Wild Song

This sequel to the author’s memorable Bone Talk takes the story of Samkad and Luki five years on to 1904. Both still lead a tribal existence in the mountains of the Philippines, where with everyone else they are immersed in a complex network of beliefs. The most important of these consists of honouring and protecting the Dead. But Luki is also a natural rebel who insists on hunting even when this is forbidden to females by the village elders. At risk of isolation, she signs on for a trip to America where she and others of her community will be exhibits at the St Louis World Fair. Once there, excitements and anxieties pile up before she has to decide whether to stay on to enjoy her new freedoms or else return with Samkad to the rich but rigid conventions at home.

Based on research, this is a story that entertains while also describing a moment of history still comparatively little known. A child of her time, Luki is also very much a modern young woman, resentful of patriarchal control wherever it comes from. Gourlay also touches on the nineteenth century craze for eugenics, with Luki wondering why her own people are scorned as head-hunters while American scientists are busy collecting and measuring indigenous skulls. The World Fair experience turns out to be not all bad, despite the inevitable humiliation living a semi-public existence in a Human Zoo. But some of the locals are not friendly, particularly those who had fought in the often brutal Philippine-American war between 1899 and 1902. As racism increasingly rears its ugly head, the two adolescents return home. Both they and any young reader of this brilliant novel are left with a great deal think about.

Read the BFK Authorgraph interview with Candy Gourlay.