iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

[ididjaustralia]

Hey Dan,

You asked what else is on my bookshelf that is interesting reading and that I can recommend. Here's one for you. It is Professional Savages: Captive Lives and Western Spectacle by Roslyn Poignant. The blurb is as follows:

Quote:

In August 1882 the circus impresario P. T. Barnum wrote to American consulates and agents around the world for assistance in assembling a collection 'of all the uncivilized races in existence'. Within months the showman and self-declared man-hunter R. A. Cunningham, already in Australia, had 'recruited' a group of North Queensland Aborigines and shipped them to San Francisco. In this fascinating and often searing narrative, Roslyn Poignant pieces together the experience of two groups of reluctant travellers. Exhibited in circuses, dime museums, fairgrounds and other show places in America and Europe, they were also examined, measured and photographed by anthropologists. Displayed as cannibals and brutish specimens on the metropolitan exhibition circuit - Crystal Palace in London, the Folies-Bergere in Paris, Berlin's Panoptikum, St Petersberg's Arcadia, the imperial court in Constantinople, the World's Fair in Chicago and Coney Island, New York - they transformed themselves into accomplished show people and professional savages. Thrust into the harsh world of commercial spectacle, the survival of the Aboriginal performers depended on the strengths they drew from their own culture and their individual adaptability. Few ever returned to Australia. Most died somewhere on tour. A century later, in October 1993, the mummified body of Tambo, the first to die, was discovered in the basement of a recently closed funeral home in Cleveland, Ohio. Tambo's posthumous repatriation stimulated a cultural renewal within the community from which he came and exposed the roots of present social and economic injustices experienced by Indigenous Australians.

This is an outstanding piece of research, well-written and an illuminating read. Poignant is an honorary research fellow in the Department of Anthropology at University College London and a member of AIATSIS.

Guan

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[danielsaan]

Dear Guan

Thanks for the advice, once again. I will go out and pick the book up, if I can track it down.

BTW, I have been quizzing Australians about they think of Kevin Rudd. What is your view?

Thanks for the recommendation

_________________
Danyu

[ididjaustralia]

Shouldn't be a difficult book to find especially in the UK.

As for Rudd, he's ratified Kyoto, that must be a good start to his term in office. We'll wait and see what else he delivers. He is a bit of an unknown quantity so no-one really knows what he is like and I don't have any views on him for that reason.

The NT scene is interesting though, as Marion Scrymgour is now Deputy Chief Minister with the resignation of Clare Martin and her deputy Syd Stirling. Scrymgour was the first Indigenous woman to be a minister at any level of government in Australia. Cool eh?

Guan

_________________
iDIDJ Australia - Didgeridoo Cultural Hub
E-mail: info@ididj.com.au
Web: www.ididj.com.au
YouTube: www.youtube.com/ididjaustralia