The 'hard and dry' Viennese who was happy among cannibals
There are people so complex that a single definition does not cover them. I'll give you an example. If I tell you about a woman who, at the age of 45, abandons the role of housewife and domestic obligations, and sets out to travel the world alone, perhaps it will arouse their curiosity, especially when they learn that she did it during the prudish XIX century. On the other hand, if I mention a grumpy, unpleasant person, who only sees faults in others and distrusts any culture that is not their own, they may frown. All of this describes Ida Laura Reyer (1797-1858), the Viennese explorer, who is usually referred to by her married name: Ida Pfeiffer.
This extravagant mother of a family traveled twice around the world, visited many countries, was the first European to explore the interior of Borneo, interfered in the xenophobic riots in China, toured northern India following the course of the Ganges River, crossed Central Asia in caravan and published several travel books that had millions of readers. Can you imagine her in baggy pants, vests full of pockets, or dressed up to go unnoticed? Not by a long shot, she never took off her corseted black dresses with hoop skirts or her cap, signs of modesty and honorability.
The chronicles of her mention her short, bony and with a permanent angry face
Her chronicles mention her short, bony, with a permanent angry face, ready to reprimand whoever got in front of her. She excerpted some comments from her diaries. Of the Balinese she wrote that they were "deformed by a long protruding jaw and a huge mouth." Of the Malagasy, who "combine the most horrendous features of blacks and Malays." She made the Andean peoples ugly by her attitude towards life: "Even worse than ugliness is her laziness." On Polynesians: “Their dances are the most indecent I have ever seen. In them I found only sensuality, no lofty, noble passion." As you can see, she was rather severe in her evaluations.
She also accused the Europeans who preceded her of being liars because they had praised "music without melody" or "almost motionless choreography". As a climax, she concludes: "The European is dazzled by those massive beauties, black or dirty brown, who are more like monkeys than women." Ida Pfeiffer never harbored the slightest doubt that she belonged to the only civilization worthy of the name: the Viennese.
Of course that is not the whole truth. Let me introduce a bit of context.
Ida Laure was born into a rather rare bourgeois family. She had six siblings, all boys. Her father, a merchant, was an authoritarian type with a sadistic vision of pedagogy: he wanted his children to control desires and frustration. To achieve this, he educated them as long-suffering soldiers, poorly sheltered, poorly fed, without toys or affection. Paradoxically, she Ida she would always yearn for that Spartan era.
In 1806, when she is 9 years old, her father dies. Things could have gotten better then, but she rebels against her mother and loathes all women along the way. She devotes herself to the practice of violent sports, even burning her fingertips so that they do not force her to play the piano, an activity that she considers unmanly. She rejects femininity.
For 12 years, while her two children are being educated, she devotes herself to learning geography in secret.
Things change when her mother hires a tutor. «She was the first good and kind person with me. I clung to him with a kind of passion. I even learned to sew or cook », she admits. Her mother introduces her suitors, she rejects them. She finally confesses her feelings, but Mom forbids any relationship with the young man, whom she considers insufficient for Ida. Trained in obedience, she complies.
@not_a_funkiller Ok, now I remember they are talking about how to deal with the pain of divorce. They are just friends here.
— Eowyn Sun Feb 28 13:26:34 +0000 2021
She complies so much that she accepts as her husband a maternal candidate, the lawyer Mark Anton Pfeiffer, 24 years older than her. Of course, discard any passionate fickleness. The highest compliment she gives him is that he "seems to me a reasonable and very well-educated man." They marry on May 1, 1820. From the first moment, Ida becomes a meticulous and nondescript housewife, who educates her children with a heavy hand.
Things take a turn for the worse when a corruption scandal leaves the Pfeiffers out of business. The couple liquidates their properties, fires the service... 18 long years of hardships are ahead that Ida manages with cold efficiency.
In the midst of this daily wilderness, a momentous event occurs: Ida discovers the sea. It takes place in Trieste, where she admires the tall ships that come and go from the East. Ida fantasizes. The following twelve years, while her two children study and train, she dedicates herself to learning geography in secret. She memorizes the names of rivers and mountain ranges, studies maritime lines, finds out about borders... Imagine the perplexity of her family when, one day, she announces that she is leaving them and runs away without money or company. On March 22, 1842, she takes flight; If I have seen you, I don't remember.
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Pepe VerduThe cliché claims that travel opens the mind. Silence that we travel with our prejudices in tow. Ida also does it with the mentality of an ant, she applies the method and discipline of a poor housewife to make ends meet. She prepares each route thoroughly, she intends to see the most and spend the least. She never miscalculates.
She does not hesitate to scrounge those who cross her path. She learns how to get letters of recommendation addressed to European families. If she welcomes her generously, she treats them well on her daily basis. If she isn't, she puts them back and a half. During this first trip around the world, her evaluations do not worry. The same does not happen after her: her extremely read books leave more than one in an ungrateful position. They fear her invective. In her own way, she becomes a prescriber, she gets ahead of the travel guides; or extortionist, as you prefer,
In Mesopotamia she explores the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, infested with bandits.
If the recommendations do not work, sleep in shelters, stables or outdoors, where necessary. On board ships, on deck. When she can eat for free, she swells up. If not, she gets by with next to nothing. She fights cold and heat like hunger: enduring them. Her books will also rate the comfort of the ships and the generosity of their captains.
In Rio de Janeiro, someone alienated from her wounds her with a knife, while she defends herself with umbrellas. She then rounds Cape Horn heading for Chile, she visits Tahiti, Macao, Hong Kong and Canton, where she is shot for being a foreigner, she explores India, whose elites entertain her and invite her to tiger hunts. Not everything is hauja, she also travels long distances on carts pulled by oxen. During her stay in Mesopotamia she explores the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, infested with bandits.
In Kurdistan she gives another example of her character: «A seven-year-old girl was very rude. When she was not given what she asked for, she would throw herself on the ground and scream in a horrible way. I tried to make her understand that her behavior was inappropriate. I got it. (...) I had the same success with women. After pointing out their torn dresses, I went to find thread and taught them how to sew. When they ignore her, she gets angry. She even hits the children. She attributes her small victories to steadfastness and cold-bloodedness. She probably also chimes in the amused puzzlement of her hosts.
She finally returns to Vienna in November 1848, after visiting the Caucasus, Istanbul and Athens. In 1850 she published a woman's trip around the world (Barrabés Editorial, 2006), the chronicle of her adventure.
In 1851 she undertook her second trip around the world alone.
You would think that she, at her age and with such a low opinion of the rest of the world, would be satisfied and dedicate the rest of her life to rocking chairs, braziers and cats. They don't know Ida Pfeiffer well enough: in 1851 she undertook her second trip around the world alone.
This time she is already a celebrity. The railway and shipping companies give him free tickets and passages. She begins her journey in South Africa, from where she moves to Singapore, and from there to Borneo, an island larger than France. She has heard that one of her territories, Sarawak, is governed by an Englishman named James Brooke, and that there are more monkeys than men there. This is fortunate, because the natives have a thoughtless habit of cutting off the heads of their enemies and hanging them on the walls of their huts. Brooke behaves there like a head of state: he makes laws, dispenses justice... his descendants, by the way, administered Sarawak for more than a hundred years, they were known as the white rajas.
In Sarawak, Pfeiffer hears legends about the Dayak culture, the feared headhunters. She goes looking for her, perhaps driven by curiosity. The first community she meets gives her a bad impression: according to her, they are dirty, ugly, go naked, delouse like monkeys, live with pigs... To make matters worse, her chief's hut exhibits 36 skulls.
However, little by little the valuation improves. Her notes begin to record that they are also kind without being annoying, they are honest and helpful... They help her collect insects for her collections without asking for rewards or gifts in return for her. And they don't steal. It is true that women go naked, but they are not concupiscent. They also work all day, a habit she values.
Eager to delve into that culture, she embarks on a trip on a sailboat accompanied by a guide. They go up the Secaran River, visiting the towns settled on its banks. The entourage soon increases. She replaces the little boat with a canoe propelled by ten oarsmen. She sleeps at night in the cabins of the villages, surrounded by indigenous people and skulls. She intends to climb the mountains, cross the watershed and then descend the Kapuas River to the Dutch port of Pontianak, in the west of the island.
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Pepe VerduIda Pfeiffer stays 6 months in Borneo, it will be her longest stay. She then visits Java and Sumatra, also in the Indonesian archipelago, where the Batak have just devoured two missionaries. They are cannibals. The colonial authorities beg her not to enter the territory, no European came out of there alive. She is afraid, but her stubbornness is stronger. She cunning, she learns to mumble a phrase in the local language: «You are not going to eat an old woman like me, with hard and dry meat». The ferocious cannibals cringe at hearing it. She spends another three happy months in Sumatra.
From there she travels through the Moluccas Islands and crosses the Pacific to California, where she arrives in September 1853. She knows the gold rush first hand. She then she toured South America and, again, North America. She visits the slave markets of New Orleans, explores the Great Lakes, admires the Niagara River Falls... During November 1854 she lands in London, from where she returns to Vienna.
In Madagascar, cajoled, she becomes involved in a coup that aims to depose Queen Ranavalona I.
In 1856, she published all four volumes of her diary of this trip. She titled it My second trip around the world (not translated into Spanish). Her popularity is already immense.
She still has the courage to make one last trip to Mauritius and Madagascar in May of that year. On the second island she lives her worst experience. She cajoled by French agents, she gets involved in a coup that aims to depose Queen Ranavalona I. Her good faith loses her. Warned of the plot, the sovereign expels all the conspirators, including Ida Pfeiffer. The road to the coast takes 53 days through swampy territory, in the rain, with no spare clothes. Ida sick with malaria, she suffers from fever-induced hallucinations... she just longs to get to Vienna.
She will never recover. Especially since malaria is complicated by incurable liver cancer. The last few weeks she spends drugged, she needs opium to make the pain bearable. She died on October 28, 1858. Her children published the memoirs of that trip in 1861 posthumously.
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