The population of Africa comprises hundreds of different peoples and
tribes, the vast majority of whom make bulk and weight the chief
criterion of a woman's charms. The hideous deformity known as
steatopyga, or hypertrophy of the buttocks, occurs among South African
Bushman, Koranna, and Hottentot women. Darwin says that Sir Andrew
Smith
"once saw a woman who was considered a beauty, and she was
so immensely developed behind that when seated on level
ground she could not rise, and had to push herself along
until she came to a slope. Some of the women in various
negro tribes have the same peculiarity; and according to
Burton, the Somal men, 'are said to choose their wives by
ranging them in a line and by picking her out who projects
farthest _a tergo_. Nothing can be more hateful to a negro
than the opposite form.'"[116]
The notions of the Yoruba negroes regarding female perfection consist,
according to Lander, in "the bulk, plumpness, and rotundity of the
object."
Among the Karagué, women were exempted from hard labor because the men
were anxious to have them as fat as possible. To please the men, they
ate enormous quantities of bananas and drank milk by the gallon. Three
of Rumanika's wives were so fat that they could not go through an
ordinary door, and when they walked they needed two men each to
support them.
Speke measured one of the much-admired African wonders of obesity, who
was unable to stand except on all fours. Result: around the arms, 1
foot 11 inches; chest, 4 feet 4 inches; thigh, 2 feet 7 inches; calf,
1 foot 8 inches; height, 5 feet 8 inches.
"Meanwhile, the daughter, a lass of sixteen, sat stark-naked
before us, sucking at a milk-pot, on which her father kept
her at work by holding a rod in his hand; for as fattening
is the first duty of fashionable female life, it must be
duly enforced by the rod if necessary. I got up a bit of
flirtation with missy, and induced her to rise and shake
hands with me. Her features were lovely, but her body was
round as a ball."
Speke also tells (370) of a girl who, a mere child when the king died,
was such a favorite of his, that he left her twenty cows, in order
that she might fatten upon milk after her native fashion.