Dark Emu

Introduction

• Motivation: “the frontier war had been misrepresented in what we had been taught in school, but also that the economy and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had been grossly undervalued.”
  • Primary sources from Australian explorers reveal much more complex Aboriginal economy

1. Agriculture

• Very first records of European occupation refute idea that Aboriginal people were only hunter-gatherers
• Europeans define agriculture as 1) selection of seed, 2) preparation of soil, 3) harvesting of crop, 4) storage of surpluses, 5) erecting permanent housing for large populations
• Observations of these signs, natives farming hay and yams; intentional improvement of soil, terracing
  • Controlled fires to manage land and soil
• Idea of agriculture so advanced that seed was traded as cultural item
• Despite extreme heat and dryness of environment, produced and stored grain surpluses, built houses
• Development of science of baking
• Also cultivated rices
• Built dams, irrigation trenches, wells— seen across the continent
• Evidence of stone tools that are older and more advanced than commonly discussed

Aboriginal people were not reacting to the state of nature, but directly affecting its production.

• Potential advantage of using Aboriginal crops in Australia’s farms of the future?

2. Aquaculture

• Established long before first colonists arrived
  • Observations of net structures, fish traps (“integrated abs sustainable systems”), walls
  • Rituals of hunting whales with orcas
  • May be some of earliest examples of aquaculture operations in the world
• Many sites of Aboriginal farming, permanent settlements, aquaculture, etc. have been destroyed by settlers

The reluctance to credit engineered fisheries to colonised people, and thus underrate their sovereignty of the land, is not peculiar to Australia.

• Lots of use of abalone for both food and other artifacts

3. Population and Housing

• References to Aboriginal housing are so scarce that one of two examples may seem to be aberrations, so here examples from across the nation are given to show pervasive nature of housing
• Large houses often mischaracterized as huts and hovels, leading to idea that Aboriginals did not have sense of ownership of the land
• Not just size and scale of housing that needs to be considered, but also design features developed in response to harsh environment
• Ex. Pointed dome house, structures built from mud and stone, wells

The underestimation of Indigenous achievement was a deliberate tactic of British colonialism.

• Large structure in NA also ignored, as in South Africa
• Aboriginal stone structures (housing complexes) were very large, all had some cooking facilities
• Many design features → significant religious meanings
  • Altered tree growth, forks and rods in houses, patterning

4. Storage and Preservation

• Perceived lack of pottery → indicator of social backwardness— pointing out that they did use pottery isn’t to say it’s special, but that if this were a test for development, it is present in Australia
• Evidence for vessels for both caching and preservation
• Stored gum oases, balls of milled grains, meats, etc.
• Long-term preservation → fermentation → some poisonous things became edible
• Storage = dictated by religion

5. Fire

• “Mosaic pattern of low-level burns,” better soil used for production, inferior soils left for forest
• Today, control burns inhibited by farming fences, power lines, etc.
• Many tuberous species “domesticated”/accustomed to the fires → flowering after wildfires decades later; seeds can’t germinate without cover of hot ash
• “Firestick farming” → Aboriginal people could manage “the commons” in mutual and sustainable way, as outlined by work of Elinor Ostrom

6. The Heavens, Language, and the Law

There may not be a golden rule found in Aboriginal governance, but I suspect there are elements of agriculture, conservation, culture, and government that, having been tested against the nature of Aboriginal society for a minimum of 60,000 years, hold profitable messages for the nation.

• Songlines of Aboriginal people connected language groups, cultural centers → change of ideas, technologies
• Absence of imperial warfare— continent’s long lasting stability should be admired and studied
  • Governed by strict rules, violence not tolerated
  • Not quite democracy: the Elders with political influence gradually rose to their position through initiation, gaining respect

> All other processes of delivering justice, protecting the peace, managing hierarchy and social roles as well as the dividing up the land’s wealth were defined by ancestral law, and interpreted by those chosen as the senior Elders. Of all the systems humans have devised to manage their lives on earth, Aboriginal government looks most like the democratic model.
>  - Aboriginal law → land held in commons people are temporal custodians → fencing was very rare - Intimate cooperation btw cetaceans and humans, combination of economic imperative and spiritual cx with animal world; lost after European arrival

7. An Australian Agricultural Revolution

• Imagine using principles of Aboriginal agriculture to reform current system—
  • Utilizing domesticated yams and grains
  • Diff relationship with the land
  • Utilizing kangaroos, wallabies as meat sources may also guarantee their protection

8. Accepting History and Creating the Future

Vocab

• Friable: easily crumbled
• Spruik: speak in public, especially to advertise a show (or an ancient grain!)