Fred Cahir, Associate Professor in Aboriginal History, Federation University Australia.

I came to appreciate keenly the value of Aboriginal bio-cultural knowledge in a less than glamorous way. Some thirty years ago, I had too much to drink at a friend’s wedding in Fremantle WA and woke the next afternoon to discover I had swapped my car for a bicycle. Wanting to turn my folly into something noble, I decided to cycle across the continent to Melbourne. I set off a month later laden with ‘necessities’ such as a super 8 camera, a bundle of favourite tapes and a Walkman – and very little else. Not surprisingly, my youth, blond hair and naïve belief that I could cycle my way out of trouble landed me in the middle of the Nullarbor Plain without water and food. I cycled pathetically slowly to the nearest road station one hundred kilometres away.

I subsequently cycled most of the deserts of Australia—using whenever possible what Aboriginal bio-cultural knowledge I could attain in order to (pragmatically speaking) survive and (philosophically speaking) satisfy my longing to belong.

My interest in Aboriginal bio-cultural knowledge essentially revolved around the topic of water and food during my bicycle sojourns into the Tanami, Gibson, Great Victoria and the central deserts. When I returned to a domestic patch of land on Wadawurrung country in Ballarat, I became a self-confessed bush food fanatic in a period before it had entered into niche cafes or supermarkets. It may come as a surprise that the majority of the Aboriginal bio-cultural knowledge about foods I was able to gather easily at that point in time was from white fella’s records. The invader’s diaries, reminiscences, letters, journals and ledgers revealed a great deal of reliance on Aboriginal bio-cultural knowledge.

I began to see that my harebrained experience—and ‘road to Melbourne’ experience on the Nullarbor Plain—was analogous to some degree to what most of the early white pioneers experienced, magnified by 10. Many of them uncomfortably related how upon taking Aboriginal land they now considered their own, they had no idea of how to make a hut, let alone find their hut; no idea how to put out a low intensity (cool burn) fire let alone make one; no idea how to steer a canoe let alone make one. In perilous situations, especially revolving around water, fire, shelter and sustenance, they were pathetically helpless.

Aboriginal bio-cultural knowledge includes extensive knowledge on managing ecosystems and landscapes, including the management of wildfires. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

One party of colonists related that their party, on the verge of expiring from thirst, implored a local clan they chanced upon for water via hand signals. The local clans’ people saved the day by pointing to the very ground under their soles and indicated for them to dig—upon which water seeped up through the ground.

Similarly, the colonial records speak frequently about Aboriginal people saving white fellas from bushfire. Dame Mary Gilmore (1934) wrote extensively of her pioneering experiences in New South Wales, and vividly recalled how local Aboriginal people would educate them in how to fight fire by: “running for bushes, putting them into the immigrants’ hands, and showing how to beat back the flame as it licked up the grass.”

Gilmore further noted how white people in the bush considered Aboriginal knowledge and skills in extinguishing bush fires to be indispensable. Gilmore wrote that she and her contemporaries were in “constant wonder” at how easily the Aboriginal teachers would check a fire before it grew too big for close handling, or start a return fire when and where it was safest.

Gilmore continued to describe the variation in fire management techniques practiced by Aboriginal people and the colonists:

“There was a difference between the blacks’ method and the white’s. The white man used large bushes and tired himself out with their weight and by heavy blows; the blacks took small bushes and used little and light action. The whites expended the energy of panic; the blacks acted in familiarity, as knowing how and what to do. They used arm action only, where the white man used his whole body. Where, as a last resort, the white man lit a roaring and continuous fire-break, the aboriginal set the lubras to make tiny flares, each separate, each put out in turn, and all lit roughly in line. The beaters they used were so small that they hunkered to do the lighting and beating.

The aboriginals said that not only must fire be met by fire, but that it could only be fought while still not too hot to be handled closely; that when it became so hot that it burnt and exhausted men it had to be met from a distance. They also said that a big fire as a fire break was as dangerous as a big fire itself…I have seen a whole station in panic – men, women and children nearly killing themselves with frantic and wasteful effort; and then a handful of blacks and lubras under their chief come and have the fire contained and checked in no time.”

The severe fracturing of Aboriginal bio-cultural knowledge at the hand of colonisation has cost Australia dearly—but fortunately, Aboriginal people are renowned for their resilience, and generosity. We have but to ask.

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