Zambezia (1980), VIII (i).THE MARQUIS DE SADE: FIRST ZIMBABWEAN NOVELISTD. N. BEACHDepartment of History, University of ZimbabweIT SHOULD BE understood from the beginning that the Marquis de Sade ' nevercame anywhere near Zimbabwe. Nor, for that matter, was it called Zimbabwe,though he does mention the name in another context.2 Nor, again, did he devotean entire book to this subject, but rather one part of the first volume of hisnovel Aline et Valcour, ou le roman philosophique. On the other hand, hissole reason for introducing his sub-hero, Sainville, to this part of Africa wasto enable his imagination to conjure up an archetype of the ignoble savageand to discuss certain side issues with the Portuguese, Sarmiento; and he hadread a very little about southern Africa and knew a little about the geography.This puts him on a par with some more recent writers about this country,and since he wrote Aline et Valcour between 1785 and 1788 he was withouta doubt the first novelist ever to set part of his work in Zimbabwe.3 If it wasnot to be the best work of Zimbabwean fiction, at least the tradition can beshown to have started with a world-famous writer who, like some laternovelists, wrote from prison Š in this case, the Bastille.Most of this article is devoted to a paraphrase of Sainville's adventuresin Africa in order to make this obscure work available to an English-readingpublic, and the footnotes relate de Sade's picture to the reality as we knowit; but in view of the contentious nature of his view of Africa, a few pointsshould be made in advance. De Sade sets out to make the kingdom of Butuaas revolting as possible, and it might easily be supposed that this was no morethan a crude racist slur upon Africans. De Sade was rather more subtle thanthat. In the first place, the horrors of Butua, for which he hypocriticallymakes his narrator apologize in advance to the salon of Mme de Blamont, arecertainly no worse than those of the societies of Europe described in some ofhis other works, and in fact de Sade's view of the human race was so cynicalthat it would hardly have been likely that he would have regarded Africansas being any different. De Sade, however, was also making a comment uponthe concept of the noble savage of Rousseau, although he did not seem to1 Donatine Alphonse Francois, Comte de Sade (1740 - 1814), is incorrectly known as aMarquis to the public, but as this version of his title is so widely known it is retained in the titleto this paper. I am indebted to Mme Andrea Mercier for her checking of my paraphrase of deSade. Any errors remaining are mine alone.2 He refers to 'Zimbaoe', but by this he means the capital of the Mutapa state in the north,where until 1759 the Portuguese had maintained a garrison. De Sade's source for the geographicalknowledge he displays remains unknown, but was probably a French translation of a compendiumof the Portuguese publications on the area. His interest in the light thrown on human societiesby the voyages of such writers as Cook and Bougainville was obviously considerable.3 Gilberty Lely, Preface to the edition of Aline et Valcour ou le roman philosophique, ecrita la Bastille un an avant la Revolution de France par le Marquis de Sade [1795] (Paris, UnionGeneralejTEditions, 2 vols, 1971), I, 636-41.5354 THE MARQUIS DE SADE: FIRST ZIMBABWEAN NOVELISTregard the noble savage as an absolute impossibility. Indeed, as soon asSainville leaves Africa he moves to the Pacific, where on Tamoe he finds 'agovernment which could serve as a model for all those of Europe'.4 It is,of course, significant that in the view of an eighteenth-century European the noblesavage should be found in the South Seas rather than in Africa, but it doesshow that even de Sade did not think mankind beyond hope.The bulk of Aline et Valcour, an epistolary novel in the style of thetimes, does not concern us here. The sub-plot of Sainville and Leonore isfound in the letter from Deterville to Valcour, and concerns the tale told bythe young captain of the regiment of Navarre, Sainville, and of his world-wide search for the young Leonore. She had been kidnapped in Venice; and,after pursuing her around the Mediterranean, Sainville heard of just such ayoung woman on a ship sailing for the Cape and set out to follow her there.However, his barque is wrecked on the reefs around Tile Saint-Mathieu' andhe is left floating on a plank at sea. On the second day after the shipwreck,Sainville is cast ashore on the Angolan coast, 'between Benguele and thekingdom of Jagas',5 and decides to march to the Cape, through the land of'Cafrerie' and the land of the 'Hottentots'.He decides to move inland from the inhospitable coast, and stumblesacross the scene of a recent battle between the Jagas and the people of Butua.6The Jagas have won, and under the tree in which he has taken refuge theybarbecue and eat their prisoners. Horrified, he goes on, but is then captured bya Butuan patrol. He is taken to their capital with its huge and beautiful palaceof timber and canes. As he points out, no European has been there before,even though the Portuguese would like to use the area as a route between theirwestern colonies of Benguela and those of 'Zimbaoe', 'near Zanguebar andMonomotapa'.7 (At this point, he apologizes to his listeners for the brutality ofthe scenes which he is about to describe.8) The palace of the king is guardedby black, yellow, mulatto and pale women, all of these (except for the last whoare little and stunted) are big, strong and aged between twenty and thirty. All areabsolutely naked Š not even wearing loincloths which cover other African"ibid., I, 10.5 De Sade's reference to the cannibalism of the Jagas, who were indeed in the region of theport of Benguela in the previous century, is not entirely based on his imagination, obsessedthough he was by the subject. The Portuguese had frequently claimed that the Jagas werecannibals.6 De Sade's belief that the territories of the Jagas and of Butua (modern south-westernZimbabwe) were adjacent was based on Portuguese sources dating as far back as the 1580s. Thisbelief, which underlay Portuguese strategy up the the 1880s, was probably based in turn on thedifficulties encountered in establishing the correct longitude of the two side of Africa. Untilaccurate chronometers made this possible, maps regularly underestimated the width of Africa.7 As noted above, this was part of Portugues thinking. He presumably excepts Sarmientofrom his comment that no European had been there before. Butua was the south-western partof Zimbabwe, the centre of the Khami culture. First mentioned in 1512, it was under the ruleof the Torwa dynasty until after 1683, but then fell to the Changamire dynasty of Rozvi, whichruled it until the arrival of the Ndebele in the late 1830s.8 See above, fn. 2.D. N. BEACH 55people Š and carry bows arid arrows.9 Although the palace has only onestorey, it is huge. A guard of six of the most beautiful and biggest womenstands outside the king's throne-room, where thirty, less military girls attendthe king and a bloodstained, breasted, goat-horned, serpent-bodied idolwhich stands above the still-breathing bodies of the latest sacrifices. To hissurprise, he finds himself speaking in Italian with an old Portuguese, Sarmiento,who had been captured twenty years earlier. Through him, he tells the king,Ben Maacoro, his story.10 The king laughs heartily to learn that Sainville hasundergone so much for the sake of a girl:You are mad, you Europeans, to worship the female sex; a womanis made for play, not to be worshipped; it offends the gods of thecountry to give girls the worship due to gods. It is absurd to giveauthority to women, very dangerous to serve them; it defiles yoursex, it degrades nature, it is to become a slave of those who shouldbe your slaves.The king, examining Sainville's naked body like a butcher, decrees thathe be assigned to the king's pleasures. Sainville, indignantly, asks if the kinghas not enough women as it is. Sarmiento points out that it is preciselybecause the king is sated, and that, in any case, corruption is the source oflife. In the end, Sainville is ordered to become Sarmiento's apprentice. Thisinvolves, in the first place, a lecture from Sarmiento on their present home.Butua lies between the Hottentots on the south, the Jagas on the west, theLupata mountains on the east and the lands of King Monoemugui on thenorth, a land as big as Portugal.11 Every month, a tribute of women arrivesat the king's court from each part of the kingdom and Sainville, it turns out,will be 'the inspector of this type of import'. He is to examine their bodies,but without actually enjoying them, on pain of death. This tribute usuallyamounts to 5,000 women, of whom about 2,000 are to be selected: 'If youlike women, you will without doubt suffer, to be unable to see their faces,but to hand them on without enjoying them.' Apparently Sarmiento hadconvinced the king that the taste of a European was superior in this regard.The four classes of girls are: the strong who do guard duties, and the weakerones, of whom those between twenty and thirty do garden and corvee duties,those from sixteen to twenty years are sacrificed, and those below sixteen servethe king's pleasures. Also reserved for the king's pleasures would be any Whitegirls, who are not currently available, but whom the king wishes to acquire.On learning, however, that his duties involve only the selection of the girlsand not the direct supply of them to the king's desires of the moment, nor9 The idea that African rulers had female warriors, while correct in the case of Dahomey,was misplaced here. De Sade was probably influenced by Portuguese sources dating from DuarteBarbqsa's reference in c. 1518 to the Mutapa having a force of 6,000 armed women. This, inturn, is almost certainly based on a misunderstanding of the term Karanga by which the Mutapa'sown people were then known: literally, it meant 'chief wives', but it was an honourable termapplied to men.10 'Maacoro' bears a faint resemblance to the Shona word mukuru (great person) but thisis probably coincidental.11 Very basically, the location of 'Butua' is correct.56 THE MARQUIS DE SADE: FIRST ZIMBABWEAN NOVELISTthe torture of those chosen for that purpose, Sainville's principles crumble,and he accepts the job.At Sarmiento's dinner-table that night Sainville recoils when he thinksthat the Portuguese is saying grace over a dish of roast leg of girl. (It isactually roast Jaga.) At this point the text veers off into a long philosophicalargument between Sarmiento and Sainville, beginning when Sarmientoargues that it is right to follow the customs of the country and overcome one'sprejudices; he even offers his pet monkey as food, if Sainville feels so dainty.Sainville replies that, in that case, wars will be made for the sake of meat.Sarmiento contends that man's nature leads him to destruction, and, innatural terms, this is not negation but transformation, death and corruptionleading to reproduction, and therefore war is not criminal. Sainville retiresto bed, refusing Sarmiento's offer of a (live) girl or boy for the night,detesting his opinions but grateful for having met him.The next day while touring the area, the Portuguese briefs Sainville onthe condition of women in the country: 'It is impossible to paint for you, myfriend, the degradation in which the women of this country exist.' Rich andpoor agree that to have many is a luxury. Women do all the work in thefields and houses under the whips of their husbands and are the butts of everyevil whim of the men. These customs, two in particular, restrict the popu-iation almost to destruction. One is the belief that a woman is impure foreight days before and eight days after her period, leaving only eight in whichshe is fit to serve man; the other is that a woman is not touched by herhusband for three years after each birth; in addition, from the moment awoman becomes pregnant, she is exposed to the contempt of everyone anddenied access to the temples, and she does not dare to appear in public.Sarmiento feels that these practices might have been sensible in a period ofover-population, but that they are ridiculous in Butua's present circumstances;as it is, the nation will be extinct in a century. The king follows the samecustom, indulging in unnatural sexual practices to prevent conception, andif he should forget himself and make one of his women pregnant, she iskilled. Women are locked up, punished, condemned to death for the leastthing, or sacrificed. For this and other reasons the number of women attendingthe king is constantly on the decline. Nor may a pregnant woman work inthe fields. Sarmiento thinks that there are no more than 30,000 people leftand that ultimately the Jagas will conquer, although they are tributaries atpresent: all they need is a leader. As far as Sarmiento is concerned, thecorruption of Butua is not necessarily a bad thing, for he sees the whole ofnature as a cycle of growth, decline and fall, so that the vices of the Romanemperors were a necessary part of a grand natural process. 'The evil whicha man does is only relative to the climate in which he lives. Do you need auniversal virtue, when the national virtue suffices for happiness?'A long time ago, Sarmiento continues, the Portuguese wanted to takeButua to link Moc^mbique and Benguela, but the people have never agreed.No, he has never tried to press for this. After all, he was exiled to theAfrican coast for embezzlement in the diamond mines of Rio de JaneiroD. N. BEACH57SAINVILLE AND THE CAPTIVES OF THE KING OF BUTUA (from the originaledition of Aline et Valcour).58 THE MARQUIS DE SADE: FIRST ZIMBABWEAN NOVELISTwhere he was a manager: 'I have, according to the practice of Europe, putmy fortune before that of the king, and been indiscreet and not sufficientlyunderhand.' As long as he has studied man, with his wise laws and superbmaxims, he has noticed that it is always the most guilty who is the happiest.No, it is by adapting to the customs of the country that one becomes success-ful, as he has become in Butua. Sainville will never be allowed to leave Butua,in case he should let the Portuguese know of its weakness. 'Why should thePortuguese want these countries like Butua?', asks Sainville. 'Don't you knowthat we Portuguese are the brokers of Europe, supplying Blacks to all thetraders of the world?' To Sainville's criticism of the slave trade, Sarmientoreplies that the fact that some nations are strong and some weak provesthat not all men are equal, any more than the helots of Sparta or the pariahsof India. 'The restraint of equal duty is a myth, my friend, it might workbetween equals but not between the superior and inferior,' Sarmiento tellsSainville. Europe enslaves Africa for the same reason that a butcher suppliesmeat. Everywhere the strong are right, can you think of anything moreeloquent? Sainville points out that Portugal has applied just this policy inBrazil only to fall subject to the English, who have become the true bene-ficiaries. Sarmiento replies that this is partly because of the French Bourbongrip on Spain, which has forced Portugal to subordinate its own industries tothose of England: 'This is the epoch of our ruin.' They continue to discussthe causes of the decline of Portugal, and both are more or less agreed thatthe real cause of this is Portugal's subservience to the Catholic Church andthe influence of the clergy in general and the Inquisition in particular.They then met a party of twenty tribute-women under escort on theirway to the king. Sainville wonders'how he will know how to choose womenwho will please the king; Sarmiento says he will point out the desirablefeatures of their bodies, and Sainville will look to Sarmiento for guidance.Sainville does in the end manage to make a selection. Sainville's enquiry asto the king's need for so many women leads to a long discussion of the natureof sexual attraction . . . variety excites the 'animal spirits'.The next day it turns out that Sainville has chosen well, and that theking spent the night in debauchery, purifying himself in the morning with thesacrifice of six victims. (Sainville declines Sarmiento's invitation to watchthis.) Sainville is conscience-stricken to have chosen them in the first place,whereupon the Portuguese points out that a general feels no remorse when,having defeated the enemy with his right wing, he loses the men of the leftwing in the process. Besides, those born in hot countries are more accustomedto brutality than northerners such as the Frenchman, and in Butua whereanimals drop dead in the heat of the summer between October and March . . .heat is a source of moral corruption. Sainville, he adds, tries to apply auniversal law to all climates.Sainville goes on to describe more of the cruelty practised by the men ofButua upon the women, even sons upon their mothers.Like Poland, Butua is divided into eighteen provinces, each under itschief, who can deal with his subjects as he likes. 'It isn't that they have noD. N. BEACH 59laws in this kingdom: perhaps they are too many; but they all tend to put theweak under the strong' on the same lines as in the household. The subjecthas rights only over his food and his land; all the rest belongs to the chiefwho sends a tribute of women, boys and food to the king four times a yearbut who receives a tribute himself. 'The crimes of theft and murder, absolutelynothing among the great, are punished with the most extreme rigour amongthe ordinary people, unless they commit them in their own homes.' Thechiefs save up criminals and then get together to torment them to death as akind of festival, followed by an orgy. The king does the same on a largerscale. The king, given sufficient excuse, can execute any of his chiefs, thoughthey would rebel if he over-reached himself. The eldest son of a chief succeedshis father, reducing the mother and sisters to servitude, unless he shouldmarry one of them, though that is much the same as subjection; if the motheris pregnant, she is made to abort her child. If the king dies, the chiefs engagein nine days of exploits of bravery against prisoners, criminals or amongthemselves, after the fashion of the Jagas, and the bravest chief in theseatrocities becomes the next king, unless he himself succumbs in the suceedingnine days of debauchery, in which case the selection process starts again. (It isfor this reason that kings care nothing for their children, because unlike thechiefs they have no hereditary succession.) The general slaughter is immense.12Each chiefdom sends archers and pikemen to the war, according to theneeds of the time. The religion is as dominant as that in Spain or Portugal.Each chief has a religious chief under him, and a hierarchy of priests underhim, serving a local idol like that in the capital. The snake is much revered.13The mixed snake-human image reflects the idea that the Creator made animalsas well as men. Sixteen victims from each province a year are sacrificed.Priestly education of the youth involves the teaching of a complete submissionof women to men and of men to priests, chiefs and the king. The priest-teacherstake the virginity of the girls in school, according to the law. Only thosedestined for the king are saved, but the rest Š boys and girls Š are defloweredon certain festival-days by the priests. In the capital, however, the king under-takes these duties. (The discussion then veers off into an argument on therelationship of homosexuality to the birthrate.) Crimes against religion arepunished even more severely than in Europe, usually by death.They have no writing and hence no sense of history. Their only exportsare rice, manioc and maize to the Jagas, who live in a land too sandy forcrops and who send fish in exchange. Quarrels over this trade often lead towars. They know nothing of politics and live for the present. There is a limitedknowledge of astronomy. The basic food is maize, fish and human flesh, forwhich they have public butcheries. Monkey flesh is valued. They make a12 This may be a reference to the pemberagtkns (from Shona kupembera (to dance forjoy)) or ritual combats recorded by the Portuguese as taking place on the death of a ruler.13 De Sade was quite wrong to impute idolatry to the Shona: the Portuguese made it clearthat it never occured in Shona religion. But in a private communication, Dr M. F. C. Bourdillonhas indicated that among the Tavara there are vestiges of the kind of snake cult found inreligions north of the Zambezi. This, too, was pure coincidence.60 THE MARQUIS DE SADE: FIRST ZIMBABWEAN NOVELISTspirit out of maize which is drunk neat or with water. They also preserveyams. There is no currency or equivalent. About twelve houses make a villageand seven or eight villages a district. If the district rulers offend the king,the villages are burned; often the villages refuse to obey these junior despots,who have little authority, whereupon a massacre follows. ,There is no allowance made for those unable to earn a living; they fallvictims to the rich and end up as sacrifices. The priests act as doctors, de- ;manding their payment in women, boys or slaves. Each chief has his harem,guarded by men who dare not step over the mark. Each harem has a seniorwoman in pharge (her children are legitimate) and she keeps her rank as longas she does not fall pregnant too often. The hunters use poisoned arrows toget their game, but they do not eat these poisoned animals, which includewildebeeste and giraffes. The people are very black, short, energetic, withshort curly hair and beautiful teeth, healthy and long-lived. They are lewd, >-cruel, given to vengeance, superstitious, treacherous, angry, lustful and ig-norant. The women are the most physically perfect, but the cruel treatmentthey receive means that few live to fifty; they are the only makers of pots, |baskets and mats. White women are a special target of the king, who gets somefrom the Jaga coast and buys others. There is no remorse at the death of a 'relation or friend, of whatever age. The old are considered better dead, forthen they can suffer no more. The dead are simply left below a tree with no >more ceremony than for an animal. If they die healthy, they are eaten. Theyrecognize souls, but have only a vague concept of them. The good and thebad alike are thought to live beside a beautiful river with ample White womenand fish. 'Death is a sleep after which you wake.' Sarmiento, as the king'sfavourite, gets bribes in the form of peasants' daughters.Sainville stays three months there and one day he goes to the assistanceof a woman who collapses in the fields. To protect her from her husband, he 'takes her and her children into his house. Sarmiento feels that this act ofkindness is against the law of the land. However, Sarmiento then tries tooverthrow the king, and is executed. Sainville, though declared innocent by the 'king, is much disturbed. He even misses the Portuguese. After delivering fivesquads of girls to the king, Sainville then tries to join a raid on a group ofWhite women at a small Portuguese fort on the frontiers of Monomotapa, at ?a moment when the passes in the mountains are left unguarded because of awar between the Borores and the Cimbas.14 Even if Leonore is not there, hemight be able to escape. But Ben Maacoro,guesses his reasons. The raiders gowithout him, drive the Portuguese out of Tete on the northern border ofMonomotapa, and seize four White women. After a long and embarrassingexamination of their bodies (one in particular) Š for their faces are veiled Šhe passes them on to the king. The next day, the king is strangely disturbed,and Sainville decides that he may have failed in his job and decides that it14 The wars of the 'Borores' (Romwe) and 'Cimbas' (Zimba) look place in the late sixteenthcentury. The Butuan raid on Tete, while introduced by de Sade to provide a climax to his'Butua' episode, may reflect the Changamire Rozvi campaigns of the 1690s.D. N. BEACH 61is time to leave. He hands his rescued woman over to the least unsuitable of theButua men. Three days after the arrival of the White women, he manages toleave the country and without delay finds himself in the Hottentotcountry beside the Berg river,15 and soon arrives at Cape Town, after onlyeighteen days of travel. He learns that someone like Leonore was aboard theDiscovery, commanded by Clark in Cook's fleet, which had called recently.So he sets out in pursuit of Cook in a Dutch vessel bound for Tahiti . . .To conclude, de Sade's Aline et Valcour tells us nothing about eighteenth-century Africa but it does throw light on the personality of the most peculiarman who chanced to be the first Zimbabwean novelist in the sense used above.Its summarization here is intended as no more than a rather dubious giftfrom History to other disciplines in the hope that they may be able to makesome use of it.15 It is amusing to note that, as long as it was necessary for Sainville to observe the customsof Butua and to converse with Sarmiento, it was impossible for him to escape, yet as soon asthe plot requires it, he may do so: 'With one bound, our hero was free'. Sainville's average ofabout seventy miles of walking a day to Cape Town was remarkable, but accuracy was hardlyde Sade's strong point.