|
|
 |
|
|
|
Amazon.co.uk
April
2000
by Sean Thomas |
 |
History, with its loose ends, rough edges,
strange anomalies and surreal quirks, is rarely neat.
The quirky and anomalous leftover colonial communities
described in Lost White Tribes are a case in point. As
Milanese journalist Riccardo Orizio puts it in the introduction,
the European emigrants left stranded by the retreating
tides of imperialism are among today's "forgotten
people".
One such tribe is the Burghers of Sri Lanka, an enclave
of Netherlanders who stayed East after the Dutch Empire
was overrun by the British around 1800. As Orizio wanders
among the Burghers' crumbling bungalows and pre-war ballrooms,
he finds a half-assimilated people fond of operatic melancholy
and short-wave radio, prone to singing a national anthem
that sums up their linguistic and ethnic confusion: "We
subjects of great England's King, From Ceylon's distant
strand, To thee our loving tribute bring, Het Lieve Vaterland".
Other tribes Orizio encounters are equally obscure. In
Brazil he meets Confederate Americans. In Guadaloupe he
uncovers incestuous Normans. In Haiti, he holes up with
Poles.
But perhaps most remarkable is the last community he encounters:
the Basters of Namibia. A miraculous hybrid of Bushman
and Afrikaaner, these green-eyed, pale-faced, somehow
"Oriental-looking" people, fled the British
imperialists of the Cape Colony to settle in the deserts
of South West Africa. There they survived, and even thrived:
they became known for their devout ways, as well as the
beauty of their uniquely petite women. Orizio's eloquent
descriptions of the offbeat Basters--their tenacity, integrity,
and bravery--stand comparison with some of the best travel
writing of recent years, and are a fitting end to a profoundly
intriguing book. |
|
|
|
|
 |
Lost White Tribes
Journeys among the Forgotten
Secker & Warburg
London, 6 April 2000 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
Lost White Tribes
Journeys among the Forgotten
Vintage
London, 1 March 2001 |
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
Tribù bianche perdute
Viaggio tra i dimenticati
Laterza
Roma, Ottobre 2000 |
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
Lost White Tribes
The
Free Press
New York, July 2001 |
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
Vergeten Blanke Stammen
Meulenhoff
Amsterdam, October 2000 |
|
| |
|
|
