Living with the Land
Walya Mitchell holding Wangurnu seed
Smaller than a sesame seed, Wangarnuare harvested from the long stems of dry golden woollybutt grasses that erupt from the desert’s deep red floor.
We gathered about three tablespoons of the seeds in half an hour. It was the end of the season, and the ladies explained that the winds had swept many seeds from their husks to the earth. Nevertheless, even in times of abundance, there was no doubt that gathering enough seed to make damper was a long, slow process.
Walya Mitchell making damper
Walya and I sat beneath a shady bush on the red dirt, and Walya emptied two small handfuls of seed into her wirra(wooden bowl). Rhythmically, she lifted and rocked the wirra, and as she did, tiny fragments of husk separated from the seeds, after which she was able to start grinding.
Grinding Wangurnu.
Eventually, when Walya was satisfied the sifting process was complete, she scooped a small handful of seed from the wirra onto the flat surface of the grinding stone and began to slide the other stone across the seed, splitting and crushing it into a soft grey powder. Every now and again, the wind blew and threatened to scatter this hard-won flour, but it remained in a pile on the grinding stone. After an hour, Walya had crushed perhaps a cup of flour. She added water to it and mixed it into a thick, sticky paste, which turned a deep red colour.
Cooking wangarnu paste.
Walya then instructed me to gather firewood and build a small fire beneath which she pushed a small clump of dried grasses that she set fire to. The small fire died down to coals and then ashes. Walya used a twig to scrape the ashes aside, creating a flat area onto which she smoothed the Wangarnu paste into a small, flat oval and spread the coals back over its surface.
Wangarnu damper
After 15 minutes Walya pulled the damper from the fire and dusted the ashes from its dry, grey exterior. She then broke it in half to reveal a richly coloured, still soft interior, its taste sweet and dense and chocolatey with occasional fragments of ash or stone embedded in the crusty surface.
Sybil Ranch walking through Jawoyn country.
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Mother and child hunting for goanna
Jawoyn Country. Arnhem Land. NT>
Pandanus
Nora Holland collecting yirrmangka-yirrmangka
Go out and collect it, break the leaves off until there’s nothing left, put it on the fire with oil and boil all the goodness out. We melt the beeswax, if we haven’t got proper wax we use candle wax. When you see the leaves getting brown like that you stop and let it cool, pour liquid into a clean bowl and throw away the leaves. Mix it with the wax and let it set like a butter and rub it into your bones, back or for period pain.
Dulcie Watson
Mangroves.
Kangodjbaya. Mangrove worms.
Mangrove worms are cut out of the intertidal roots of mangroves .
Maningrida. NT
Sugarbag.
My mummy, she had a half-caste son and daughter, and one day policemen came on horses. They’d been riding and looking for all the half-caste children. My mummy said, ‘Come quick, we must go and look for sugar bag so we can paint your brother and sister.’ So we went up the hill to look for sugar bag and got some and rubbed my brother and sister with it, then my mummy got ashes from the fire, put in a drop of water and rubbed it into the skin to make it darker. Too late though, the policeman came with his horses and pointed a gun to my mother and he said, ‘stop’, so they got my brother and sister and put them in the Landrover. There was lots of half-caste children, and my mummy cried and cried, wasting her sad for my sister and brother. We never saw them for a long time.
Margaret Katherine
Jarrambah.
When we go to collect Jarrambah (large freshwater prawns) we have to take a throw net and chook pellets and then we chuck chook pellet in the water and just wait for couple of hours till all the jarrambah come up and feed around and then you throw your net where that chook pellet I bin chuck em and get maybe three dozen . Some times we cook it on the coals or you can just cook them on the hot sand and sometime boil em you know. Long time ago we never had throw net we used to use bushes you know and we used to drag the bushes, leaves and branches in the water, that’s how we caught our jarrambah. Or we used a little stick and on the end you tied a fishing line and a little hook with meat on the end and that’s how we used to get em . Plus another way is you have your meat in between the toes and you just sit deep in the water to your waist and you get your mosquito net and you sit down for a good while and next thing you feel that jarrambh biting at your feet and then with your two hand you throw that net and you trap them and that’s how we used to get them before when we had no throw . Now you got a throw net so easy to catch.
Annie Milgin
Jarrambah.
When we go to collect Jarrambah (large freshwater prawns) we have to take a throw net and chook pellets and then we chuck chook pellet in the water and just wait for couple of hours till all the jarrambah come up and feed around and then you throw your net where that chook pellet I bin chuck em and get maybe three dozen . Some times we cook it on the coals or you can just cook them on the hot sand and sometime boil em you know. Long time ago we never had throw net we used to use bushes you know and we used to drag the bushes, leaves and branches in the water, that’s how we caught our jarrambah. Or we used a little stick and on the end you tied a fishing line and a little hook with meat on the end and that’s how we used to get em . Plus another way is you have your meat in between the toes and you just sit deep in the water to your waist and you get your mosquito net and you sit down for a good while and next thing you feel that jarrambh biting at your feet and then with your two hand you throw that net and you trap them and that’s how we used to get them before when we had no throw . Now you got a throw net so easy to catch.
Annie Milgin
Jirral. Bush gum.
“Jirral gum grows on a few select trees.. we boil it up with water, boil boil boil until really soft and mix with little bit of sugar let it set , cut it up and eat it like a lolly
And other way you just boil it and use it like a varnish, you can varnish your boomerang or coolaman or all that.”
Annie Milgin
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Cave paintings in Jawoyn Country.
Paintings of animals that formed an important food resource for the Jawoyn people, traditional owners of the Nawarla Gabarnmang, the country in which these paintings reside. Arnhem Land. NT
Jikali. Fish eggs.
Jarlmadangah. Kimberley. NT
Dulcie Watson.
We are Ngaanyatjarra people, Yarnangu. We have lived in this area for a long, long time. There was always plenty of water and food here, marlu(kangaroo), ngirntaka(perentie), tirnka(goanna) and a lot of different fruits and seeds that we could collect. We live in the Warburton Community, approximately 700 kilometres west of Uluru. The main kinds of country here are rirra(gravelly downs), tali(sandhills), pila(sandplains) and purli(stony breakaways). There are hundreds of kinds of plants, animals and insects that live here. We use many of them for food or medicine.
Searching for mud mussels
Searching for mud mussels in the mangroves. Maningrida. NT
"Sometimes we go on the boat or we walk across the plain country and through the mangroves. We look for a little bit of shell peeping through the mud, then we get a stick and dig it out. We dig down under the shell and pull them out and put them in a dilly bag or flour drum. Sometimes we get two shells and smash them up against each other and eat it raw when we're hungry, rinse the mud of the meat and squeeze it and eat it."
Debbie Mabbindjia.
Mud Mussels
One of the most prized foods for the Ndjebbana community in Maningrida is the mud oyster or mud mussel. The shells are often as big as the palm of your hand and frequently found buried between the branches and heavy root systems of the mangroves in deep beds of mud.
Cooking mud mussels.
Joanne begins to lay the mussels out in rows, perhaps seven or eight in a row, and between each row a stick. She continues to lay them out like this until there is a large grid of mussels and branches on the floor. On top of this , she lays a pile of kindling and stuffs some dried grass beneath one end, then sets fire to it. The wind sweeps the fire into the kindling and the whole thing erupts into flames. Then there is a sound quite magical, as the shells pop and crack and open with the heat. The sound is like a series of tiny bells , ringing from within the fire. The flesh, when it is cooked, is tough , and tastes of the mud in which the creature has lived.
Claire Mawudba
Claire Mawudba gathering particular leaves for cooking salt water mussels . Maningrida NT
Debbie Mabbindja on salt flats with Sylvan James
Debbie Mabbindja on salt flats with Sylvan James
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