Aboriginal use of fire
Aboriginal people created a complex system of land management. There was no ‘pristine wilderness’, rather a patchwork of burnt and re-grown areas.
Fire was, and in some placed still is, used to ‘clean up’ the country for walking, hunting, signaling, ceremonies and to encourage plant and animal foods. The men strategically burnt patches giving the landscape a mosaic pattern of different aged grasses
In using fire Aboriginal people could plan and predict plant growth and with it attract animals for hunting. They converted the land to grasslands for the “maintenance” of animals, plants and fresh drinking water.
Gammage explains that Aboriginal people not only thought of kangaroos when laying out their burn patterns, but also of possums, wombats, birds, insects, reptiles and plants. “Once you have started to lay out country to suit a species, you are on the way to an extraordinarily complex arrangement of the land, which you must maintain very carefully, and over many generations,” he says. Burn patterns also need to consider plant cycles.
The research draws some striking conclusions:
Fire was, and in some placed still is, used to ‘clean up’ the country for walking, hunting, signaling, ceremonies and to encourage plant and animal foods. The men strategically burnt patches giving the landscape a mosaic pattern of different aged grasses
In using fire Aboriginal people could plan and predict plant growth and with it attract animals for hunting. They converted the land to grasslands for the “maintenance” of animals, plants and fresh drinking water.
Gammage explains that Aboriginal people not only thought of kangaroos when laying out their burn patterns, but also of possums, wombats, birds, insects, reptiles and plants. “Once you have started to lay out country to suit a species, you are on the way to an extraordinarily complex arrangement of the land, which you must maintain very carefully, and over many generations,” he says. Burn patterns also need to consider plant cycles.
The research draws some striking conclusions:
- No uncontrolled fires. Uncontrolled fire could wipe out food sources—Aboriginal people had to prevent them or die. Evidence strongly suggests that no devastating fires occurred.
- Aboriginal people were farmers. Researchers found that Aboriginal people grew crops of tubers such as yams, grain such as native millet, macadamia nuts, fruits and berries. People reared dingoes, possums, emus and cassowaries, moved caterpillars to new breeding areas and carried fish stock across country. There is “strong evidence” of “sophisticated farming and agriculture practices”. Early explorers watched women harvesting yams, onions, and cultivating the land, creating reserves of flour and grain.
- Customised templates. Aboriginal people developed specific templates to suit the land, plants and animals. They knew which animals preferred what, e.g. kangaroos preferred short grass, native bees preferred desert bloodwood etc. Managing the land with fire required them consider these dependencies.
- No pristine wilderness. More trees grow in areas now known as national parks than did in 1788.
Please Note: WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that the following program may contain images and voices of deceased persons.
Aboriginal fire making and use
traditional use of fire by the aboriginal communities
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