Indigenous Australians didn’t farm animals by building a fence and bringing the animals food. That’s too inefficient.
Indigenous Australians farmed animals by using cold fire to terraform the landscape into an ideal habitat for grazing and hunting, and then just waited for animals to show up and prosper.
Australian agriculture can’t compete with European agriculture on volume, but volume wasn’t the point. The point was efficiency and sustainability. Australians before colonisation were some of the least busy people in the world. They were on their way to fully automated luxury communism.
If you want to know more, you should watch the First Inventors documentary series on SBS. Everything I’ve said here is explained better by the great people working on that series, and there’s lots I didn’t say today. Like the world’s first aerofoil!
Those are the massive dams down in Victoria that produced so many eels, the people could build permanent houses, right? Super cool, I learned about them from watching The First Inventors.
Permanent / semi permanent houses are actually in a few places in Victoria. Budj Bim was so massive the term “industry” has been applied. This was literally a major industry not only farming, but smoke preserving and trading eels. This was commerce. Same deal with the quarries at Mount William. Seasonal, yes, but that was because the Kulin means of resource management was to keep in motion so as not to deplete, also moving with the seasons. Pretty much base camps that would be returned to in a certain pattern, permanent buildings, but semi-permanent habitation. If that makes sense.
Yeah, except what I’ve heard is, the seasonal migration isn’t just about managing resource depletion, it’s necessary to fulfill commitments to the land. You have to come back to the same locations each year to look after them. Also, it’s good to be inland and uphill when the cold season comes, so you have an easier time staying warm and not getting flooded.
The firefighting thing? (I know it is not, but I wanted to demonstrate I did a small amount of effort to learn and would like to know more. I googled it (used in the generic way).)
If you make fire in the hot and dry season, it’s much more likely to transform into a raging uncontrollable wildfire. First Australians are very careful about when they use fire for terraforming. They choose a time of year and a time of day when the risk is low, and they examine the soil to check on the microbial conditions. An Elder who’s experienced in traditional practices can look at a handful of dirt and tell you how hot the fire will burn.
When they light the fire under the right conditions, the temperature is very low, as fire goes. It’s easy to control. It’ll burn away the fallen leaves and the scrub, but it will leave the older trees untouched. Before they light the fire, they’ll warn the animals and give them a chance to retreat. The insects will climb up the trees and be safe up there. See, western domestication is about controlling animals, but in Australia, the animals have evolved over tens of thousands of years to listen to the people. The insects know when to climb the trees to get away from the fire because the people tell them.
Until recently, Indigenous people near white cities were prevented from doing their traditional burning. So the scrub grew out of control, and when a fire happened by accident because of teenagers or lightning or shards of glass, the wildfires were out of control. Still are, in some places. So in recent years, white people have started listening to the First Australians about the traditional burnings. Because they don’t want their houses to burn down.
But traditional burning is about much more than just stopping wildfires. It’s a tool to shape the landscape. When the European invaders first arrived here, they wrote about how the land was like a garden estate. It was paradise. Grassy plains with scattered trees providing shade and fruit for humans and animals alike. That environment isn’t an accident, it was engineered to be like that. Using fire. It’s what an Indigenous farm looks like.
So you can imagine how angry the Indigenous people got when the whities showed up, built fences through their farms, banned traditional burning, and let their sheep and cattle poop in the water supplies.
Indigenous Australians didn’t farm animals by building a fence and bringing the animals food. That’s too inefficient.
Indigenous Australians farmed animals by using cold fire to terraform the landscape into an ideal habitat for grazing and hunting, and then just waited for animals to show up and prosper.
Australian agriculture can’t compete with European agriculture on volume, but volume wasn’t the point. The point was efficiency and sustainability. Australians before colonisation were some of the least busy people in the world. They were on their way to fully automated luxury communism.
Cold fire is such a cool name. It almost sounds like the Indigenous Australians discovered fusion.
Heh, I could have just said fire, but I wanted to pique the white people’s curiosity and talk about how well the First Australians have mastered fire.
Well, you’ve piqued this Asian man’s curiosity as well lol
Also, it’s so refreshing to see the right “piqued” being used for a change.
If you want to know more, you should watch the First Inventors documentary series on SBS. Everything I’ve said here is explained better by the great people working on that series, and there’s lots I didn’t say today. Like the world’s first aerofoil!
Might wanna read up on the Budj Bim eel farms.
Those are the massive dams down in Victoria that produced so many eels, the people could build permanent houses, right? Super cool, I learned about them from watching The First Inventors.
Permanent / semi permanent houses are actually in a few places in Victoria. Budj Bim was so massive the term “industry” has been applied. This was literally a major industry not only farming, but smoke preserving and trading eels. This was commerce. Same deal with the quarries at Mount William. Seasonal, yes, but that was because the Kulin means of resource management was to keep in motion so as not to deplete, also moving with the seasons. Pretty much base camps that would be returned to in a certain pattern, permanent buildings, but semi-permanent habitation. If that makes sense.
Yeah, except what I’ve heard is, the seasonal migration isn’t just about managing resource depletion, it’s necessary to fulfill commitments to the land. You have to come back to the same locations each year to look after them. Also, it’s good to be inland and uphill when the cold season comes, so you have an easier time staying warm and not getting flooded.
The firefighting thing? (I know it is not, but I wanted to demonstrate I did a small amount of effort to learn and would like to know more. I googled it (used in the generic way).)
If you make fire in the hot and dry season, it’s much more likely to transform into a raging uncontrollable wildfire. First Australians are very careful about when they use fire for terraforming. They choose a time of year and a time of day when the risk is low, and they examine the soil to check on the microbial conditions. An Elder who’s experienced in traditional practices can look at a handful of dirt and tell you how hot the fire will burn.
When they light the fire under the right conditions, the temperature is very low, as fire goes. It’s easy to control. It’ll burn away the fallen leaves and the scrub, but it will leave the older trees untouched. Before they light the fire, they’ll warn the animals and give them a chance to retreat. The insects will climb up the trees and be safe up there. See, western domestication is about controlling animals, but in Australia, the animals have evolved over tens of thousands of years to listen to the people. The insects know when to climb the trees to get away from the fire because the people tell them.
Until recently, Indigenous people near white cities were prevented from doing their traditional burning. So the scrub grew out of control, and when a fire happened by accident because of teenagers or lightning or shards of glass, the wildfires were out of control. Still are, in some places. So in recent years, white people have started listening to the First Australians about the traditional burnings. Because they don’t want their houses to burn down.
But traditional burning is about much more than just stopping wildfires. It’s a tool to shape the landscape. When the European invaders first arrived here, they wrote about how the land was like a garden estate. It was paradise. Grassy plains with scattered trees providing shade and fruit for humans and animals alike. That environment isn’t an accident, it was engineered to be like that. Using fire. It’s what an Indigenous farm looks like.
So you can imagine how angry the Indigenous people got when the whities showed up, built fences through their farms, banned traditional burning, and let their sheep and cattle poop in the water supplies.