Snake Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta

By the renowned author of Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story, and First Nations researcher Megan Kelleher, comes this fascinating investigation into the symbol of the serpent.

‘I love this book. Every page is an illumination.’ Bronwyn Bancroft

Tyson Yunkaporta’s bestselling Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story cast an Indigenous lens on contemporary society. Snake Talk is the third book in this trilogy. Co-authored with Megan Kelleher, Snake Talk explores Indigenous thinking through the symbol of serpent, a common foundational narrative. Snake myths echo from a time before truth, and retain the capacity, at this inflection point in history where truth is daily manipulated by bad actors, to unify, humble and inspire us. The serpent in Australian Aboriginal stories is both a creator and destroyer, dwelling in the liminal spaces between physical and spiritual worlds, story and history. What if this ancient lore extended around the globe? What if the creation stories of the Basilisk, Wyvern, Naga, Quetzalcoatl and many others carried secrets that might help resolve global issues of existential crisis?

In this exhilarating book, the authors speak to elders from Kathmandu to Aotearoa to South America and Europe about a pluriverse of serpent stories, seeking answers to the age-old riddle of how to align the genius of our species with the regenerative patterns of creation. They speak to the makers-the artists and craftspeople who keep the sacred lore of these serpent entities in the ritual images and objects they create. They explore everything from artificial intelligence to immigration through the lens of global serpent lore-through the eye of the snake.

By the renowned author of Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story, and First Nations researcher Megan Kelleher, comes this fascinating investigation into the symbol of the serpent

About the Author: Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne, and author of Sand Talk and Right Story, Wrong Story. His work focuses on applying Indigenous methods of inquiry to resolve complex issues and explore global crises.

Megan Kelleher belongs to the Barada and Kapalbara peoples of Central Queensland and the branch of the Kelleher clan living in regional Victoria. She is currently undertaking her PhD at RMIT University in the School of Media and Communication and was honoured to be awarded one of RMIT’s Vice Chancellor’s Indigenous Pre-Doctoral Fellowships in 2018. Megan is investigating whether the affordances of blockchain technology are culturally appropriate for Indigenous governance, and is undertaking this research as a core member of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) and as a PhD Candidate within The ARC Centre of Excellence for
Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S). When she is not training to be an academic, Megan is a devoted mother of her three beautiful children, Eden, Diver and Onyx.

02 Sep 2025
 

Snake Talk: How global serpent stories can save reality by Tyson Yunkaporta ISBN 9781923058460