Travelling

“…On 24. November, I said goodbye. Actually, I didn’t want to say goodbye. After all, it is much easier to go with the flow of behavior; but something inside me pushed me, it was not the desire for adventure, it was a call of set, unavoidable task. Since then I have always believed in a kind of destiny.«

Fearless, independent and very talented Alma went on a trip around the world in 1919 with little money, a typewriter and dictionary of ten foreign languages, which she has prepared by herself. Alma has planned that trip will take two, maximum three years. In fact, it has then taken around eight years.

From Celje’s railway station she initially drove to Trieste. Time after the 1st World War, of course, was not on her side, as in the world, there was resistance to the German-speaking people, which resulted also in extremely difficulty to obtain visas; Yugoslav citizenship has at least to some extent made easier to get those. First, she wanted to see India but British authorities did not allow it. In Trieste her money fast land, because she had to wait five weeks for ship and visa. She wanted to visit Japan, but due to unfavorable shipping links she has decided to come to Japan through South America and Hawaii.

The two-month trip to Peru was spent in unbearable conditions, scarce food and dirt. When she disembarked on 5. April she was as a white woman, alone in the middle of Peru, constantly in danger. She was accused of being disguised spy, many times they tried to attack her, so she slept dressed, with a poisoned dagger under her pillow, ready at any moment to escape . In Peru, she met with witchcraft and superstition of the Inca nation. Then she led the way to Panama. Here she closer got to know Voodoo sorcerers and employed herself in the administration of Canal as the first female court translator. A year later she moved on along the coast of Central America, made a short stop in Nicaragua and Ecuador, and so arrived in the United States, on the west coast.

»Los Angeles is a place of dying. People who enter into good business here, are mainly undertakers. They offer mostly funeral rooms offered as the hotel ones . Many believe that in this favorable climate under the eternal sun they can be cured, then leave their bones in the soft brown sand. For the same reason here thrive various religious sects, as in so many burials world beyond becomes even more interesting. Film companies appear until the third plan«.

Her first long stop was in Hawaii, where she was in Honolulu and worked as a translator at the museum and thus earned money to continue her journey.

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She traveled to Korea and then in Manchuria, China, and from there to Taiwan, where she visited Tajals, hunters on human heads.

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Alma made very detailed reviews of visited places, their history and general and spiritual traditions and other characteristics of the countries. All places, flora and fauna she also precisely sketched or painted in many memos and also governed even herbarium. Herbarium of Australia and New Zealand is preserved.

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Her next destination was Australia. On the way there she stopped in Manila, Borneo, Pearl Islands, as well as through Thursday Islands arrived in Sidney and Adelaida.

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She was interested in education and social status of women, in particular, has studied the ancient religious traditions, magic, shamanism, herbs, symbols and mythology as well as about sending contributions to a number of newspapers and magazines around the world, but she often did not receive any fee or is this was extremely modest.

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On the trip she gathered smaller and larger objects and kept sending mails via ship to home land. Since she did not have a camera while travelling, she bought postcards of places where she was located; but when these were not available, she drew the details of landscape and place by herself. A comprehensive album with photographs and illustrations of flora and fauna with some exotic south sea islands is persisted.

At the Lake Sentani in New Guinea she was also on the border of until then known world, because until that time no expedition came so far. There she has even met with cannibals, but was lucky that she survived this meeting.

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From the trip she has returned over Indonesia and stopped in Java, Sumatra and arrived in Singapore and then came through Burma to India. All the time she spent with her own work, living in poverty and suffering from severe malaria.

Alma in her observations was not personal, what her contemporaries criticized, but this is now the basis of modern research; she looked at the things she knew that they would move. She did not go to the expeditionary travels, she didn’t discover archaeological finds, but was reaching the reachable – the spiritual world of local people.

India was her last stop on the long journey. In India, she gave lectures on peace and for this received a special award.

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From Karachi in January 1928 she at the request of her dying mother returned home. To Celje she traveled through the Adena, Port Sudan, Suez, Venice and Trieste; she appeared at home emaciated, seriously ill and impoverished.

After returning home, Alma had a lot of high-profile lectures. She also lectured at various European universities and female societies. Most of objects that she accumulated on her travels, were sent to home. Some specimens preserved from her travels are now stored in the Regional Museum in Celje, where is arranged a permanent ethnographic collection of Alma Karlin.