iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

[danielsaan]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Guan very kindly sent me a copy of Roberta Syke's 'Snake Cradle' and I wanted to share a little of it with you. This book is about Roberta's life from birth until she is around 18 years old. It does not deal so much with indiginous politics (Mabo, Wik, Redfern as examples of this), but looks at life as an indiginous woman in Townsville and Brisbane. Roberta's book is told in a stream of conciousness, only slightly fettered by chapters. Memory after memory is described. It is not what you'd call a happy book. Lots of good things happen to her, but it really seems to be a book about growing up on a backdrop of racism and religious intolerance. Throughout the book her arc of learning is prevalent - as she learns about life around her, as she learns about her family (and how she is misdirected on that score). The life she leads is a direct response to the time she lives in, and discovering that is next on my mission, as my knowledge of the stolen generation and so on is very limited.

Gradually throughout the book her memories become darker and more inward looking. My interest in Redfern has made me stick at this book, because although it is not mentioned formally in Snake Cradle, I get the feeeling that it is will do in Roberta's second book 'Snake Dancing'. 'Snake Cradle' is to set the scene.

While not a happy book, it is certainly interesting and well written. With luck a stepping stone to other things.


Dan

[danielsaan]

Well, I am about 10 pages of completion of the trilogy (Snake Cradle, Snake dancing and Snake Dreaming). It has been a rough ride, for me and for the author. She has had a rough life (including rape and racism) but seems to have come through it well enough to be able to talk about it in a substantial biography. Guan suggsted I read the book in the light of the activism that is focusses around in later chapters, and for that aspect I am very pleased I read it. It has made me aware of aboriginal political people such as MumShirl and Gary Foley (who I am intending on researching later on), made me aware of the tent embassy and so on. More interestingly I can see that the movement in Australia is comparable to the movement of Afro-americans and native americans in the USA - first peoples are first peoples where ever they are.

This book is not a happy book in many ways, but it is triumphant. It is about one life and does not try to cover more than a fraction of Australia and its politics, but it is a stepping stone for me to go and find out more.

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Danyu