"There's a Meat Down There": An Essay on English and the Environment in Africa

Abstract

IntroductionIn 1595, Cornelis De Houtman set sail from the Netherlands to Indonesia in order to establish the Dutch spice trade. On his way there, the ships anchored in Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope. It was necessary: crew members had come down with scurvy during the Atlantic section of the voyage and the expedition had also run out of rations and water. Once on land, the sailors encountered members of the local Khoi with their herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. The Khoi were not unacquainted with Europeans, as the Portuguese were regular visitors on their way to Malacca and ships nearly always dropped anchor in order to re-provision before crossing the Indian Ocean or the Atlantic on their return leg.While De Houtman's voyage to the Far East was a diplomatic and mercantile disaster, from a symbolic point of view the voyage was considered a breakthrough because it set the scene for the 1606 establishment of one of the most successful monopoly cartels the world has ever known - the Dutch East India Company (VOC). In 1652, the VOC established a full-time outpost at what was soon to become known as Cape Town, and this effectively led to the decline and eventual extermination of the Khoi in the southern and western Cape.No artist accompanied Cornelis De Houtman on his voyage to the Cape, but the De Bry Company, a family of accomplished engravers, published sets of engravings which illustrated some aspects of De Houtman's voyage to Banten and Madura. The De Brys were utterly reliant on descriptions by travellers not only of the native populations but also of the kinds of animals and plants observed in far off places.1A particular engraving, illustrating an (imaginary) encounter between members of De Houtman's crew and soldiers with the natives at the Cape, depicts members of the company handing out bowls of intestines and meat from an animal to the Khoi. The animal has been skinned and disembowelled. To the right, a soldier stands at ease with his halberd pointing skyward. A company servant has placed his knife between his teeth so that he can better pass a bowl to a Khoi man taking centre stage. The man appears slightly over-eager in his gratitude (his knees are bent almost as if he were a supplicant) and he has already begun to nibble on the intestine. To the left in the mid-background, a sling on a tripod has been placed over a fire and the Khoi are preparing to cook a haunch. It appears to be a scene of domestic intimacy and communality. Unconcerned, one casually holds a wooden spear or sharp stick, which, from an aesthetic and compositional point of view, neatly counter-balances the soldier's halberd in the foreground. But it is also noticeable that the elaborate axe, hook, and spike of the halberd are made of steel in contrast to the simple wooden spear. The background depicts some clouds, trees, and brush - sufficiently sparse to be non-threatening. To a European, the scene is clearly meant to convey an atmosphere of peace, plenty, and conviviality. The natives are non-threatening and power is discretely placed on the side of the visitors, who nonetheless convey a tone of benevolence.Reproductions of De Bry's engraving, first by scanning and then by photocopy, diminishes certain details, and it becomes unclear what kind of animal has been killed. The head is unrecognizable and because one cannot see that the creature has been completely skinned or that there are horns lying on either side of the head's skin, there is no way of establishing that it is an ox (clearly visible in the original engraving). Considering that De Houtman's company had run out of food before anchoring in Table Bay and rowing ashore, the question arises, of course, as to whom the ox had originally belonged. Another question raises the matter of how the animal was killed. Although not depicted in the engraving, it is most probable that a matchlock or flintlock hand-gun was used by the Dutch. Even if one acknowledges that the ox belonged to the Khoi originally, the air of possession conveyed by the Dutch intimates that their 'efficiency' in killing an animal gives them right of ownership and distribution. …