Doug Dee wrote:
> In a message dated 12/10/2002 9:27:05 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> kesuari@YAHOO.COM.AU writes:
>
>> Is there a better term than 'White' to describe us erm... White people?
>> We aren't very white (you'd be better off calling me red (even during
>> Winter II; it's not sunburn :P)),
>
> I'm told that the Australian aborigines call (or used to call) people
> of European extraction "red." (Perhaps a lot of them got sunburned.)
> Can you confirm that?
I've never heard of that before. I've also heard that when they first
saw white people (I think we're talking about the Dutch explorers who
landed in what was to become Western Australia), they decided they were
ghosts. Which leads me to wonder: what is it about ghosts that (a)
they're always pale and (b) even cultures as diverse as Australian
Indigenous and European have them?
Tristan