Dear Loudmouth,

So creating series of dams and channeling then using nets to harvest the fish and eels that were contained certainly fits the description of the modern eel farmers of the Western Districts. But somehow the term can't be used when describing what Aboriginals did?

Yeah right.

As to the murnong if it were simple gathering I might agree. But there was extensive replanting and fire management involved. Just because there were not fences you want to give the least charitable view you can.

As I said murnong is not easily propagated and to have the extensive tracts of it greeting the first explorers indicated substantial management went into its cultivation.

And now you seem to be accepting that kangaroo grass was harvested for making nets but the previous post you were asking Foxy to show evidence of some kind of sickle presumably before you would accept it was harvested for seed.

Here is a further excerpt re the net making from explorers;

“They collected a large quantity of kangaroo grass and steamed it in one of their ovens. When well softened it was taken out and allowed to cool. It then went through a process of separating the fibre. This was done by the women, who chewed the grass till the pulp had all disappeared. It was then well washed and when dry it was then made into the twine required for the net.”

But to you harvesting large quantities of kangaroo grass was not possible because they didn't have the tools similar to European grain harvesters?

Could you assist us by making up your bloody mind?

Joe,

I see no point in any further conversation with you
on this topic. You are the one in denial. Not me.

If you really wanted answers you would
at least acknowledge what has been provided for you
to date. Bruce Pascoe has provided and
described Aboriginal
agriculture in this country in great
detail. He's only one of many to cover this topic.
Of course you have to actually be
willing to read what they wrote.

Steele,

I see, now you're defining people who construct fish traps and gather the fish that is trapped, as farmers ? Okay, away you go.

Is it possible that murnong, yam daisy, grow naturally ? Across hundreds of square kilometres ? Or are you saying that they were all planted out by women ? And if they were grown naturally, why plant them, except as a sort of game ?

I don't know if sickle-type implements were used to harvest kangaroo grass - do you know ? It's called gathering, Steele, either way, unless it was a planted crop. Are you claiming that people planted kangaroo grass ? Why, for Christ sake - it's everywhere.

Everybody made nets, all across Australia. For catching animals - mice and rats down this way, larger animals and birds and reptiles elsewhere. Are you claiming that making nets is farming ? It's for an advanced form of hunting, Steele.

Collecting kangaroo grass is, I don't know, something similar to gathering kangaroo grass. Gathering, Steele. How you process what you gather is still an on-product of gathering. It's not farming. Even if they had had the latest whizz-bang tools, it still would not be farming. It's gathering. If they planted kangaroo grass (god knows why, it's everywhere), then yes, that would be farming.

But you've already made up your mind, long ago.

Joe

The new round of inventing history has begun !

Dear Loudmouth,

It seems you are going to extraordinary lengths to not let the word cultivation or farming of any kind slip your lips and be associated with our indigenous peoples. Of course not all aboriginal tribes were settled just as not all were nomadic.

You wrote; “I see, now you're defining people who construct fish traps and gather the fish that is trapped, as farmers ? Okay, away you go.”

Well I could be asking whether the modern eel farmers in SW Victoria should more correctly be called the 'eel hunter gatherers'. The use nets, they trap eels and secure them in large constructed dams. What do you think?

You blathered; “Is it possible that murnong, yam daisy, grow naturally ? Across hundreds of square kilometres ? Or are you saying that they were all planted out by women ?”

Of course it grew naturally, but clearing through the use of fire to allow its propagation and the splitting and planting of tubers to extend natural populations is cultivation in my book.

You say “Are you claiming that people planted kangaroo grass ?” No but you have constantly rejected reports of gathering it in rows as evidenced by the early explorers because you said the locals did not have the capacity to do so.

And on we go.

You seem to twist and turn on every point, contradicting yourself constantly with an unseemly obstinance which does you no credit. You keep claiming I have asserted things I haven't just so you can argue the point you have erroneously attributed to me.

All pretty silly and petty mate.

And to think that I once admired the bloke.