The late 1800s and early 1900s saw an emerging literary category specifically for adolescent girls in Germany. The particular schema – and I know because I was raised on these books, some 70 years later, – dealt with an adventurous, contrarian girl who would be sent off to aunts or boarding school where she was “domesticated,” leaving occasional outbursts of natural temperament to be enjoyed by her future husband smiling benevolently on his darling wife, marriage being the end-game. Marriage, after learning to be obedient and quiet. Hm.

They all had titles of pet names  with the diminutive “chen” (little one) attached – Backfischchens Leiden und Freuden, Trotzköpfchen, Nesthäkchen. (The first from 1860 refers to the name given to tweens, literally baked fish, not yet out of the oven; the second one from the 1900s means defiant head and the third refers to the last born in a family, the little addendum to the nest. )

The only way these young girls could experience adventure was to marry a colonialist, travel to East Africa, domesticate the natives in turn and report about the hardship with the climate, the tribes, the husbands at war.  (There was also a whole adult literature of young women publishing their diaries encouraging others to come to Africa and help make the colonies strong….) The racist crap that was inherent in these young adult novels slipped by unnoticed and buried deep. The very fact that this was the only approved way to get out of the stifling republic as a girl was echoed by the fact that these books found millions of readers and were published in 48 editions or more. The equivalent for boys were adventure stories like “From Kairo To Kapstadt” or some such, where the boys were encouraged to seek service in the colonies as the ticket to large animal hunting (and promoting the glory of the Reich). Which brings me to Rhinos – hunting a crash of rhinos was the highlight of these adventure stories for this 9 year old…. never mind I had never seen one.

They can weigh up to six tons and run between 30 and 40 miles per hour – inconceivably fast. The white and the black rhino are threatened with extinction due to poaching for their desired horns. Both, by the way, are grey and differentiated really by their lip shape. The wide mouth of one, weit in Africaans, was mistranslated as white, thus the name.

Save the rhino.org says:

“Relative to their large body size, rhinoceros have small brains. But this doesn’t mean they are stupid.”

They also say:

“Black rhinos fight each other and have the highest rate of death among mammals in fights among the same species. Fifty percent of males and 30% of females die from these intra-species fights.

I’d call that pretty stupid……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did eventually make it to Africa, unmarried no less, but only the North – never saw a rhino outside a zoo.