by Bill Gammage
Even flies were restricted. In 1827 Peter Cunningham discussed ants, fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, caterpillars and blowflies, but not bush flies.157 Until 1788 the only suitable fly-breeding dung came from emus, marsupials, dingos, possibly wombats, and people who usually buried it. Travellers went weeks without mentioning flies, then for a day or two bewailed their ceaseless harassment, then again fell silent about them. On the Bogan (NSW) in January 1829 Sturt complained,
Our camp was infested by the kangaroo fly, which settled upon us in thousands. They appeared to rise from the ground, and as fast as they were swept off were succeeded by fresh numbers. It was utterly impossible to avoid their persecution, penetrating as they did into the very tents. The men were obliged to put handkerchiefs over their faces, and stockings upon their hands; but they bit through every thing . . . the animals were driven almost to madness, and galloped to and fro in so furious a manner that I feared some of them would have been lost. I never experienced such a day of torment; and only when the sun set did these little creatures cease from their attacks.
At first light the party fled, and Sturt wrote, ‘I did not expect that we should have got rid of them so completely as we did. None of them were seen during the day; a proof that they were entirely local.’158 He wrote similarly at Depot Glen in January 1845.159 Mosquitoes too were penned, ‘clear interior country being quite destitute of such annoyances . . . They have always been common at Parramatta, but never made their appearance in Sydney till within these last three years.’160
How restricted insects were in 1788 is conveyed by their increase since. Around Sydney caterpillar plagues began about 1810, and for decades ‘millions and millions’ devastated crops and pastures and were swept in heaps from houses.161 In Gippsland they ate out pastures in 48 hours,162 as did locusts. In ‘[WA] districts where the vegetation has not been burned for some years, [locusts] increase so much, as to threaten serious mischief to the pastures’.163 Near Adelaide after 1836 locusts advanced as fire retreated. They
were first observed close to the town, and for two years were confined to some two or three miles around Adelaide; but now they have extended their march, and bid fair to ravage the whole country . . . annual burnings . . . had the effect of destroying countless multitudes of insects that now are allowed to live and increase. The grass is eaten at present as soon as it appears, and during the hot weather is much too scarce to enable the fire to make a continuous line, without which very many insects must escape the flame.164
Forest insects became equally devastating. Most eucalypts use fire to cycle nutrients and toxins. Without fire this defence is weakened, exposing the tree to disease, insects and predators like possums and koalas. In Tasmania Ronald Gunn wrote,
I have never been able to trace the cause of this universal death of old and young trees in whole tracts of land, and many individuals over here remember when these trees in some of these spots were flourishing. I can only account for it by supposing it the ravages of an insect that marches through a tract of land destroying all the Eucalpti [sic] but find the Banksia & Acacia too little to their Taste. These dead forests are not peculiar to any one District in the Colony, neither do they always occur on the same soil.165
West Australian leafminers did not begin to attack Jarrah until 50 years after Europeans arrived,166 and in Victoria Neil Black, Edward Curr, Alfred Howitt (ch 11) and others blamed the death of whole forests on leaf insect plagues which began after 1788. The fires that once curbed them were precise, not scorching canopies but roasting the ground, and favouring birds which eat leaf insects over birds which don’t.167
Fire to regulate fuel, make mosaics, control animals and insects, and clean country gave the land a certain look. Not only Europeans admired Australia’s parks. Correct burning was deeply satisfying, announcing managers who respected the land and the Dreaming. ‘Smoke from country that is burning tells the observer that everything is good. The people on that land are well and doing what is required of them. Country that is not burning, especially where it is known that people are present, is not good. It means that something may be wrong and people should go and visit.’168 Dirty country was a reproach. On west Cape York the ‘commonest response of those returning to country in which they had formerly lived was that it had “gone wild” . . . the scrubs are thicker, the grass is long and unburnt, the footroads have closed up, the open ridge tops have grown over’.169 In the Kimberley,
The old woman leading the group was quite distressed by the country not being ‘looked after’, and clearly felt hemmed in. This was ‘dirty country’. The obstacles it put before her are exactly the reasons other people maintain they burn: fear of snakes (children were exhorted to stay in the vehicle); the vehicle might end up in a hole; you can’t see where the goannas and other tucker are and you can’t get access to special places.170
Even at the wrong time, country needing fire must be burnt. ‘You gotta burn’, an elder declared, ‘you don’t burn then country will get poor, it will shut itself up . . . no good for anybody then.’171 A bad fire was better than no fire, for no fire let fuel build up, making a bad fire worse.172
Good things came from fire. It made the land comfortable, comforting, bountiful and beautiful. Yibarbuk declared, ‘The secret of fire in our traditional knowledge is that it is a thing that brings the land alive again. When we do burning the whole land comes alive again—it is reborn.’173 Ida Ninganga recalled, ‘Oh, all of the islands, they would once be burning, from north, south and east and west, they would be burning, the smoke would be rising upwards for days, oh it was good . . . you knew where all the families were, it was really good, in the times when the old people were alive.’ Dinah Marrngawi agreed: ‘Look! All of you, look to the distance, look north, look east, look west, the islands are burning, this is how it should be, this is how it was when the old people were alive, look this country is burning it has been lifted up, we have embraced it again.’174
Words embraced fire. Darling people used the same word for ‘flame’, ‘open country’, and ‘flame, whereby open country is made’.175 Yanyuwa say ngarrki ‘badly burnt country’, warrman ‘well burnt country, good to hunt on’, and rumalumarrinjarra ‘lighting small fires in a row, to burn a beach front or a large plain’.176 West Arnhem Landers say anbirlu yahwurd for ‘low, creeping fires’, arri wurlhge ‘cleaning the country’, wurga ‘burnt ground’ and angolde ‘green pick’.177 Martu speak of nyurnma ‘freshly burnt area’, waru-waru ‘green shoot stage’, mukura ‘mid stage’, mangul ‘mature spinifex’ and kun-arka ‘old spinifex, dying in the centre. Burn in winter with the right wind, and use it to hunt or track on the burnt ground’.178 Walpiri say wajirrki ‘vegetation which grows following rain’ and yukuri ‘green vegetation, new growth; time of the year immediately following rains’.179 Perth people said boykt ‘ground clothed with vegetation which has not yet been burned’, narrik ‘unburned ground, but ready for burning. Land of which the vegetation is abundant and dry, fit to be set on fire’, yanbart ‘ground where vegetation has been burnt’, nappal ‘burned ground; ground over which fire has passed . . . free from all scrub and grass’, and kundyl ‘young grass springing up after the country has been burned . . . the seed of any plant’.180 None of these words have an English equivalent, none describe random fire. All reflect ingrained familiarity with fire–plant cycles. Near Perth kalla meant ‘fire; a fire; (figuratively) an individual’s district; a property in land’.181Kalla took fire into the intimate centre of how people lived, blending heart and soul with country.182
Five features marked 1788 fire. It was planned; it was precise; it could be repeated hence predicted; it was organised locally; and it was universal—like songlines it united Australia. People accepted its price. They must be mobile, constantly attendant, and have few fixed assets. In return they could ration its feed, unleash but never free it, and move it about, sustaining more diversity than any natural fire regime could conceivably maintain. It was scalpel more than sword, taming the most
fire-prone country on earth to welcome its periodic refreshing, its kiss of life. Far from today’s safe and unsafe fires, campfire and bushfire were one; far from a feared enemy, fire was the closest ally.
A few observers glimpsed this. In ‘many important particulars’, Curr realised, Aborigines were responsible for the state of Australia’s flora, fauna, soil and water in 1788:
there was another instrument in the hands of these savages which must be credited with results which it would be difficult to over-estimate. I refer to the fire-stick; for the blackfellow was constantly setting fire to the grass and trees . . . he tilled his land and cultivated his pastures with fire,183
and Mitchell concluded,
Fire, grass, kangaroos, and human inhabitants all seem dependent on each other for existence in Australia; for any one of these being wanting, the others could no longer continue . . . But for this simple process, the Australian woods had probably contained as thick a jungle as those of New Zealand or America, instead of . . . open forests.184
These were sympathetic men, yet neither touched the shattering loss the people of 1788 felt at the land’s subsequent mismanagement and destruction, for their alliance with fire was a means, not an end, and only the beginning of their achievement.
7
Associations
Watching the shores of King George Sound (WA) burn in October 1791, George Vancouver mused, ‘Fire is frequently resorted to by rude nations, either for the purpose of encouraging a sweeter growth of herbage in their hunting grounds, or as tools for taking the wild animals, of which they are in pursuit.’1 He may have been first in Australia to make this thoughtful remark. Perhaps he was also thinking of people in America or Africa, whose pre-contact use of fire could be studied with benefit.2 In Australia some newcomers knew that people burnt to hunt or to lure, and in the 1960s researchers revived this understanding (Introduction). As Vancouver saw, these fires were alternatives, a different purpose fuelling a different nature and effect. Plants were burnt selectively.
Grass was the most closely managed community. It grows best in the open. Some land is naturally treeless (ch 1), so you might expect people to prefer this for grass. They did the opposite. Grass was a crop, deliberately grown on soil ‘of the richest description’,3 ‘a rich black mould’, a mix of ash and compost now mostly gone. Even resilient perennials were put there. Where no soil was rich, the best available still carried grass. Arthur Phillip walked west from Sydney ‘over a vast Extent of fine Meadow Ground, where, the Trees were at a greater Distance from each other, than they are in the Country round about the Settlement. The Soil, they found was far superior.’4 Northeast of Emerald (Qld) Henry Turnbull
passed through a most splendid, open country, consisting of plains and downs—plains stretching as far as the eye could reach on one side, and beautiful grassy slopes running down from a long and high range of mountains on the other. With only a tree to be seen every 500 or 600 yards, the whole face of the country was covered with the finest grasses and richest herbage, with wildflowers of every tint and colour . . . Kangaroos would bound by us in scores at a time, and frequently ten or a dozen emus would march up to within 30 yards.5
Settlers sought grass above all. Moored to an export economy, they saw Australia as pasture. Botany Bay’s ‘meadows’ helped Britain select it to settle, expeditions were told to report good grass, and from 1788 travellers wrote pages about it. They did not find gold for another 63 years. ‘The country itself is superb’, Thomas Walker wrote of the Campaspe (Vic) in 1837, ‘the soil very rich, and well clothed with grass, with very few trees . . . a great portion, is totally devoid of trees . . . We were indeed enchanted with this country, and well we might, for no art could improve it, either for use or ornament.’6 Evans was moderately impressed in the Blue Mountains. It had ‘a fine appearance, the Trees being thin and the hills covered . . . with pasture to their tops; This Range is rather overrun with underwood and larger Timber growing thereon, but the sides are as green as possible’. Then near Bathurst he enthused over real plains ‘pasture’:
came on a fine Plain of rich Land, the handsomest Country I ever saw . . . worth speaking of as good and beautiful; the Track of clear land occupies about a Mile on each side of the River . . . the Timber around is thinly scattered, I do not suppose there are more than ten Gum Trees on an Acre . . . At 3 o’clock I stopped at the commencement of a Plain still more pleasing . . . the soil is exceeding rich and produces the finest grass intermixed with a variety of herbs; the hills have the look of a park and Grounds laid out . . . there is Game in abundance; if we want a Fish it is caught immediately,
and three days later,
The Grass here might be mowed it is so thick and long, particularly on the flat lands . . . the whole excellent good land, and the best Grass I have seen in any part of New South Wales; the hills are also covered with fine pasture, the Trees being so far apart must be an acquisition to its Growth; it is in general the sweetest in an open Country.7
John Howe cast a pastoral eye on the Hunter above Jerry’s Plains (NSW),
a country thinly timbered, and for the last hour many acres without a tree on it. One spot, I think, exceeds 50 acres with not 20 trees on it, and very fine ground . . . It is the finest sheep land I have seen since I left England . . . Caught a few perch. A great number in the river. The land on both sides very fine, and a great part of it may be cultivated without felling a tree. Even the high land is well clothed with grass and lightly timbered, though mostly thicker than the low ground. The grass on the low ground equals a meadow in England, and will throw as good a swathe.8
East of Boort (Vic) Mitchell too saw profit in pasture:
crossed a low ridge of forest land . . . entered a fine valley, backed on the west by romantic, forest hills, and watered by some purling brooks, which united in the woods to the east. The flat itself had a few stately trees upon it, and seemed quite ready to receive the plough; while some round hillocks, on the north, were so smooth and grassy, that the men said they looked, as if they had already been depastured by sheep.9
At the other extreme, dense forest or brush comprised big, close trees over undergrowth and debris, often locked up by vines. In 1842 Hodgkinson, generally cheerful, found Bellingen (NSW) rainforest ‘toilsome . . . in addition to forcing our way through entangled briars and creepers, we were incessantly compelled to clamber over huge fallen trees, and other obstructions’.10 Dense scrub might be coastal heath or tea-tree, inland acacia, alpine shrubland or young rainforest, all hard walking for people and too thick for horses. In southwest Australia, Grey met cool-burnt scrub under thick eucalypt forest kept from destructive fire for a very long time:
On this table land there was little or no herbage; the lower vegetation consisted principally of a short prickly scrub, in some places completely destroyed by native fires; but the whole country was thickly clothed with mahogany trees, so that, in many parts, it might be called a dense forest. These mahogany trees ascended, without a bend or without throwing off a branch, to the height of from forty to fifty feet, occasionally much more, and the ground was so encumbered by the fallen trunks of these forest trees, that it was sometimes difficult to pick a passage between them . . . I have never, in any part of the world, seen so great a want of animal life as in these mountains.11
Dense timber apart, tree distribution had two striking features. First, often trees were few, scattered, and without undergrowth (ch 1). Second, while some like mangroves chose their own ground, remarkably often forests were on poor or stony soil, like ridges and steep slopes. Grass on good soil and trees on poor was almost invariable (ch 1). Oxley commented, ‘It is a matter for regret, that in proportion as the land improves the timber degenerates.’12 Atkinson stated,
With the exception of alluvial land, good timber is very seldom found upon good land. The fertile plains in the interior are wholly destitute of it . . . [around Sydney] the best forest lands are invariably thinnest of trees; and in general it will be found that
the best lands are least encumbered with timber.13
Gunn saw how grass west of Deloraine (Tas) kept to valley soils, or more oddly how trees kept off them:
Here the Country breaks into long plains one and two miles long containing from 500 to 1500 acres each—these plains are in general almost clear of timber, with an average of not one tree per acre . . . The intermediate Hills . . . are in general very poor & stoney, yielding comparatively little grass, and very thickly timbered with fine large Eucalpti [sic] growing to an astonishing height, frequently 100 feet clear in the Stem before they begin to branch out. I have found some from 30 to 40 feet in circumference.14
On the Goulburn (NSW),
rich grazing tracts meet the eye, consisting of clear open levels or small plains, and grassy hills of the most easy acclivity . . . bounded by ridges of forest land, thickly clothed with timber. The level tracts, immediately bounded by the river, occasionally break into small plains, whose areas comprise from 100 to 150 acres, clear of tree or shrub.15
Liverpool Plains (NSW) were
all fine rich grassy soil without a tree, excepting where a small woody hill occasionally rises from the bosom of the plain to vary and beautify the prospect . . . the country appears to be spread out like a green ocean, of unbounded extent, with clusters of woody islands bespangling its surface.16
South of the Lachlan, Oxley noticed something ‘singular’ in how dense mallee was distributed: ‘those scrubs and brushes seldom if ever extend to the immediate base of the hills: the washings from them rendered the soil somewhat better for two or three hundred yards’ yet it bore grass.17 In the Centre better watered hill run-offs carried most grass and fewest trees,18 and on the Barcoo (Qld) Gidgee ridges were ‘thickly wooded’, but on ‘the flats, where the old grass had been burned, good grass had grown up’.19