STERN
slide projection of microfilm, 2009
Ted Strehlow, son of German Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow, was the first white man ever who had become the custodian of aboriginal artefacts and knowledge due to his close relationship with the indigenous Australians around Hermannsburg where he grew up.
In the late 1970s he sold photographs of "secret men's business" of the Arrernte tribe to the German magazine STERN. The journalists were not allowed to publish these pictures before Strehlow's death but nevertheless resold them to the Australian PEOPLE magazine. This publication caused an outrage amongst Aboriginal people because the photos revealed their most treasured secrets.
Strehlow's deal with the STERN was widely regarded as high treason amongst Aboriginal people and justified by Strehlow with the Arrernte culture having died with the last traditional owners who had been "through the law". It was them who had entrusted him with their cultural essence due to the lack of a properly initiated youth. Strehlow dies suddenly of a heart attack shortly before the opening of the STREHLOW RESEARCH CENTRE for Arrernte culture. Eventually the photos got published in Germany, too.
Today that notorious issue of the STERN from april 1980 is difficult to come by in printed form but easily found in microfilm archives of public libraries. Due to the quality of this medium which adds high contrasts in order to maintain a good readability of text all images usually get "burnt" and thus blackened so that in this case the faces of deceased persons, images of sacred rituals and places of ceremony get obscured.