Tono Maria was a South American woman who was displayed at
freak shows in
London during the early 19th century. She was an
Aimoré woman who was born in the
Minas Gerais region of
Brazil and eventually moved to London at some point in her life. Marketed as the “
Venus of South America”, Maria was displayed on numerous freak shows throughout the city, where her body scars (which were claimed to signify a sexual transgression she had committed), large figure, lip and ear plugs became objections of fascination for numerous spectators who viewed her.
Life
Tono Maria was an
Aimoré woman who was born in the
Minas Gerais region of
Brazil around 1782. She eventually moved to
London at some point in her life, and was displayed in numerous
freak shows around the city. Maria was described in an article written for the ''
London Literary Gazette'' as being marketed as the "
Venus of South America"; the article went on to note that Maria's “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 was also described in the article as being "about forty years of age".
[Sketches of Society: The Shows of London.” The London Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belle Lettres, 1822. pg 123. Accessed April 14, 2017. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435059865105;view=1up;seq=131]
Legacy
University at Albany
The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...
professor
Janell Hobson briefly recounted Maria in her book, ''Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture'', describing how spectators in London took particular note of the scars on her body which nearly numbered a hundred; with each scar supposedly representing a sexual transgression committed by Maria. Hobson used Maria to illustrate the contrasting depictions of femininity between
white women and
women of color
The term "person of color" (plural, : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "White people, white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily a ...
.
[Janell Hobson. Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture. Routledge. Taylor & Francis Group. pg 46. 2005. Accessed April 15, 2017.] American scholar
Rosemarie Garland-Thomson Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is Professor of English at Emory University with a focus on disability studies and feminist theory. Her book ''Extraordinary Bodies'', published in 1997, is a founding text in the disability studies canon.
Garland-Thomson ...
mentioned Maria in her book, ''Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature'', as a spectacle that the London spectators used to confirm their “sense of physical mastery”. Thompson also noted that Maria was seen as a cautionary tale of female
hypersexuality.
[Rosemarie Garland Thompson. ''Extraordinary Bodies''. Columbia University Press.April 1996.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maria, Tono
1782 births
Year of death unknown
People from Minas Gerais
Sideshow performers
Brazilian women
18th-century women
Sexuality and society
19th-century women
Indigenous people of Eastern Brazil