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Both of the two old ‘tales’ I have selected for discussion have been analysed before for what they reveal regarding the complicated relationships of power and identity as entangled with male sexual anxieties and desires, all connected to the colonizing enterprise and to the ways in which it was conceived. The reason for taking them up again here is to point to the ways in which very similar lines of thinking in actual fact persist even today, impacting heavily on seemingly scientific discourses. Tales like these are at the root of what has aptly been termed the ‘dark continent discourse’ (Jungar and Oinas, this volume) and—as also shown in Jun — gar and Oinas’ chapter—the ‘dark continent discourse’ is still alive and kicking, structuring ways of seeing and understanding even today. The two tales are (in reverse historical order) a) Rider Haggard’s very popular and widely read novel King Solomon’s Mines, never out of print since it was first published in 1885, and b) the story of Sarah Bartmann, a Khoikhoi woman who was taken to Europe in 1810. As opposed to the novel by Rider Haggard, the Sarah Bartmann story is based on a
‘African Sexuality’/Sexuality in Africa: Tales and Silences
real event. But the way this event was produced, staged and perceived makes it as much of a tale as the novel.