative anatomy, and he initiated the division of human beings into five distinct races defined by region and color: the Caucasian or white race, the Mongolian or yellow race, the Malayan or brown race, the Ethiopian or black race, and the American or red race. 30. Who would have thought that this mad explosion of hair was connected to the racial theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by way of the fun-house mirror of sideshow exploitation? We can refuse to use Caucasian to describe people, we can point out its absurdity whenever possible, and we can insist that the government not use it in any official capacity. Later in 1864, Barnum put on show someone he dubbed Zalumma Agra (Star of the East), a young woman who had come to his operation seeking work whom he dressed up in the invented costume that became the model for the Circassian Ladies who subsequently sprang up in circus sideshows all over the country.