Depictions of the depravity of tribal women
In the mid- to late-19th century, photographers attempted to capture the ethnographic reality of tribal customs under the "salvage" mentality that came to constitute disciplinary anthropology, documenting folk customs from yesteryear that would vanish with the encroach of modernity. This photograph from the AMAM appears to show a woman in traditional garb in a naturalistic setting, but upon closer inspection she is posed in a studio, calling into question the documentary nature of the ostensibly objective photograph. Entitled "Woman of Alger (harem slave)," it reduces this woman from one of many tribal groups to a colonial subject by defining her by her nation (Algeria), her ostensible lack of freedom (slave), and her sexual availability (harem).
The slavery of so-called harem women is also complicated by Dr. Bertherand's text in On Prostitution:
About eight in the morning, these soon scatter into the Moorish cafes crowded around the harem. Here to the sound of the music, almost always accompanied by a Basque tambourine, they strive by all kinds of dances and more or less lascivious poses, interspersed with songs, to arouse the desires of smokers or the idlers attracted by their presence.
Can it be believed? After two or three years exercising such a trade, the Ouled-Naïl girls, enriched with a small nest egg, are returning to their native tribe where they are very popular in marriage. Reintegrated into family life, no memory of the past will affect their consideration; nearly all affirmed they are renowned for their good behavior as mothers and wives. [9]
Dancers of the Ouled-Naïl, in this telling, thus may have their freedom curtailed while in the harem, but this is a temporary state. Dr. Bertherand nevertheless suggests they suffer from too much freedom in their ability to return to their tribe with their nest egg, and that there is too little stigma attached to their prostitution, thus his description of women as "more depraved than lascivious" at the beginning of his report.
[9] Translation by Greggor Mattson, PhD. 2016.