Dear Foxy,

It is interesting that eels can not be eaten like sushi as the bloody is poisonous to humans which is why it is smoke to breakdown that particular protein. So when our indigenous brothers would bite them on the back of the neck when capturing them they had to spit out any resulting blood.

Here is a good clip of Bruce Pascoe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB1-oilD3IU

SteeleRedux: To call catching wild eels with traps an example of sophisticated agriculture is really pushing the boundaries of the meaning of the phrase. As Loudmouth points out, when trapping fish in the sea we don't usually call the fishermen farmers. So why should we call trapping eels in rivers anything but fishing?

Can you prove that they actually did anything other than just trap the eels that naturally swam in the rivers. Did they have any level of animal husbandry skills besides just trapping them?
eg: Did they manually feed the eels in anyway? If not, did they at least deliberately move the livestock from one place to another to manage their feeding?

Oh by-the-way: it was only ever very, very recently that anyone has successfully bred eels in captivity due to their complex life-cycle. From memory I think it was a South Australian company that first did it about 20+ years ago. This was after millions and millions of dollars spent by them and others and thousands of PhD level man-hours of research and testing on various attempts world-wide. No traditional aboriginal society was ever going to be able to achieve this with their primitive knowledge and technology.

The fact that there is so little evidence that Indigenous people farmed or built permanent dwellings rather proves that they were predominately hunter-gatherers.

.

Dear Paul1405,

.

I just discovered this thread which I see you initiated almost a week ago. I read the 15 pages of animated discussion it has provoked, with interest.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit late for me to join in the discussion on the specific points that have been raised, though I should have liked to have done so.

Allow me, simply, at this late hour, to point to the two articles I wrote for OLO on the subject in hand, which, having just re-read them myself, appear to remain relevant :

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=18533&page=0

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19767

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structures_built_by_animals