Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It's extremely rare that Australian aborigines choose one person to speak for them collectively, this book made it happen. Robert Eggelston, director of an aboriginal cultural institute was empowered by a coalition of many tribes to condemn this book as a fabrication and a fraud. He travelled in the outback for 16 months trying to find any aborigines who had heard of Ms Morgan or the 'Real People' tribe she claims to have met. No one had. Is it plausible that a previously unknown American woman would discover a tribe that has evaded discovery by european settlers for 200 years and by other tribes for 50 000 years or more? Morgan claims her story is true, and only sold as a novel to protect this special tribe. But almost every page of this book contains "facts" that are so wildly innaccurate that it is inconcieivable that she experienced anything of the desert, let alone ancient nomadic ways and lore. She describes cutting her feet horrendously while walking over spinifex grass, but spinifex grows in clumps and in the desert is widely spaced. Not even experienced bushman can walk around in the desert sun heat without a hat, the way Ms Morgan claims she has. People die doing that, including aborigines. Ms Morgan survives, however and even meets crocodiles out there. The tribe she describes is nothing like any other aborigines in Australia, but surprisingly similar to American Indians. This tribe has a chief, like no other in Australia, and he wears a head dress of parrot feathers. Names and tribal structures are completely unlike anything in ANY Australian tribe, but, again, more like Native Americans, as are desriptions of rituals, and musical instruments. Her descriptions of nomad life often seem derived partly from books and partly from pure fantasy. Her 'tribe' pay no respect to territories of other tribes, enter sacred sites without ritual preparation, carry all sorts of stuff with them and use valuable water for cooking. They collect dingo droppings for fuel - although dead wood is far more plentiful. Her description of the way didgeridoos are made is completely wrong.They are cut from living trees, not dead ones; termites are found on the inside not on the outside (they die in heat and light); and they do not make "sawdust" - they digest wood. Anyone who has actually seen this could not make these kind of errors. This book is neither fact nor fiction. It misrepresesents exploits indigenous Australians with its claims of authenticity, and exploits her readers' spiritual longing and desire to connect with and learn from the indigenous peoples of the earth. The fact that this book has achieved mainstream popularity indicates a genuine and widespread desire to learn about aboriginal spirituality. I find it a tragedy that this gap is being filled by such a culturally worthless piece of deception.