Australian National University THESES SIS/LIBRARY TELEPHONE: +61 2 6125 4631 R.G. MENZIES LIBRARY BUILDING NO:2 FACSIMILE: +61 2 6125 4063 THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY EMAIL: library,[email protected] CANBERRA ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA USE OF THESES This copy is supplied for purposes of private study and research only. Passages from the thesis may not be copied or closely paraphrased without the written consent of the author. Aboriginal gardening: Plant resource management in three Central Australian communities. Daphne Nash. A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Arts of The Australian National University. December, 1993. All the material which is presented in this thesis is my own work, unless otherwise stated. CloL Daphne Nash. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have contributed to the completion of this thesis in various ways. I would like to thank the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies for funding which together with an Australian National University Masters Degree scholarship enabled me to carry out two periods of fieldwork in Central Australia. I would like to thank the following people who provided friendship and support during fieldwork: Jeff Hulcombe and Pamela Napaltjarri for their generous assistance in living at Kintore; Sharyn King, the late Jane Goodall and Alan Randell who shared their houses at Kintore; Peter Bartlett and Arpad Kalotas for expert advice; and also Bill Peachy for accommodation at Papunya. In Alice Springs, Elizabeth Verstappen and Warren Snowden shared their house and gave welcome support. There are many other people whom I would like to thank, particularly Kevin Keeffe for his patience and continued encouragement, as well as for late night proof-reading, and to Jane Simpson, David Nash and Susette Cooke for their enthusiasm towards an end product. I am especially grateful for the continued support, advice and friendship of my supervisor, Ian Farrington, who has helped me to hold the threads of my ideas together over what seems like a very long time. I also thank Ian Hughes for his encouragement, comments on drafts and administrative support. Many thanks to Val Lyons, Geography Department, ANU, for her drawings of the gardens. Finally I wish to express my gratitude to the Aboriginal people of Kintore, Papunya, New Bore and Mt Liebig, who generously assisted my work and accepted my family into their communities allowing us to continue our relationship with them. CONTENTS List of Figures iv List of Plates v List of Tables vi Notes viii Abstract ix CHAPTER 1 NOT JUST HUNTER-GATHERERS 1 CHAPTER 2 CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE AND GARDENING 8 Cultural significance 1 0 Management 1 8 Are Aboriginal people gardening? 2 2 CHAPTER 3 3.1 PEOPLE, RESOURCES AND DIET IN CENTRAL AUSTRALIA 2 5 People and resources 2 5 History of food in Pintupi diet 3 1 3.2 THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF BUSH FOODS IN MODERN DIETS 4 6 Demise of the seed cake 5 7 Cultural factors behind modern food choice 6 7 i CHAPTER 4 THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF HUNTING AND GATHERING 7 3 Patterns of hunting and gathering trips 7 5 Rumiyaku (Hunting for goanna) 7 9 Modern bush resources 8 4 Technology of management 9 2 Women and resources 9 8 Significance of hunting and gathering today 1 1 0 CHAPTER 5 PLANT RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 1 1 4 Plant management around the world 1 1 4 Plant management in Aboriginal Australia 1 1 8 CHAPTER 6 ABORIGINAL GARDENING IN CENTRAL AUSTRALIA 1 3 5 Historical context 1 3 6 Tree planting projects 144 Aboriginal gardening 148 CHAPTER 7 GARDENS IN THREE ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES IN CENTRAL AUSTRALIA 1 5 5 Project gardens and home-gardens 1 5 8 The home-gardens 1 6 1 ii CHAPTER 8 MANAGEMENT AND CULTURAL PERPECTIVES ON MODERN GARDENING 208 Techniques of management 208 Role of the gardens 212 Emergence of gardens 221 Door-yard gardens 227 Continuation of traditional management practices 231 CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION 2 3 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY 242 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Communities and major landforms in the field area 2 6 Figure 2: The principal vegetational formations in the field area 2 7 Figure 3: New Bore home-garden 164 Figure 4: Home-garden, ML 17 9 Figure 5: Home-garden, A2 184 Figure 6: Home-garden, A3 186 Figure 7: Home-garden, A4 192 Figure 8: Home-garden, A9 197 Figure 9: Home-garden, Cl 203 i v LIST OF PLATES Plate 1: Vine-covered verandah at New Bore 1 65 Plate 2: Bough shade covered by M. balsamina, New Bore, 1987 1 66 Plate 3: Bough shade in 1991 166 Plate 4: Solanum chippendalei in New Bore home-garden 168 Plate 5: 'Nursery' of Ricinus sp. seedlings in New Bore home-garden 168 Plate 6: The front garden, A3 at Kintore showing water melon vines, M. balsamina and Cassia sp.. 1 87 Plate 7: 'Lilies' (Canna sp.) in home-garden A4 at Kintore 1 93 Plate 8: E. camaldulensis in home-garden A9 at Kintore 198 v LIST OF TABLES Significant dietary components of some bush foods 46 Central Australian food plants occurring in Arnhem Land 5 1 Seed ground to make cakes 58 Seeds eaten as a wet paste 64 Kuka, animal food resources 84 Mayi, vegetable food resources 85 Other important bush foods 87 Non-food plant resources 89 Techniques of management 93 Agricultural/horticultural techniques used in Aboriginal plant resource management 128 Project gardens and home-gardens compared 159 Plants in New Bore home-garden 171 Plants in home-garden, ML 1 80 Plants in home-garden, Al 182 Plants in home-garden, A2 1 83 Plants in home-garden, A3 1 90 Plants in home-garden, A4(a) 191 Plants in home-garden, A4(b) 1 94 v i Table 19: Plants in home-garden, A9 195 Table 20: Plants in home-garden, Cl 204 Table 21: Plants in home-garden, C2 2 05 Table 22: Techniques of management 208 Table 23: Species planted for environmental modification 214 Table 24: Species planted for edible parts 21 6 Table 25: Traditional culturally significant plants in the gardens 2 1 8 Table 26: Comparison of traditional plant management and modern gardening techniques 231 vii NOTES Personal names: Throughout the text I have not given the full names of Aboriginal informants. Instead, I have used the initials of first names followed by people's 'skin' (Le. sub-section) names. All women's 'skin' names begin with 'N' and men's names with 'Tj'. Place names: Generally, places are named in the way they are most commonly known. For places which are known by both an English and an Aboriginal name, the two names are given in the first instance, for example, Kintore (Walungurru) and only one form is used thereafter. Orthography: In transcription of Pintupi language, I have followed the orthography developed by Hansen and Hansen (1992). Spelling of language group names follows Hobson, J. (1990) Current Distribution of Central Australian Languages. Alice Springs: Institute for Aboriginal Development, and Green, Jenny (1992) Alvawarr to English Dictionary. Alice Springs: Institute for Aboriginal Development. I have used the following language names: Alyawarr, Anmatyerre, Arrente, Kukatja, Luritja, Ngaatjatjarra, Pintupi, Pitjantjatjara and Warlpiri. ABSTRACT This study examines modern Aboriginal plant resource management in three Central Australian communities. Reappraisal of continuing traditional practices identifies the usage of techniques which are more often associated with other forms of plant management, including gardening. Continuity of ideas and practices are reflected in people's food choices. The field studies demonstrate that in hunting and gathering trips, as well as in domestic gardening, people dealt with plants and other resources for social and cultural reasons. They were not solely motivated by biological survival. Cultural preferences influenced the choice of species that were tended in both domestic and non-domestic locations. In the home-gardens, plants were used not only for food and shade but to maintain connection with traditional country and culture. In the bush-gardens, people continued to manage their favoured traditional resources. In both locations, culturally significant species were planted, protected and encouraged in ways that are readily recognised by observers as gardening techniques when used by other cultural groups, but rarely recognised as such in Aboriginal Australia. There are strong social and cultural motivations for people to maintain their relationship with their traditional resources. For the people of Kintore, New Bore and Mt Liebig, gardening represents one aspect in this complex system of resource use. CHAPTER 1. NOT JUST HUNTER-GATHERERS. In the nineteenth century, Europeans generally believed that Australian Aborigines were survivors of a 'primitive' stage in the evolution of mankind. The evidence was manifested in travellers' records of a simple technology and no evidence of agriculture, which together with other factors, confirmed the belief in European biological and cultural superiority. Following the linear idea of progress (Kramer, 1967), societies are said to move through stages, from primitive savagery to hunting and herding, culminating in agricultural life. Many groups do not proceed past certain steps in the sequence. The Australian Aborigines, who were thought to merely appropriate their food and other resources from the environment were deemed to be on the bottom step of cultural development. This attitude has continued in various forms despite the volumes of research produced on the complexity of Australian groups. Within this evolution-oriented approach, Aborigines were classified as hunter-gatherers, along with other groups, such as the !Kung bushmen of Africa. Their hunting and foraging activities were recorded but other aspects of their lives, such as social organisation, kinship and totemism were deemed more theoretically interesting and important to anthropology. Consequently, there has been an under-recognition of the complex nature of people's relationship to their resources.