Tono Maria

Tono Maria also known as the “Venus of South America” was another woman, similar to Sarah Baartman’s case, that was exhibited in the “London shows” or freak shows in the 1800s. Tono Maria, a Botocudo (derived from the Portuguese word, botoque for plug) woman from the South American region (now the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais) was known for her nearly scars, social codes that signified her sexual transgressions, her full figure and large lip and ear plugs. Tono Maria’s features fascinated the London spectators and further fueled their studies in scientific racism and western superiority.

Life

Tono Maria was displayed in a London freak show, and described in an 1822 article called the “Sketches of Society: The Shows of London” as the Venus of South America whose “charms are reputed to have been irresistible in her native land in which she made conquest of no fewer than three chieftains in succession." She is described at the time as being "about forty years of age". ^[1]

Symbolism

Author Janell Hobson briefly recounts Tono Maria in her memoir, Venus in the Dark, and describes how the London spectators viewed her nearly 100 scars, each supposedly representing a sexual transgression committed in her own tribe, as a social stigma, a mark of excess sexuality representing how nonwhites were "openly licentious, debauched, and depraved” in comparison with European white women who were considered “pure” and “refined”.^[2] Author Rosemarie Garland Thompson mentions Tono Maria in her book, Extraordinary Bodies, as a spectacle that “confirmed the Englishman’s sense of physical mastery” and was seen as a cautionary tale of female sexual appetite. ^[3]

References