Aboriginal Bush Foods

Before European settlement Aboriginal Australians ate rich and balanced diets of seasonal fruits, nuts, roots, vegetables, meats and fish - all varieties and species that were native to Australia.

The Australian continent covers an enormous range of environments - tropical coast, rainforest, woodland, open scrub, alpine mountains, and deserts, to name just a few. Aboriginal people once lived in all these environments and continue to live in most. The particular foods eaten varied according to what was available in any one area, and according to the season and preference. Below are some lists of the main types of food consumed in Aboriginal Australia. However, these lists are by no means exhaustive.

Today white settlement has severely disrupted Aboriginal life in many parts of Australia. As a result hunting and gathering is now largely confined to areas of northern and central Australia. Even here the availability of Western foods has had an impact on Aboriginal eating habits. Stores now provide white flour, tinned and packaged foods and frozen meats so that Aboriginals no longer need to rely only on their traditional foods. Nevertheless, large amounts of bush food are still eaten, though the way it is hunted or gathered has often changed.

Equipment, skills and experience

To collect and prepare bush food, it is necessary to have suitable equipment and practical skills. In many areas changes in technology have provided utensils that are easier and more efficient to use. The rifle has largely replaced the spear, and fishing net and twine are used instead of bone hooks and fibre-string nets. The introduction of vehicles means that people no longer need to travel on foot.

However, knowledge of seasonal changes in the environment and of the ecology of plants and animals is just as important in the search for food as any weapon or utensil. Unfortunately, some traditional ecological knowledge has been lost because Aboriginal people now live a more settled life and are able to buy foods.

Nevertheless, many people are trying to retain and relearn this knowledge and acquire appropriate skills.

To do this, they must have access to suitable areas of country. The granting of land to Aboriginal people and the movement of family groups to outstations -small, decentralised communities away from the larger settlements - play an important part in preserving traditional food-gathering knowledge and skills.

Reading the environment

With their intimate knowledge of the characteristics of plants and the habits of animals and sea creatures, Aboriginal people know what is edible and what is not, where and when to find it, how to capture or collect it, and how to prepare it for eating. Aboriginals' detailed knowledge of plants and animals means that they have a unique perception of the seasons in any one environment. In the tropical north, for example, they identify six seasons, where non-Aboriginals usually see only two - the Wet and the Dry. The seasons mark different phases of weather, winds, rains, tides, and the coming and going of animals and plants. 

In the past Aboriginal people did not have clocks or numerical calendars. Instead they used changes in the environment to tell them when it was the right time for certain activities.

In the tropical north today the flowering of plants is still a common indicator of the availability of certain foods. A batwing coral tree flowers, its orange blossoms fall and women know it is time to go and dig crabs from their hides under the mangrove mud. Another flower blooms to warn that poisonous stingers are in the northern waters. Milky white flowers, known as 'oyster flowers', tell people to move camp to the oyster beds, where the oysters will be fat and white and ready for collection. The arrival of honey is anxiously awaited across northern Australia in September or October. The appearance of stringy bark gum blossoms, wattle blossoms and the pink Darwin heath are signs that honey can be found in abundance. Sweet nectar and honey are as much a delight to Aboriginal people as cake and chocolate are to Europeans.

Food-gathering groups

In Aboriginal society the family was, and is, the basic economic unit. Throughout Aboriginal Australia several families might occasionally join forces in their search for food. At times, such as when there were ceremonies, large groups of people came together. Then they often shared, exchanged and distributed food.

The movement of people searching for food was dictated by the seasons. As some foods became scarce and others more abundant, people moved to exploit them. The size of territories and ranges varied, from a few square kilometres on the lush northern and eastern coast to hundreds of square kilometres in the arid centre of Australia.

These days Aboriginal people are relatively settled and live in communities. However, from their camps, people continue to travel in search of bush foods.

The sex roles of food collectors are still well defined. While men hunt large land and sea mammals and catch fish, women gather vegetables, shellfish and eggs and hunt small animals. The children usually accompany the women, who may provide up to 80 per cent of the bulk of a group's food. Although this division of labour still exists in the communities of northern and central Australia, it has been modified by contact with the cash economy and by technological change.

Food and religious life

Food is closely interwoven with the rich spiritual life of Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people believe that people, the land and animals and plants are part of a vast system created by the ancestral spirits of the Dreaming. Each food was created by the ancestral spirits; some are even ancestral spirits changed into another form, like the honey ants of Papunya in Central Australia.

Certain people or groups of people have special links with certain foods which are their totems. These people may be forbidden to kill or eat their totems, except perhaps in special ceremonies. In fact, customs, rules and religious laws govern most aspects of the gathering, cooking and eating of traditional foods. For instance, some foods are not eaten at certain times of year, and some are forbidden to children or pregnant women. These rules may have arisen because the food contain harmful substances or as a means of coping with scarcities.

Life on the tropical coast

The richest area exploited by Aboriginal people today is the northern tropical coast - in particular Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory and Cape York in Queensland. These areas contain a range of different environments. Most of Arnhem Land is open-canopy forest. There are also mangrove and paperbark swamps and several large river systems, with occasional pockets of rainforest. At the sea and shoreline, fish and shellfish abound, providing harvests of food rich in protein. The vegetation of Cape York is similar but with a higher percentage of rainforest and savannah woodland. From these diverse habitats, Aboriginal people obtain a great variety of plant foods, game, fish and shellfish. The availability of each type of food is largely dictated by the season, and by the habitat that is exploited.

In open woodlands and rainforests the greatest quantity of tubers, fruits and nuts can be found; in rainforests there are nuts, figs, wild gingers, wild plums and palms. Many species of yams are eaten, including some bitter varieties that must be peeled, mashed and leached in water before being cooked and eaten. Game such as kangaroos, wallabies, goannas, cassowaries, ducks, turkeys and other fowl are hunted in the grasslands as well as in the open-­canopy forests.

Other important foods come from the mangrove colonies and freshwater swamps. In the billabongs are found long-necked tortoises, water-lily seeds and corms, and file snakes. The trunks of mangrove trees are often infested with mangrove worms which have a surprisingly high nutritional value. The trees also harbour delicious oyster, bi-valve mussels and crabs.

In coastal areas saltwater and freshwater fish comprise the major part of the diet; fewer terrestrial animals are eaten. The west coast of Cape York and north-eastern Arnhem Land are also the traditional hunting grounds for the dugong, which is a large sea­going mammal. Turtle eggs are also gathered during their nesting season. Sometimes turtles are captured and cooked for feasts and ceremonies.

In 1948 the American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land studied the eating patterns of northern Aboriginals. Most of the foods listed by members of this expedition are still gathered and eaten throughout Arnhem Land.

Life in the desert

In the centre of Australia is a vast arid area. This is divided into two lowland regions by a series of ranges extending east-west. Water sources vary - they range from huge pools in deep gorges found in the hillier country, to small soaks, springs and claypans found after rain in the low-lying country. The animals and plants in each region are different. The lowlands consist of sand plains, dunes and stony or gibber plains. Spinifex grass is the main vegetation and large game is uncommon. Small mammals are an important source of protein, as well as lizards and introduced rabbits. Kangaroos and wallabies occur on the grassy plains near the ranges, and euros and rock wallabies live in the hills. Emus occur in both environments.

In this land rain is very unreliable. In the past survival depended on a detailed knowledge of waterholes and soaks. These are often linked by Dreaming tracks so that their location was memorised as part of the ceremonial song-cycles. In the flat and open landscape, rainfall can also be seen from great distances. By watching the rain, people knew where temporary water supplies were likely to be found. They were also able to predict the availability of foods in different locations at particular times of the year.

Using this combination of knowledge, small groups moved large distances across the land. They camped near water sources for various lengths of time. At some places, they camped overnight; at others they would spend several weeks and perhaps meet up with other groups.

Today Aboriginal communities and outstations have their water supplied from bores, windmills and pumps. It is no longer necessary to find surface water. When people go hunting from their main camp, they usually take four-wheel drive vehicles and carry water in large containers.

In the desert men's hunting activities provide kangaroo and emu meat, while women's activities provide a reliable supply of vegetable food at most times of the year. The women gather fruit of various Solanum species - the so-called desert raisins and tomatoes - and harvest shrub and grass seeds. The seeds are ground and baked. They also track and capture small reptiles and animals. The witchetty grub is a prized food source, as well as various kinds of gum and flowers rich in nectar. Reptiles were once the most common source of protein, but in recent years, in Pitjantjatjara lands, they have largely been replaced by rabbits and feral cats.

Life in the temperate south-east

Most of our information about the food that south­-eastern Aboriginal people ate before European contact comes from the accounts of nineteenth-century explorers such as Eyre, Mitchell and Sturt. In most seasons a large quantity and variety of foods were available. The rivers offered freshwater crustaceans and shellfish. In the dry forests beside the rivers, many species of marsupials, lizards and snakes, as well as echidnas, emus and turkeys were hunted and trapped. Waterfowl and other birds were caught and their eggs were gathered, as were insect larvae and wild honey. Yams formed an important part of the diet here, as they did in other areas of Australia. Many fruits of the forest were collected.

Along the coast large numbers of people assembled at different sites to take advantage of seasonal resources. Aboriginal people in New South Wales retain an oral history of great gatherings and feasts; this is supported by archaeological evidence. In winter these large groups split into smaller groups, which would spread out across the forest areas and the grassy plains beyond the rivers. They hunted small animals by digging them out of burrows. Larger game were caught in nets and traps. A variety of tubers and seed foods replaced the high protein diet available from the coast and river estuaries.

Bogong moths were an important seasonal food in the alpine country of New South Wales. With the spring-time arrival of the moths, hundreds of Aboriginal from a wide area travelled to the mountains for feasts and ceremonies. The moths were knocked off the rock walls on which they gathered in large numbers or smoked out of caves and crevices. They were then either roasted on the spot or ground up into a paste for future use. The roasted moth abdomens are the size of a small peanut, and a rich food source, being high in fat and protein.

To the west of the Darling River lie the great grasslands of the more arid regions. Here thrived an economy based on gathering seed. Native millet (Panicum sp.) was collected and heaped in piles. When the seed was ripe, the millet was threshed by being pounded on a log or trampled in a hole. Dust, dirt and the seed were separated by winnowing in long, bark dishes. The seed was then prepared for eating or stored in skin bags. Throughout the western areas of New South Wales and Queensland large grindstones were once found, evidence of the widespread use of grass seeds for food.

Aboriginal cultivation and farming techniques

Aboriginals alter and manage their land and thereby, to some degree, control the source of food. The most widespread 'farming' technique is the use of fire. If some habitats are not burnt regularly, they are a poor source of food. Some food plants such as cycads crop heavily after fire, and others need fire to germinate. Fire was used carefully by Aboriginal people as they sought to burn some plant communities and protect others. When lighting a fire they would take account of the season, weather conditions and other factors that influenced the extent of a burn. The fires they lit were generally small and well-defined. In the arid zone fires were used to create a mosaic of areas of different burn age. This provided the people with a range of habitats containing different plant foods. Fire also encourages regrowth and animals can easily be hunted when feeding on the new shoots.

The use of fire was an important way in which Aboriginals looked after their country. In parts of northern and central Australia they continue to burn, sometimes working in collaboration with biologists to re-establish the pattern of burning that was used by their ancestors.

Regrowth is encouraged in other ways. On Bathurst Island and in Arnhem Land and Cape York women collecting tubers traditionally leave a little in the ground. Among the Tiwi people on Bathurst Island some of the yam is always put back to placate the yam spirit. As one woman told her children:

'When you dig up yam, you must all the time leave little bit end of that yam in ground... if dig it all out, then that food spirit will get real angry and won't let any more yam grow in that place.'

Aboriginals also practise 'accidental gardening'. In Arnhem Land, for instance, after fruit are eaten, the seeds are scattered among the food debris on the edge of the camp area. In later years past camp sites are recognisable by the stands of fruit trees.

Traditionally people encouraged the renewal of life by performing appropriate increase ceremonies. They respected the land deeply. Food-harvesting rules were part of religious observance that was based on the laws of the Dreaming ancestors.

Preparing plant foods

Many plant foods are indigestible or even poisonous if they have not been properly treated. Certain species of nuts, for instance, need to be leached in water to remove toxins. Grass seeds, a dietary staple in many parts of Australia, require much preparation to make them suitable for eating.

The seeds are collected by stripping the seed heads or pods from the plant and beating them into a coolamon with a stick. The outer coverings of all seeds must be removed. For some species this can be done simply by rubbing the seeds between the hands so that the husks are separated from the seed. For harder seeds, the process is more elaborate. A hole might be dug in the sand beneath a tree and the grain poured in. Holding the tree, women stand on the grain and grind the husks away by rotating their feet from side to side. The seed material is then winnowed so that the wind blows away the unwanted chaff.

Most seeds are ground before eating. Hard seeds, for example acacias, are dry milled, while grass seed is wet milled. Some acacia seeds must first be heated in a fire then cracked with a hammer stone. Softer seeds are simply ground with water into a paste and eaten raw. Generally the paste is made into unleavened bread, commonly called 'damper', which is cooked in the ashes of a fire.

Cooking methods

The most common cooking methods are: roasting on the coals; cooking in the ashes; steaming in the ground oven; and boiling. Some foods, such as turtles, stingrays and sharks, are cooked using special processes.

Roasting on hot coals

This is basically a technique for cooking small animals, for example, fish, small turtles and reptiles. It is also used as an initial stage in the cooking of large animals.

A freshly killed animal - for example, a kangaroo or rabbit - is generally first thrown on a fast-burning fire. The fur singes quickly. After ten minutes or so, the animal is taken off the fire. The intestines are removed, and the remaining fur is scraped off with a sharp implement. The animal is returned to the fire when it has subsided to form a bed of hot coals. After 20 minutes or so, it is turned over and cooked on the other side. If large animals are cooked in this way, the result is often near-raw or red meat. Smaller animals are quickly cooked through.

Baking in the ashes

Many plant foods, including dampers, seed and nut breads, and tubers, corms and root vegetables, are cooked in hot ashes. Witchetty grubs are simply rolled in the ashes; other foods such as damper or goanna are placed on the hot ground beneath the ash and covered with more hot ash.

Steaming in a ground oven

The most widespread cooking 'oven' is a pit dug in the ground; in this ash and coals steam the food. Small ground ovens are made for vegetables and large pits dug for whole kangaroos or sections of a buffalo. This is the favoured method of cooking larger game in Arnhem Land.

A hole is dug the size of the food to be cooked, then a fire is made over it adding smooth stones (in the northern areas) or heavy timber (in the desert). As the fire burns away, the red-hot stones or coals from the timber fall into the pit. The charcoal and debris is swept away, the food, perhaps wrapped in paperbark or foil, is inserted, and the oven sealed off. In desert areas this is done simply by placing clean ash over the food, then hot soil. In tropical areas paperback sheets cover the hole, sealing in the steam. The bark is then covered with hot sand. The resulting meal is delicious.

Rock art photos from top to bottom: Grahame L. Walsh Resource Managers Pty Ltd AIATSIS Grahame L. Walsh Thanks to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC)  

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