Hi paul,

Yeah, it's a bountiful country:) Even farmers traditionally would also do a bit of fishing in the creeks and seas after work. Maybe not so much in the South Island, those Kai Tahu had to give up farming and go back to hunting moa and fishing. And the odd umu of North Islanders. Yum.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe, did it a bit differently this time, no main table as is customary. Sat everyone facing each other, with seafood table down the center, it was loaded. I had one small cray tail with seafood sauce not wanting to be greedy. Then one of the bro's came over with 2 massive lobster tails 1 each for Aunty and myself. Said he put them in the chiller special for us from Aussie, us not getting them very often, yum.

Back on the topic of farming: thousands of books have been written describing Aboriginal culture and society. Many hundreds of books have been written by researchers into Aboriginal languages: vocabularies galore have been collected from all over the country.

It would be interesting to know if there are any Aboriginal languages which contain any words which are unambiguously associated with farming - clearing, cultivating, planting, weeding, watering, weeding, watering, and then harvesting, storing and perhaps trading cultivated products. Any farming words shared between languages ?

Compared to the countless words to do with hunting, gathering, trapping, netting, digging for roots and bardi, etc., etc.

It's a bit of a stretch to 'explain' - without actual evidence - that whitefellas stopped everybody in every aboriginal group from speaking their farming languages; and forced every group in Australia to initiate or expand terms for hunting and gathering, which every language seemed to have plenty of (not used or perhaps even known now, simply because people have largely given up hunting and gathering).

And all with some sort of secret co-ordination, without any written communications between all those whitefellas about how to do it.

And artifacts: what's the proportion of farming tools to hunting-and-gathering tools in Museums across the world ?

Too ridiculous.

Joe

Dear loudmouth2,

What on earth do you think 'caring for country' entails?

SR,

How is 'caring for country' inconsistent with hunting and gathering ? Are you suggesting that hunters/gatherers are incapable of 'caring for country' ?

Are you referring to mosaic-burning the country ? Do you count burning as farming ?

Joe

Paul would know far more than me about this but in New Zealand, where there was indeed farming on a huge scale, settlement patterns were very distinctive: farming areas, usually controlled by a single hapu or extended family, were often fortified, or at least had a pa or fort for protection, with palisaded defence works, and stepped terraces. Mt Eden (Maungawhau) in the heart of Auckland is a good example.

Those massively-modified earth-works are still there. After all, they would be very difficult to 'vanish'. And there are pas all over the North Island, maybe even some on the South Island around Marlborough and Kaikoura.

Farming leaves a huge imprint on the landscape. In NZ, vegetation patterns are transformed as land is cleared for cultivation. Farming villages, even of neighbouring and related hapu, defend their lands fiercely, since the people there have put so much effort into them. Farming areas were often (perhaps usually) at war with neighbours, there wasn't much sweetness and togetherness between groups - more likely umus.

But one interesting feature was a sort of no-man's-land, rahui, land between different territories which was not used or farmed or even hunted or gathered on without mutual permission between groups.

And of course, people didn't waste their time trying to grow what was already growing everywhere, flax and ferns - they brought root-crops from the Islands with them and grew them all over the North Island. And fenced those areas to keep out rampaging kiwis and kakapos.

Perhaps the next time Paul is in NZ, he could check out the farming implements in the museums there :)

Joe