Publisher HarperCollins apologized yesterday for offending indigenous Australians after complaints that an upcoming edition of The Daring Book for Girls breaks Aboriginal taboos by encouraging girls to play the didgeridoo.
Mark Rose, head of the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association, said the publisher made “an extreme faux pas” by including a chapter on how to play the Aboriginal musical instrument in its Australian edition.
Traditionally, women do not play the didgeridoo, a long, hollow wooden tube played by buzzing the lips into one end. Rose said that women who break that taboo could face infertility or worse.
The Australian version of The Daring Book for Girls — a bestseller in the US — will be released next month. The book will replace some of the original content with uniquely Australian material, including the rules of netball, how to surf and didgeridoo-playing instructions.
He told the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Tuesday afternoon that the offensive chapter was equal to “encouraging someone to play with razor blades.”
Rose said the mistake was also the fault of the ignorance of the Australian public in general.
“I would say from an indigenous perspective, [it was] an extreme mistake, but part of a general ignorance that mainstream Australia has about Aboriginal culture,” Rose said.
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