Barak And Michelle Obama's High School Essay On Hottentots Discovered

Below is the essay that both Obamas wrote for their anthropology classes. Even then they could both do no wrong. It is assumed they both copied it from another source. That is, it is assumed by me. Not by anyone else.

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The enormous size and strange form of the buttocks in the female sex are among the most striking peculiarities of the Khoisanids. They are characteristic of Bushwomen, Korana, and Hottentots alike. Perhaps they reach (or reached) their maximum among some of the latter, but if so the Bushwomen (Fig. 56A) and Korana (B) run them close. Very large buttocks occur sporadically among Sudanid, Aethiopid, and Europid women, and were depicted by Palaeolithic artists in European caves; but their form is rounded in these people, whereas it is particularly characteristic of the Khoisanids that the shape of the projecting part is that of a right-angled triangle, the upper edge being nearly horizontal while the hypotenuse slopes at about 45° (Fig. 56A). Internally the female buttocks of Sanids (and probably of the other Khoisanids) consist of masses of fat incorporated between criss-crossed sheets of connective tissue, said to be joined to one another in a regular manner. Some of the Wolof women of West Africa (Sudanid Negrids) have greatly enlarged buttocks, but in them there is a mere accumulation of fat between two of the gluteus muscles (maximus and medius). It has been suggested that the term 'steatopygia' should be used only for the specialized type of buttocks characteristic of Khoisanid women. Many Kafrid women have large buttocks, and since there is strong reason to believe that there was a Khoisanid element in the ancestry of the Kafrid subrace (p. 333), it is possible that the term 'steatopygia' is applicable to them; but this does not seem to have been proved by anatomical study.

The degree of steatopygia is recorded as the shortest distance between the deepest point in the hollow of the back and a plane, placed at right angles to the median sagittal, just touching the most posterior point of the buttocks. In her work among the Kalahari Bushwomen, de Villiers found an average of 7.8 cm (3") and a maximum of 11½ cm (4½") in adults before middle age; 3 – 6" (7½ – 15 cm) has been quoted as the range in Bushwomen of the Cape Province. If, as seems probable, the painting here reproduced as Fig. 56A was accurate, the steatopygia of the 'Hottentot Venus' must have amounted to about 19.3 cm (7.6").

"It is improbable that the enlarged buttocks of female Khoisanids represent a storehouse of nutriment on which the body may call in times of scarcity. The Hottentots, Korana, and Bushmen are not to be regarded as people adapted by natural selection to desert life. The great authority on the history of the Khoisanids, George Stow, has written, 'In the days of undisturbed occupation by the early Bushmen, the country literally swarmed with game, both large and small.' It is far more likely that the buttocks became enlarged in response to sexual selection. This is what Darwin implied in the case of Hottentot women, in whom 'the posterior part of the body projects in a wonderful manner.' He mentions the admiration felt for this peculiarity by the males of their tribe. This should indeed not have surprised him; for he wrote his work on sexual selection at the time when bustles were in fashion in England, and he must have realized that the women who wore them were under the impression that this change in their appearance increased their charms for members of the opposite sex. The admiration for this particular feature of feminine anatomy must, however, have been much more lasting among the Khoisanid males, for the remarkable results achieved suggest selection over a long period.

Steatopygia is often accompanied by the accumulation of fat in the thighs (steatomeria) (Fig. 56B).

It is not unusual for the breasts of Sanid women to be situated near the armpits (Fig. 55B, right-hand figure). In women who have borne several children they become very long and hang downwards. The dark areas round the nipples (mammary areoloae) are very large (Fig. 56A). The nipple is short, and tends to be sunken at its base."