SUBSISTENCE AND CULTURAL USE BY ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES

The use of native plants and animals is of great importance to Aboriginal communities within Victoria.

Foraging activities and the traditional methods of dividing and sharing gathered resources are important to the social cohesion of communities. The incorporation of new forms of (Western) technology has not diminished the cultural significance of such activities for Aboriginal communities. Nor has the presence and use of new animal species, that is introduced feral animals, affected the cultural tradition.¹

While much traditional knowledge has been lost, Victoria's Aboriginal communities give strong emphasis to the maintenance and re-establishment of their cultural traditions. Knowledge of traditional foods and crafts may now rely on fragments of information retained by elders or that obtained from field research by archaeologists and palaeobotanists and literature research by historians.

Members of many Victorian Aboriginal communities do, at times, still use native plants and animals - for food and raw materials. Fishing is undertaken for both personal and family use using traditional techniques supplemented with modern technology. Coastal communities have commented that "traditional techniques are not as successful now as there are fewer fish and may also be restricted by management requirements".²

Nevertheless, as a result of 200 years of cultural and environmental change, the dependence on such subsistence activity is no longer an economic necessity, nor practical. The opportunity to derive economic benefit from native flora and fauna is, however, real and there is a desire by contemporary Aboriginal communities to take advantage of these opportunities.

Moreover, Aboriginal communities are gaining increasing legal rights to access land and wildlife resources - the Commonwealth Native Title Act 1993 "specifically recognises indigenous property rights in indigenous species".³ Such rights remain, albeit modified by more recent legislative change.

Historical Use

The indigenous people of Australia successfully depended on native plants and animals for both survival and life-style for more than 40,000 years. This successful dependence on the land for so many thousands of years, through climatic and geological upheavals, must be regarded as sustainable use of the natural resources. All people participated in providing the group with its necessary resources. Traditionally, in Australia's temperate south-east, sources of food were diverse and available all year round. It was neither necessary nor acceptable to take more than was required to meet present needs.⁴

In some areas, such as along the Murray, the natural resources supported a semi-settled lifestyle - such communities depended on the abundant wildlife that lived near the water and the aquatic species in the waterways.⁵

Use of Plants

"Aboriginal people were omnivorous, deriving their diet from a wide range of uncultivated plant foods and wild animals".⁶ Their diet included tuberous roots, seeds, fruits, nuts, gums and nectar. "When the first Europeans arrived [in Victoria] they found a well-nourished people, showing that the Koories had achieved a balance between exploitation and renewal of the resources of the land".⁷ Examples of major Koori food plants are provided in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 Examples of Aboriginal food plants in Victoria

Traditional name	Common name	Species	Use
Murrnong	Yam	Microseris lanceolata	Tuber - staple food
Cumbungi	Bull rush	Typha spp.	New shoots and rhizomes - major source of carbohydrate and `greens'; fibre
Djarg	Common reed	Phragmites australis	Roots - `greens'; stems - decorations and spear shafts
Ngarelior	Water ribbon	Triglochin procera	Tuber - staple food
Woorpert	Marsh club-rush	Bolboschoenus medianus	Corm - carbohydrate source
Nal-a-wort	Coastal wattle	Acacia sophorae (and other Acacias)	Seed - protein-rich food
(not known)	New Zealand and Bower spinach	Tetragonia spp.	Leaves - `greens'
(not known)	Quandong	Santalum acuminatum	Fruit eaten; also seeds
(not known)	Native flax	Linum marginale	Seed as food; stem used for fibre
(not known)	Common purslane	Portulaca oleracea	Leaves and seed eaten
	(various)	Panicum spp.	Seeds eaten
	(various)	Persoonia spp.	Fruit and possibly seed eaten
	(various)	Acacia spp.	Gum and seed eaten; bark for medicines

Source: Gott (1985), Gott (1997) and Zola and Gott (1993).⁸

Aboriginal people's use of native plants was not restricted to foods. Plants were also used for a wide array of other purposes.⁹ These include:

a) fibres;

h) medicines;

i) implements; and

j) resins.

Fibres were used for purposes ranging from fine weaving to strong rope, using material from, for example, poison pimelia and bootlace bush (Pimelia spp). Traditional Aboriginal society used many native plants for medicinal purposes, for example an infusion made from Ajuga australis to bathe wounds and boils. Other extracts were used as inhalants for respiratory problems, as disinfectants, poultices or treatments for gastric disorders.¹⁰ Medicines were obtained from many species, including the bark of wattles.

A wide array of species was used to create implements,¹¹ with resins obtained from, for example, native cypress pines (Callitris spp.) and porcupine grass (Triodia irritans).¹² Other more specialised uses included waterproofing, using material obtained from plants such as silver wattle (Acacia dealbata).¹³

Use of Animals

Mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, shellfish, and indeed most types of animals, were used for food, as well as animal parts such as bone, sinews and oils being used for a variety of purposes. Species used include the platypus (Ornithorhinchus anatinus), common wombat (Vombatus ursinus), common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), red-necked wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus), emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), yabbies (Cherax spp.), witjuti (witchety) grub (Xyleutes spp.), termites (Order Isoptera), cicadas (Family cicadidae).¹⁴

A number of freshwater mussels (particularly Velesunio ambiguus) were used, especially along the Murray River, for food and utensils.¹⁵

Commercial Use of Wildlife

In addition to subsistence and cultural uses, Aboriginal communities are increasingly interested in the commercial opportunities that native flora and fauna may offer.

There is very little commercial use made of native flora and fauna in Victoria. In other States, examples of such use include mutton-birding (in Tasmania),¹⁶ the harvesting of crocodile eggs and young for ranching operations (Northern Territory),¹⁷ and the harvesting of bushfoods for supply to food processors (Northern Territory). Such activities offer one of the few opportunities for traditional hunter-gather skills and knowledge to be used for economic (cash income) advantage.

While use of native flora and fauna has traditionally been consumptive, ecotourism-style activity is being pursued by a number of Aboriginal communities in Victoria. The Committee visited the Brambuk Living Cultural Centre on the edge of the Grampians/Gariwerd National Park. It inspected a garden of plants traditionally used for food, medicine and tools by the five Aboriginal communities that operate the centre. A bushfood menu is offered in the Centre's café - the first bushfood restaurant in Victoria. Because of restrictions on wild-harvest in Victoria, food for the café is obtained from South Australia (kangaroo, fruits and berries), Western Australia (emu), and the Northern Territory (fruits and berries). Some fruits and berries and wattle seeds are, however, obtained from local sources.

Strengths and Challenges

Today there is an increasing interest in Aboriginal history and culture, by non-Aboriginal as well as by Aboriginal communities.

Traditional Aboriginal methods of using the land in Victoria, and the nomadic lifestyle, were not without impact, but were essentially sustainable and by and large avoided the creation of problems such as soil erosion, salinity, river pollution, depleted fishing stocks and impoverished ecosystems. Clearly traditional methods of obtaining food and fibre cannot support Victoria's current population, but there are still lessons to be learnt from the Aboriginal approach to the land.

Unfortunately the disruption of traditional ways of living has prevented the handing down of much of the knowledge acquired over millennia concerning the use of native species. This makes the preservation of the information that remains all the more important. It is on the store of Aboriginal knowledge that much of the emerging bushfood industry is based.¹⁸ Traditional information is a first source of knowledge concerning many other potential uses and management of native species. It can also play a valuable role in the maintenance of Aboriginal culture and reconciliation between traditional and Western cultures.¹⁹

Aboriginal use of wildlife for subsistence as well as commercial harvesting could facilitate the economic independence of Aboriginal communities, as could income from involvement in conservation and land management programs and ecotourism-style activity.²⁰ The recognition of traditional access rights - without need for permits - and direct involvement in land and resource management and decision-making, are priority issues for Victorian Aboriginal communities.²¹