Category Archives: Bush Food

Of Brolgas, Birds and History

02 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by in Aboriginal, Bush Food, Uncategorized, Wildlife

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Sometimes a small, seemingly insignificant part of the historic record can provide a window into another world, given fresh insight. This week, hearing a talk by ecologist Matt Herring about Brolga conservation provided a new lens through which to view our history.

In the corn stubble

Brolgas feeding in one of their favourites, corn stubble. (Image: Ian Sutton, via Wikimedia commons.)

‘In one of the adjoining paddocks, within view of the house, the “native companions” resort, frequently eight or ten together. They are very tame, and stand very erect on their long legs; their weight, when shot, is from 18 to 23 lbs. each, with feathers.’ [1]

So wrote Mary Spencer into her diary one February day, during her stay at Bontharambo Homestead (belonging to squatter Joseph Docker) in 1855. Although I’d read it a dozen or so times, it remained relatively meaningless to me, until last Wednesday when I attended a talk by ecologist Matt Herring, arranged by Corowa Landcare to launch their booklet (authored by Matt): Brolga Breeding Habitat — A Guide to Managing Wetlands on Your Farm. [2]

Matt’s talk was about the conservation of Brolgas (Antigone rubicunda), particularly their breeding and flocking habitats. In truth, I was only attending his lecture because my partner Scott Hartvigsen went to university with Matt, and they have worked together in field ecology. When I arrived to hear Matt talk, my ignorance about Brolgas was so dense I wasn’t even aware that they were a member of the crane family, let alone that they stand almost 1.5 metres tall and have massive wingspans — often over 2 metres. All I knew for certain was that they were a large bird found somewhere ‘up north’, and that they are celebrated for their spectacular courtship dances, especially in Aboriginal cultures throughout the country.

By the end of Matt’s talk, I had learned that not only do Brolgas breed in wetlands close to Yarrawonga, Benalla and Ruthergen, and in the southern Riverina in places like Urana, Jerilerie, Boree Creek, Lockhart, and The Rock (to name but a few localities), but also, that until recent decades Brolgas were found in many other places, including at Towong on the Upper Murray. Unfortunately, destruction of their favourite habitats has dramatically reduced their range. This especially includes the destruction of their specialised breeding habitat of ephemeral shallow wetlands, which are sparsely treed and have low vegetation like Eleocharis Spike-rushes and cane grass, allowing the Brolgas to have a panoramic view of the area around their island-like nests.

However, the point of historical illumination that I gained during Matt’s talk is that Brolgas were formerly known as ‘native companions’ (because they are quite happy to live alongside people, historically with Aboriginal people). [3] When he said these words, I suddenly realised what Mary Spencer had been writing about in 1855: that Brolgas had once flocked on the banks of the Reedy Creek, just above its confluence with the Ovens River at Bontharambo, north of Wangaratta, in paddocks adjoining that homestead. Moreover, Mary’s description of ‘their weight, when shot [being] from 18 to 23 lbs. each, with feathers’, suggests that folk at Bonthrambo did more than just admire their native companions, they ate them: ‘many consider them very nice for the table.’ [3b] (Incidentally, Brolgas are now described as weighing 6-7 kilograms, rather than the 8-10 kilograms as stated by Mary Spencer, which possibly tells us that Europeans have shot the larger-size birds out of existence.)

This knowledge of Bontharambo Homestead as a site for flocking Brolgas, put a new slant on what is already known about that site locally: that it has a corroboree ground, situated on an island in a permanent billabong known as ‘Stable Lagoon’. [4] Although it is not my role to say who used this corroboree ground, the field notes of Chief Aboriginal Protector George Augustus Robinson, which he wrote on multiple visits to Bontharambo in the early 1840s, records him as meeting mainly Waywurru, Bpangerang (which he calls ‘Pinegerine’) and Taungurung people at Bontharambo. [5]

Brolgas are long-lived, and are habitual in their travels. When Mary Spencer said that the Brolgas ‘resort[ed]’ in the paddock near the Homestead, she meant it in the nineteenth century sense of the word: that it was the birds’ custom to repeatedly visit and enjoy this place. As both sexes of Brolgas dance year around, in pairs, or in groups with birds lining up opposite each other, it seems worth considering that the Bonthrambo Homestead site was sometimes shared by at least two groups who used it as a space for formation-styled dancing: humans and birds. Perhaps a pre-existing familiarity between the Brolgas and the Aboriginal people at Bontharambo may even explain why the birds seemed ‘very tame’ to Mary Spencer.

While the Brolgas and humans shared space for dancing at Bonthrambo, humans and birds have also shared music. Earlier this week, I was listening to the 2016 Lin Onus Oration, delivered by Bruce Pascoe from the Bunurong clan of the Kulin nation, and author of the stunning book Dark Emu. In this lecture, he tells a story about Lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae), which are known for their ability to mimic the songs and sounds of other birds and other noises. Pascoe says that at some present-day Aboriginal ceremonial gatherings, lyrebirds have been heard mimicking the sound of Aboriginal clap-sticks made during the ceremonies. Scott Hartvigsen pointed out to me that the ability of lyrebirds to learn ‘songs’ from human sources, and pass these down through the generations, has been well-documented in the case of the ‘flute lyrebirds‘ of  the New England tablelands:

‘A lyrebird chick was raised in captivity in the 1920s in Australia’s New England Tablelands, or so the story goes. The bird mimicked the sounds of the household’s flute player, learning two tunes and an ascending scale. When released back into the wild, his flute-like songs and timbre spread throughout the local lyrebird population.’ [6]

Bruce Pascoe notes that the ‘clapstick sound’ of Australian ceremonial gatherings has actually become the ‘default’ call for lyrebirds, and he thinks that this originates in the birds having listened to, and mimicked, the sounds from ceremonies since time immemorial, and having remembered and passed on these sounds, down through countless generations. Thus, anywhere lyrebirds are found, they continue to remind us of Aboriginal ceremonial practices, even in the absence of such practices.

In future I will always listen out for the birds as I read the journals, diaries and letters of early explorers, squatters and gold seekers. Their authors often mention the birds they hear and see only in passing. The people say one thing, but the birds may be telling us something altogether different: something about meaningful cultural relationships between birds and humans.

References

[1] Mary Spencer, Aunt Spencer’s Diary (1854): A Visit to Bontharambo and the North-east Victorian Goldfields, Neptune Press, Newtown, 1981, p.46

[2] Matt Herring, Brolga Breeding Habitat — A Guide to Managing Wetlands on Your Farm, Corowa and District Landcare, second edition, May 2018.

[3] Some evidence even exists for Brolgas as companion animals to Aboriginal peoples. See: Justine Philip and Don Garden, ‘Walking the Thylacine: Records of Indigenous Companion Animals in Australian Narrative and Photographic History’, Society and Animals, Volume 24, Issue 1, pages 34–62.

[3b] Mary Spencer, p.53.

[4] pers comm. David Nicholas Moore, 24 May 2018. (David is a cousin to Mary Paul nee Docker, who lives at Bonthrambo.) This is further supported by information in J.M. McMillan, The Two Lives of Joseph Docker, Spectrum Publications, Melbourne, 1994.

[5] This statement is not to be construed as meaning that the land ‘belonged’ to either one group or the other, it is simply a statement of the Aboriginal peoples Robinson met with most frequently at Bontharambo. The question of ‘whose land?’ has been covered in a comprehensive review and detailed analysis of George Augustus Robinson’s journals and other similar early source materials, including a statement of this area being a ceremonial site, had been explored extensively in Marie Hansen Fel’s unpublished technical report ‘These Singular People — The Ovens Blacks, Supplementary Report,’ 28th July 1997. However, on the 11 February 1841 Robinson wrote from Bontharambo, ‘The Pinegerines are going away to their own country’, which suggests that while the Bpangerang were visiting Bontharambo plains, it was not ‘theirs’.

[6] These ‘flute lyrebirds’ have been discussed in numerous academic sources, for example, in Powys, Vicki, Hollis Taylor, and Carol Probets. ‘A Little Flute Music: Mimicry, Memory, and Narrativity.’ Environmental Humanities, 3 (2013): 43-70.

What did the gold miners eat? (A quick follow-up).

05 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in Beechworth, Bush Food, Gold rush, Gold rush food, Ovens diggings

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In an earlier post, What did the gold miners eat? (Part 1. Bush food in Beechworth), I mentioned that one of the wild foods of the area was the Pink-flowered Native Raspberry (aka Small Leaf Bramble) (Rubus parvifolius). I have it on authority that native raspberry still occurs in bush areas around north-east Victoria, including the Chiltern-Mount Pilot National Park — although it is probably often sprayed with herbicide, because it resembles the imported blackberry. Until this weekend, I hadn’t seen it growing anywhere, let alone tasted the berries.

Native_Raspberry

Ripe native raspberries (Rubus parvifolius). Note that the leaf is much finer than the imported blackberry.

However, I’ve just returned from a weekend away in a remote hut on the Big River at Glen Wills, where I was finally able to taste ripe native raspberries, and I can report: Unlike the introduced raspberry, the berries are shiny, and quite bright red when ripe. They are smaller than the imported raspberries, but also sweeter, and with a more delicate flavour. As I was not in the Alpine National Park, I took some rootlings to cultivate at home in a tub.

What did the gold miners eat? (Part 1: Bush food in Beechworth)

15 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Aboriginal, Bush Food, Gold rush, Gold rush food

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Ask anyone what the miners of the Spring and Reid’s Creek gold rushes ate, and they will tell you it was boiled mutton and damper, washed down with plenty of black tea. While this isn’t exactly incorrect; it is a fantastic over-simplification. So for the next few posts, I want to look more closely at what the gold diggers ate. In this post, I will start with wild or ‘bush’ foods.

proud-australian-bustard-pic.jpg

An Australian Bustard or ‘Wild Turkey’ (image from birdwallpapers.com)

One of the reoccurring themes seen in letters and diaries from the early gold rush period (1852-3) is that of the diggers telling us what animals they’d caught. Initially I glossed this as newcomers to a strange land, fascinated with Australia’s unusual flora and fauna. However, eventually, I began to wonder why diggers so frequently remarked upon hunting and fishing. Only when I considered the broader social context of the period did this really make sense: In Britain, the right to hunt game had been restricted to the aristocracy and gentry from 1671 until 1831. After this, anyone could hunt, but a game licence was required — a ploy which once again restricted all but the wealthy. So it seems that the gold diggers in Australia were remarking out of sheer amazement: that anyone could hunt and fish, and do it for free!

When we think about wild food around Beechworth in 1852, we have to imagine the forests without Samba or Red deer, wild pigs, goats or rabbits; and the streams without trout or carp. There weren’t even honey bees (the Australian native bees that produce honey only live in warmer climates), nor edible mushrooms like the saffron milk cap or slippery jack. Still, there was plenty to eat.

Miners either hunted game themselves (usually on a Sunday when their gold licenses compelled them to down tools) or bought it — either from European or Indigenous suppliers (1). Mary Spencer, who stayed on Bontharambo Station during the gold rush, explained, ‘We are kept well supplied with quantities of fish and game; such as wild duck, turkeys, waterfowl, geese and black swan. The fish is very fine; fresh water trout, cod and a kind of salmon and various other kinds.’ (2)

The favourite feathered game species of the period seems to have been Wild Turkey, otherwise known as the Australian Bustard (Ardeotis australis). One of Australia’s largest birds, it became regionally extinct as its grassland habitat was taken over by grazing pasture. Hunting saw the end of local populations around Victoria, just as it had with Britain’s Great Bustard in the 1830s. However, the Australian Bustard can still be found inland today, and I’m reliably told that they taste like chicken.

The rivers and streams were abundant with delicious fish, shellfish and crustaceans. There are 38 species of freshwater crayfish in Victoria (27 of which are now threatened). Murray crayfish (Euastacus armatus) can still be found in Spring Creek, along with, of course, the humble Yabby (with the magnificent scientific name of Cherax destructor), which is more common in billabongs. Sometimes diggers could get a pail of Freshwater Mussels (Velesunio ambiguous), which are native to the Murray-Darling River system. Apparently they are tougher to eat than salt water mussels, being more like a clam in texture.

While en route to the Spring Creek diggings in late 1852, English author William Howitt wrote of how ‘The boys amused themselves with fishing, and caught what they call black-fish and trout, to us quite new fish, and a brilliant blue crawfish, with prickles all down each side of its tail.’ (3) He was probably referring to (in order) River blackfish (Gadopsis marmoratus), Trout cod (Maccullochella macquariensis) which was originally widespread in the south-east corner of the Murray Darling River system, and has spots like a rainbow trout (during the gold rushes, it was often called ‘bluenose cod’), and finally, the Central Highlands Spiny Crayfish (Euastacus woiwuru). Other prized fish included Golden Perch (Yellow Belly) (Macquaria ambigua), Murray Cod (Maccullochella peelii), and Short-finned Eel (Anguilla australis), which Indigenous people had been trapping and preserving by smoking, for millennia. Today Trout Cod is endangered, and it is prohibited to take them across the whole of Victoria, with the exception of two lakes at Beechworth: Lake Sambell and Lake Kerferd.

[Since writing this blog post, I had a conversation with fresh water fish ecologist Dr Paul Humphries, in which I learned that two species other were found in the local billabongs of the Ovens and Murray Rivers in North East Victoria, which were very good eating, and perhaps as a consequence, are no longer found here: Freshwater Catfish (Tandanus tandanus), and Silver Perch (Bidyanus bidyanus).]

When it came to red meat, possum was a popular meal. Seweryn Korzelinski, a Polish digger who visited Spring Creek in 1853, said of the diggers, ‘Some carry a gun and shoot cockatoos and possums on moonlit nights, which they bake on wooden skewers. Possums can be shot only at night, because they spend their days in holes in the trees. Only natives know how to find them in the day time.’ (4)

[Once again, since writing this original blog post, I have learned that local Aboriginal people sometimes wrapped the possum in clay before slow-baking them in an oven. Possums were the ‘go-to’ meal for most Aboriginal people of North East Victoria, although dozens of animal species were eaten — from Emu (with its deliciously oily skin that could be roasted until crispy), to slow-moving echidna which were only considered to be fair game for equally-slow moving elderly people. Even a humble handful of  tadpoles could make a quick meal.]

But bush foods weren’t all about blood and guts. Miner’s wife Emily Skinner collected Pink-flowered Native Raspberry (aka Small Leaf Bramble) (Rubus parvifolius) while living in the Woolshed Valley in the mid 1850s. She said, ‘The best of the native berries that I have seen is the wild raspberry, which nearly resembles its namesake in appearance, but its taste is more like the blackberry. We used to gather it in sufficient quantities to make tarts, a change from the preserved fruits.’ (5) Although Pink-flowered Native Raspberry is not as prolific now as the introduced blackberry, it can still be found in the Mount Pilot section of the Chiltern Mount Pilot National Park. And it’s not even the only native fruit: if you’re keen, you can try the red succulent stalk of the fruit of the Cherry Ballart (Exocarpos cupressiformis), along with the fruit of the Hairy Geebung (Persoonia rigida).

  1. Fred Cahir’s Black Gold: Aboriginal People on the Goldfields of Victoria, 1850-1870 (Australian National University, 2012) is comprehensive in providing firsthand period accounts of Indigenous people supplying gold miners with food.
  2. Mary Spencer, Aunt Spencer’s Diary (1854): A Visit to Bontharambo and the North-east Victorian Goldfields, Neptune Press, Newtown, 1981, p.46.
  3. William Howitt, Land, Labour and Gold, or Two Years in Victoria, Volumes 1 & 2, Sydney University Press, 1972 [first edn: 1855]. This reference: Volume 1, p.40.
  4. Seweryn Korzelinski, Memoirs of gold-digging in Australia, translated and edited by Stanley Robe, foreword and notes by Lloyd Robson, University of Queensland Press, 1979, p.63
  5. Edward Duyker (ed.), A Woman On The Goldfields, Recollections of Emily Skinner, 1852-1878, Melbourne University Press, 1995, p.69