My Life with Kangaroos: A Deaf Woman's Remarkable Story

20. Aboriginals

222 20 Aboriginals WAS it really only the kangaroos that constantly drew me like a magnet to Australia? Were there not people who had been living there for a long time on this huge island at the other end of the world? These questions, which I had asked myself for some time, were rather unpleasant, if not a trifle embarrassing. I have to admit that I regarded the Aboriginals, the true natives of the continent, with a mixture of shyness and apprehension and never dared to approach them. Secretly, I was always ashamed of myself on this point. When I was about eleven years old, I gradually became aware of what kind of place my beloved animals came from. It was hot as the tropics of Africa, which I had also learned about at that time. That there were light-skinned people living in Australia was something I also knew. On the other hand, I knew nothing of the language spoken there. In my childlike tendency to simplify everything, I imagined that the people living so far away would speak an appropriately outlandish language. One day I asked my father about this, and he told me that English was spoken there. I was a little taken aback since I had always regarded English as a European language. I declared myself there and then as willing to learn this language one day. So far, so good. At some time or other, I began to consider the question as to whether there were black people in Australia as there were in Africa. The answers I received from my family members on these issues were either evasive or superficial. 9781563685590_My Life with Kangaroos.indd 222 4/8/13 11:04 AM Aboriginals 223 One afternoon I recall visiting the Ethnology Museum in Basel, and once there, I pushed my way into the section devoted to Australia. Even the steps to this department were flanked by rows of impressive spears, and I asked my mother whether Australians hunted kangaroos with them. She said yes, although at that time it was not clear to me that she knew extremely little about these matters. She surprised me with a counterquestion: whether I would paint my face and body like the indigenous people. At first I didn’t know what she meant until she pointed to the black-and-white photographs on the wall, which depicted these indigenous people. Now it was clear at last that there were dark-skinned people living in Australia. What I also saw did not please me at all. On the contrary. The many, brilliant white lines and points adorning these black bodies , for example, filled me with aversion. A little put off by it all, I said “no” to my mother’s inquiry, adding that, as a light-skinned person, bodily adornment of this kind would never please me. But, after all, what did a child of my age know about the cultures and traditions of Australia? DURING adolescence, I slowly broadened my knowledge about Aboriginal tradition, and every piece of new information was accompanied by a host of daydreams. There was then a period in which I sated my thirst for knowledge by consulting dictionaries about matters Australian whenever I had a chance. In so doing, I discovered pictures and read the histories of a number of different tribes of Aboriginals. The sight of their broad nostrils and prominent, ridged bones over their eyes left a rather shocked impression. What also astonished me was to encounter the occasional blonde or even redhead among them. While looking at these pictures, I was overcome by the conviction that here we had to do with unapproachable, primordial beings that I would never meet. For a long time after this particular visit to the museum, I was dogged by the question of whether these people really belonged to the human species. I began from then on to 9781563685590_My Life with Kangaroos.indd 223 4/8/13 11:04 AM 224 MY LIFE WITH KANGAROOS strictly discriminate between “Aboriginals”37 and the indigenous peoples of Africa. A Secret Message from Uluru WHEN I was about fourteen, I often used to read fairy tales or reports of experiences with animals that contained episodes from Australia. One evening I came across an old book that contained an illustration that, as I looked at it more closely, made my hands shake. The lithograph showed two white...