Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia Volume II Part 23

GRUBS AND WALLABIES.

Grubs are princ.i.p.ally procured by the natives from the Xanthorrhoea or gra.s.s-tree, but they are also found in wattle-trees, and in dead timber; those found in the gra.s.s-tree have a fragrant aromatic flavour and taste very like a nice nut. Their presence in a tree is thus ascertained: if the top of the tree is observed to be dead the native gives it a few sharp kicks with his foot, when, if it contains any barde or grubs, it begins to give, and if this takes place he pushes the tree over, and, gradually breaking it to pieces with his hammer, he extracts the grubs, of which sometimes more than a hundred are found in a single tree.

Until the top of the tree is dead it is not a proper receptacle for these animals. The natives are therefore in the habit of breaking off the tops of the gra.s.s-trees on their land at a particular season of the year in order that they may have an abundance of this highly-prized article of food. If two or more men have a right to hunt over the same portion of ground, and one of them breaks off the tops of certain trees, by their laws the grubs in these are his property and no one else has a right to touch the tree. No mistake on this point can occur, for if the top of the tree dies naturally it still remains in its original position, whereas a native who thus prepares the tree knocks it off altogether; an instance occurred at King George's Sound of a native travelling between thirty and forty miles to lay a complaint before the Resident that another had been guilty of this unpardonable breach of honesty, and, notwithstanding it had been clearly brought home to him, still stoutly refused to make any amends.

When there is a grub in a wattle-tree its diseased state, which produces excrescences, soon betrays this circ.u.mstance to the watchful eyes of a native, and an animal much larger than those found in the gra.s.s-tree is soon extracted; they seldom however find more than one or two of these in the same tree.

Grubs are either eaten raw or roasted; they are best roasted tied up in a piece of bark in the manner in which I have before stated that they cook their fish. If the natives are taunted with eating such a disgusting species of food as these grubs appear to Europeans they invariably retort by accusing us of eating raw oysters, which they regard with perfect horror.

HUNTING THE SMALLER ANIMALS.

The smaller species of animals are either caught by surprising them in their seats or by burning the bush. A native hunting for food has his eyes in constant motion and nothing escapes them; he sees a kangaroo-rat Sitting in a bush, and he walks towards it as if about to pa.s.s it carelessly, but suddenly, when on one side of it, he stamps on the bush with all his force, and crushes the little animal to death; should it be rapid enough in its movements to avoid this blow he hurls his dow-uk at it as it scampers off, and should he not hit it he runs after and tracks it to some dead hollow tree, lying on the ground, in which it has taken shelter, and with the aid of his spear, which is about ten feet long, he draws it out.

Another very ingenious mode of taking wallaby and the smaller kind of kangaroos is to select a thick bushy place where there are plenty of these animals; the bushes are then broken down in a circle round the spot where they intend to hunt, so as to form a s.p.a.ce of broken scrub about ten feet wide all round a thick bush, they thus not only destroy the runs of the animals but form with the fallen bushes a place which so embarra.s.ses and entangles them that they find great difficulty in pa.s.sing it; indeed when these preparations have been made the natives fire the bush and the frightened animals, finding their runs stopped up, rush into the fallen branches, where every jump which they make upon their hind legs only involves them in greater difficulties, so that they fall an easy prey to their pursuers.

Some of the smaller animals such as the dal-gyte, an animal about the size of a weasel, burrow in the earth; these the natives surprise when they are feeding or dig them from their burrows. They are all cooked by having their fur singed off and being roasted on the fire; to the taste of a native the skinning a small animal would be an abomination, and I must really confess that a kangaroo-rat, nicely singed and cooked by them, is not a bad dish for a hungry traveller.

Although the natives could in many districts procure native salt, and most certainly from its abundance cannot be unacquainted with it, they never use it until they have seen Europeans do so, and even then do not at first like it. They also dislike mustard, sauces, etc., when they first eat them, and indeed nothing can be more ludicrous than their grimaces are the first time mustard is given to them upon a piece of meat.

ROOTS EATEN BY NATIVES. EDIBLE ROOTS AND SEEDS.

The roots eaten by the natives belong to the following genera:

Dioscorea, two species.

Haemadorum, several species, as the Mene, Ngool-ya, Mudja, etc. etc.

Geranium, several species.

Boerhaavia, two species.

Typha, two species.

Orchis, several species.

RULES FOR GATHERING ROOTS AND PLANTS.

Some of these are in season in every period of the year and the natives regulate their visits to the different districts accordingly. Those plants which grow in a stiff soil cannot be dug up by their implements without great difficulty in the heat of the dry season, but those which grow in a loose sandy soil can be obtained at all times. The natives have however a law that no plant bearing seeds is to be dug up after it has flowered; they then call them (for example) the mother of Bohn, the mother of Mudja, etc.; and so strict are they in their observance of this rule that I have never seen a native violate it unless requested by an European, and even then they betray a great dislike to do so.

The abundance of these roots varies, of course, with the nature of the soil, etc., but when there is a scarcity of any one of them this is amply provided for by the abundance of others. In the Province of Victoria, as already stated, I have seen tracts of land, several square miles in extent, so thickly studded with holes where the natives had been digging up yams (Dioscorea) that it was difficult to walk across it. Again, in the sandy desert country which surrounds for many miles the town of Perth, in Western Australia, the different species of Haemadorum are very plentiful.

GATHERING AND COOKING ROOTS. MODE OF COOKING AND PREPARING THEM.

It is generally considered the province of women to dig roots, and for this purpose they carry a long pointed stick which is held in the right hand and driven firmly into the ground, where it is shaken so as to loosen the earth, which is scooped up and thrown out with the fingers of the left hand, and in this manner they dig with great rapidity. But the labour in proportion to the amount obtained is great. To get a yam about half an inch in circ.u.mference and a foot in length they have to dig a hole above a foot square and two feet in depth; a considerable portion of the time of the women and children is therefore pa.s.sed in this employment.

If the men are absent upon any expedition the females are left in charge of one who is old or sick; and in traversing the bush you often stumble on a large party of them, scattered about in the forest, digging roots, and collecting the different species of fungus.

The roots are eaten raw or roasted in the fire; in either case they are, most of them, very good. Some have the taste of a mild onion, and others have almost the taste and appearance of a small English potato, but of these only a single root is attached to each plant: the mene has rather an acid taste and when eaten alone is said, by the natives, to cause dysentery; they never use it in the southern districts without pounding it between two stones and sprinkling over it a few pinches of an earth which they consider extremely good and nutritious; they then pound the mould and root together into a paste, and swallow it as a bonne bouche, the noxious qualities of the plant being destroyed by the earth.

Many other roots are pounded between flat stones into a paste and are then made into a cake and baked. The two roots which taste the best, when cooked in this way, are the jee-ta and yunjid.

The former of these resembles in appearance and taste the unripe seeds of Indian corn; it is in season in June and is really very palatable. The latter is the root of a species of flag, and consists of a case enclosing a mult.i.tude of tender filaments, with nodules of farinaceous matter adhering to them. These are collected into a ma.s.s by pounding the root, and the cake formed from the paste is very nice. The natives must be admitted to bestow a sort of cultivation upon this root, as they frequently burn the leaves of the plant in the dry seasons in order to improve it.

EDIBLE FUNGI AND GUMS.

The different kinds of fungus are very good. In certain seasons of the year they are abundant and the natives eat them greedily.

Kwon-nat is the kind of gum which most abounds and is considered the nicest article of food. It is a species of gum-tragacynth. In the summer months the acacias growing in swampy plains are literally loaded with this gum, and the natives a.s.semble in numbers to partake of this favourite esculent. As but few places afford a sufficient supply of food to support a large a.s.semblage of persons these Kwon-nat grounds are generally the spots at which their annual barter meetings are held, and during these fun, frolic, and quarrelling of every description prevail.

POISONOUS NUTS.

No article of food used by the natives is more deserving of notice than the by-yu. This name is applied to the pulp of the nut of a species of palm which, in its natural state, acts as a most violent emetic and cathartic; the natives themselves consider it as a rank poison: they however are acquainted with a very artificial method of preparing it, by which it is completely deprived of its noxious qualities and then becomes an agreeable and nutritious article of food. Europeans who are not acquainted with this mode of preparing the nut, the stones of which they find lying about the fireplaces of the natives, are frequently tempted to eat it in its natural state, but they invariably pay a severe penalty for the mistake. The following extract, from Captain Cook's * first voyage, gives one instance of this:

(*Footnote. Volume 2 page 624.)

The third sort, which, like the second, is found only in the Northern parts, seldom grows more than ten feet high, with small pinnated leaves, resembling those of some kind of fern; it bears no cabbage, but a plentiful crop of nuts, about the size of a large chestnut, but rounder.

As the hulls of these were found scattered round the places where the Indians had made their fires it was taken for granted that they were fit to eat; however those who made the experiment paid dear for their knowledge to the contrary, for they operated both as an emetic and cathartic, with great violence: still however it was not doubted but they were eaten by the Indians, and, in order to determine this more clearly, they were carried to the hogs, who might be supposed to have a const.i.tution as strong as the Indians, although the s.h.i.+p's people had not. The hogs ate them indeed, and for some time apparently without suffering any inconvenience, but in about a week they were so much disordered that two of them died; the rest were recovered with great difficulty. It is probable however that the poisonous quality of these nuts may lie in the juice, like that of the ca.s.sada of the West Indies, and that the pulp, when dried, may be not only wholesome but nutritious.

MODE OF RENDERING THEM INNOXIOUS.

The native women collect the nuts from the palms in the month of March, and, having placed them in some shallow pool of water, they leave them to soak for several days. When they have ascertained that the by-yu has been immersed in water for a sufficient time they dig, in a dry sandy place, holes which they call mor-dak; these holes are about the depth that a person's arms can reach, and one foot in diameter; they line them with rushes and fill them up with the nuts, over which they sprinkle a little sand, and then cover the holes nicely over with the tops of the gra.s.s-tree; in about a fortnight the pulp which encases the nut becomes quite dry, and it is then fit to eat, but if eaten before that it produces the effects already described. The natives eat this pulp both raw and roasted; in the latter state they taste quite as well as a chestnut. The process which these nuts undergo in the hands of the natives has no effect upon the kernel, which still acts both as a strong emetic and cathartic.

I have taken some trouble to ascertain if any traditional notion exists amongst the natives which would in any way account for their having first obtained a knowledge of the means by which they could render the deleterious pulp of the Zamia nut a useful article of food; but in this, as in all other similar instances, they are very unwilling to confess their ignorance of a thing, and rather than do so will often invent a tradition. Hence many intelligent persons have raised most absurd theories and have committed lamentable errors.

ROVING HABITS DEPENDANT ON FOOD.

The other kinds of food which I have mentioned on the list scarcely require a particular description. They are collected by the people as they rove from spot to spot, and are rather used as adjuncts to help out a meal than as staple articles of provision; several of them are however much liked by the natives, and they always regulate the visits to their hunting grounds so as to be at any part which plentifully produces a certain sort of food at the time this article is in full season: this roving habit produces a similar character in the kangaroos, emus, and other sorts of game which are never driven more from one part than from another. In fact they are kept in a constant state of movement from place to place; but directly a European settles down in the country his constant residence in one spot soon sends the animals away from it, and although he may in no other way interfere with the natives the mere circ.u.mstance of his residing there does the man on whose land he settles the injury of depriving him of his ordinary means of subsistence.

EDIBLE PRODUCTIONS VARY IN DIPFERENT DISTRICTS. COMMON RIGHTS IN CERTAIN FOOD.

If the land of any native is deficient in any particular article of food, such as, by-yu, mun-gyte (Banksia flowers) etc., he makes a point of visiting some neighbour whose property is productive in this particular article at the period in which it is in perfection; and there are even some tracts of land which abound in gum, kwon-nat, etc., which numerous families appear to have an acknowledged right to visit at the period of the year when this article is in season, although they are not allowed to come there at any other time. This is a curious point and might throw some further light upon the subject of their families or lines of descent.

It must be borne in mind that the articles of food I have enumerated in this chapter belong only to a particular district of about two hundred miles in extent, for every degree of lat.i.tude some articles would disappear from the list, whilst other new ones would enter into it. For instance on the north-west coast they eat a species of oyster (unio) the almonds of the panda.n.u.s, wild grapes, guavas, the excellent fruit of a species of capparis, and many other articles which are not known upon the south-west coast; but these are procured and cooked in the same manner as the articles which I have already enumerated. My object being merely to give such an outline as would enable the reader to understand well the mode of life of an Australian savage, I did not think such particular details necessary as I should have been led into, had I enumerated all the sorts of food which I have seen eaten by the natives in Australia.

CHAPTER 15. SONGS AND POETRY.

GENERAL PRACTICE OF SINGING. TRADITIONAL SONGS.

Like all other savage races the natives of Western Australia are very fond of singing and dancing: to a sulky old native his song is what a quid of tobacco is to a sailor; is he angry, he sings; is he glad, he sings; is he hungry, he sings; if he is full, provided he is not so full as to be in a state of stupor, he sings more l.u.s.tily than ever; and it is the peculiar character of their songs which renders them under all circ.u.mstances so solacing to them. The songs are short, containing generally only one or two ideas, and are constantly repeated over and over again in a manner doubtless grating to the untutored ear of a European, but to one skilled in Australian music lulling and harmonious in the extreme, and producing much the same effect as the singing of a nurse does upon a child.

SONG OF AN OLD MAN IN WRATH. SCENE PRODUCED BY IT.

Nothing can give a better idea of the character of these people than their songs. In England an elderly gentleman, who has been at all put out of his way by encroachments and trespa.s.ses upon his property, sits over his fire in the evening, sipping his port and brooding over vengeance by means of the law; but the law is tortuous, expensive, and uncertain; his revenge is very distant from him; under these circ.u.mstances the more the elderly gentleman talks the more irate he becomes. Very different is the conduct of the elderly Australian gentleman. He comes to his hut at night in a towering pa.s.sion; tucks his legs under him, and seats himself upon his heels before the fire; he calls to his wife for pieces of quartz and some dried kangaroo sinews, then forthwith begins sharpening and polis.h.i.+ng his spears, and whilst thus occupied, sings to himself:

I'll spear his liver, I'll spear his lights, I'll spear his heart, I'll spear his thigh, etc. etc. etc.

After a while he pauses and examines the point he has been working at; it is very sharp, and he gives a grunt of satisfaction. His wives now chime in:

The wooden-headed, Bandy-legged, Thin-thighed fellows-- The bone-rumped, Long-s.h.i.+nned, Thin-thighed fellows.

The old gentleman looks rather more murderous but withal more pleasant, and as he begins to sharpen his second spear he chants out: