Unsurpassed Fertility and Beauty

Explorer, Major Thomas Mitchell waxed poetic as he crossed the western plains and Gariwerd hove into view in the winter of 1836.

“Every day we passed over land which, for natural fertility and beauty, could scarcely be surpassed; over streams of unfailing abundance, and the plains covered with the richest pasturage. Stately trees and majestic mountains adorned the ever varying scenery in this region, the most southern of all Australia and the best”.

Near the Hopkins River to the south-east of Gariwerd, the expedition found a Djab wurrung woman’s basket – possibly abandoned as she fled in fright from the alien invaders. The contents of the reed-woven basket provide a glimpse at the diversity of diet enjoyed by western Victorian Aboriginal people before European Settlement.

The bag contained “three snakes, three rats, about two pounds of a small fish, like white bait; crayfish; and a quantity of small root of the cichoraceous plant tao, usually found growing on the plains with bright yellow flower (the native yam daisy). There were also in the bag various bodkins (bone points for sewing) and colouring stones (for painting and decoration, and two mogos or stone hatchets.

source: The People of the Gariwerd – Gibb Wettenhall

Here in Wartook, in the winter of 2008, the unsurpassed fertility and beauty is as evident as it was when Major Mitchell passed by. Alas the indigenous people and their green ways, are all gone now. But I can live  similarly.

Today I went out with my bowl and, rather than colouring stones, my digital camera. I collected a rich harvest from the garden where Ash lies sleeping, warm within the bowels of the earth. I have made a chicken casserole for dinner (no beheaded chickens from here) and I will serve it with fresh silver beet, fresh from the garden. The eggs were warm to touch when I gathered them from my ‘girls’. It is not quite a bush larder but the things I have gathered, the fresh lemons and oranges, eggs and beet will nourish and sustain me.

Cultivating a Creative Larder

“Historically, several inulin-laden foods, especially chicory, dahlia, Jerusalem artichokes, murnong, and yacon, have been used as staple food or as sustenance crops. Australian aborigines ate murnong, a tuberous plant, in the 19th century as their main vegetable food with a reported daily intake of 200-300 grams (Gott, 1984).”

Running down Kangaroos or finding a wombat down its burrow was a chancy business for the indigenous people who lived in the Gariwerd, so bringing back something to eat was often left to women.

Armed with their digging sticks and baskets, each with a carrying capacity of up to 30 kilograms, the Djab wurrung and Jardwadjali women and children gathered immense quantities of tuberous roots and edible food. One of the most important year-long food stapies was native yam daisy, or murnong. Its yeallow dandelion like flowers once covered the grasslands in their millions. Robinson describes the sight in 1841 of “women spread over the plain as far as I could see them… each with a load as much as she could carry.”

Over a period of a few years the women would dig over much of the plains country within their range to get at the sweet tasting, starch rich clumps of murnong tubers.

If they were taking such vast quantities, why did the murnong not become scarce? The answer is that the women only thinned the clumps of tubers. Moreover, the digging aerated the soil, incorporating litter and ash, thereby cultivating and fertilizing the tubers of murnong and other edible orchid and lily species.

During my time at Wartook, within what has been such an abundant garden, I have had time to reflect and learn from the techniques these early people employed and how I can apply this to my creative life. Digging, foraging, cultivating, fertilizing, thinning, preparing wild gardens where community members can till the ground and develop their gardens. It is all a part of the daily routine here at Wartook, an important part of my creative life.

Bush Larder

“There’s an emu in the Milky Way and two bright stars, and as the stars get brighter during the month of May, the emu’s neck stretches and that’s when you know there’s a lot of emu eggs around”

The Djab wurrung and Jardwadjali knew that when Canopus the Dog Star rose above the horizon in early spring it was time to search for emu eggs, which were considered a particular delicacy.