The 1904 Anthropology Days and Olympic Games: Sport, Race, and American Imperialism

Chapter 9. From the Anthropology Days to the Anthropological Olympics

324 In this chapter I want to explore some themes, related to the Olympic Games and international sport in general, that have been provoked by a reading of the report of the 1904 Anthropology Days in Spalding’s Official Athletic Almanac for 1905.1 The first of these themes is that of the “natural athlete,” a major (if illusory) figure in the 1904 “Anthropology Days”; the second is the “contact zone” within which the allegedly “natural athletes” encounter “cultural athletes ” of the global sports system. I conclude by suggesting that while the relationship between the “natural” and the “cultural” differ within various contact zones, this dualism has continued well beyond the early twentieth century and is evidenced in the early twenty-first century in a variety of Olympic and sub-Olympic contexts. In other words, the Anthropology Days of the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games were similar in several ways to other cultural contacts and displays that were performed before and after 1904. The events of 1904 were simply one example of “the Native” being exposed (or subjected) to a culture of display, scrutinized by a colonial gaze. Chapter 9. From the Anthropology Days to the Anthropological Olympics john bale If one wishes to extend to natives in colonized countries what we boldly call the benefits of “athletic civilization,” they must be made to enter into the broad athletic system with codified regulations and comparative results, which is the necessary basis of that civilization. Pierre de Coubertin From Anthropology Days to Anthropological Olympics 325 The “Natural” Athlete JohnHobermanhassuggestedthatwhileadmirationfor“Native”physicality hadexistedduringthenineteenthcentury,inGermany(atleast)itwasnotuntil the 1920s that “the African” was seen as a potential Western-style athlete.2 It is clear, however, that reading the Native as an athlete occurred rather earlier than that—even in Germany. For my purposes the Anthropology Days, held inassociationwiththeSt.LouisOlympicsin1904,formthestartingpointfor reading the ways in which the “natural athlete” has been both described and invented.Inparticular,theAnthropologyDaysmayhavebeenthefirstoccasion when the “natural athlete” came to be seen as a potential Olympian. The Anthropology Days have been relatively well documented and need little introduction here.3 In brief, members of ethnic groups from the “living displays” on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, of which the Olympics were a part, were presented to the public as athletes and put through tests (i.e., modern sports events) designed for the trained athletes of Europe and North America. I must admit that I have never seen a definition of the term “natural athlete.” Given the contentiousness of the terms “natural” and “cultural,” a satisfactory and generally consensual definition is unlikely to be forthcoming, especially at a time when the binaries of social science are steadily being deconstructed.4 The “historical and conceptual entanglement ” of nature, culture, and race, for example, upsets the nature-culture binary.5 Nature—in the form of “natural athletes”—can be understood as the natural being derived from the cultural, in the sense that the “natural athlete” is a form of cultural representation. FormypurposesIacceptthat“natural”athleteswererepresentedandread asbeingabletoperformatahighstandardinathleticeventsthattheyhadnot previouslyencounteredandforwhichtheyhadnotpreviouslybeentrained.In other words, they had not been physically “cultured” in such events. On the evolutionaryscaleofSocialDarwinism,thenaturalathletecouldbeassociated with the initial stage of “savagery”—close to “raw animal existence.”6 bale 326 The rhetoric of the “natural athlete” or “savage” featured prominently in the report of the Anthropology Days at the 1904 Games.7 For example, it was noted that “startling rumors and statements” existed “in relation to the speed, stamina and strength of each and every particular tribe” represented at the Games.8 More explicitly the report observed that we “have for years been led to believe from statements made by those who should know and from newspaper articles and books, that the average savage was fleet of foot, strong in limb, accurate with the bow and arrow, and expert in throwing the stone, and that some, particularly the Patagonians, were noted for their great size and strength, and owing to the particular life that many have been called upon to lead, they have been termed natural athletes.”9 Specific athletic qualities were quoted—those of the Indian runner, the stamina of the “kaffir” [sic], and “the natural all-round ability of the savage in athletic feats.”10 But, I suggest, this was nothing new. Explorers and anthropologists had recordedandmeasuredavarietyofcorporealfeatsbyAfricansandotherNative peoplesbeforeandafterthemoreformallyexperimentalapproachatSt.Louis. Afterall,athleticsandanthropologycametogetherinthefranticdesiretoobserve ,measure,andquantifyhumanmorphologyandphysicalperformance. Examples from the end of the nineteenth century serve as illustrations...