Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?

189 Pages·2015·4.27 MB·English

by  Bruce Pascoe

Rock Engraving of Emu Dreaming Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, New South Wales
PHOTOGRAPH BARNABY NORRIS
Baiame, the creator Spirit Emu, left the earth after its creation to reside as a dark
shape in the Milky Way. The emu is inextricably linked with the wide grasslands
of Australia, the landscape managed by Aboriginals. The fate of the emu, people
and grain are locked in step because, for Aboriginal people, the economy and the
spirit are inseparable.
Europeans stare at the stars but Aboriginal people also see the spaces in between
where the Spirit Emu resides.
Other books by Bruce Pascoe
Novels: Fox (Australian Bicentennial Novel; runner-up, 1988)
Ruby-eyed Coucal
Shark (FAW novel of the year, 1999)
Earth
Ocean
Ribcage (pseudonym Leopold Glass)
Bloke
Chainsaw File (young adult)
Fog, a Dox (young adult, Winner of 2013 Prime Minister’s Award)
Story collections:
Night Animals
Nightjar
History:
Cape Otway: Coast of Secrets
Wathaurong: the people who said no
Convincing Ground
Children:
Foxies in a Firehose

First published 2014 by Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation, Broome, Western Australia
Website: www.magabala.com Email: [email protected]
Magabala Books receives financial assistance from the Commonwealth Government through the Australia
Council, its arts advisory body. The State of Western Australia has made an investment in this project
through the Department of Culture and the Arts in association with Lotterywest.
Copyright © Bruce Pascoe 2014
Copyright © Images remain with individual owners All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the
purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this
publication may be reproduced by any process whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher.
Designed by Tracey Gibbs
Printed in China at 1010 Printing International Ltd
Front cover photograph by Lyn Harwood
Illustration of yam and tuber by John Conran Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry:
Author: Pascoe, Bruce, 1947-author.
Title: Dark emu : black seeds agriculture or accident? /
Bruce Pascoe.
ISBN: 9781922142436 (paperback)
Subjects: Aboriginal Australians--Antiquities.
Aboriginal Australians--Social life and customs.
Aboriginal Australians--Agriculture.
Land use, Rural--Australia.
Hunting and gathering societies--Australia
Dewey Number: 338.7630994
to the Australians

Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 • Agriculture
Chapter 2 • Aquaculture
Chapter 3 • Population and Housing
Chapter 4 • Storage and Preservation
Chapter 5 • Fire
Chapter 6 • The Heavens, Language and the Law
Chapter 7 • Australian Agricultural Revolution
Chapter 8 • Accepting History and Creating the Future
Picture Credits
Bibliography
Index
The Author

Acknowledgements
I am deeply indebted to Rupert Gerritsen for his book, Australia and the Origins
of Agriculture. I found my way to that book by a Google search for Australian
Aboriginal Grain Crops. It was listed number 35 in the search results and all
previous listings referred to contemporary wheat crops, an indication of the
poverty of analysis devoted to this topic.
Later in my search I came across an essay by Bill Gammage where he talked
about Aboriginal gardening and farming. Gammage’s most recent book, The
Biggest Estate, investigates, in exhaustive detail, the reports of early explorers
and settlers, many of whom talked about the ‘gentleman’s estate’ they had
chanced upon. Not a wilderness, not a land peopled by wanderers, but a
managed landscape created by the enormous labour of a people intent on
creating the best possible conditions for food production.
I’m grateful to the ancestors for their ingenious protection of the land.
Where else on earth was there a civilisation that lasted more than 60,000 years
and depended on both agriculture … and peace?
Many other people provided information and advice including: Gordon
Briscoe, John Clarke, Neville Oddie, Lyn Harwood, Susan Pascoe, Jack Pascoe,
Koorie Heritage Trust, Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages,
Brewarrina Cultural Centre, Brad Steadman, Sue Wesson, Lynnette Solomon-
Dent, Vicki Couzens, Herb Patten, Michael Perry, Reg Couzens, Ted Donelan,
Christina Eira, Stephen Morey, Ian Chivers, Charlotte Finch, Veronica Frail,
Harry Allen, Paula Martin, The Artefact, Sue Norman, Betty Cruse, Liddy
Stewart, Maria Brandl, Annette Peisley, Peter Gardiner, Ray Norris, John
Morieson, Michael Walsh, St Kilda Indigenous Nursery Co-operative (SKINC),
Russell Mullet, Beth Gott, Barrie Pittock, Kevin Lowe, Elaine van Kempen, Eric
Rolls and many others.
Bruce Pascoe