when cooked in this manner; they occasionally also dress pieces of kangaroo and other meats in the same way."[1]
And in other parts of Australia the natives are not so indifferent to the art of cooking as is generally supposed. Mr. Clement Hodgkinson thus writes of the natives of the north-east coast:—
"Although, from the preceding details, the Australian natives might be deemed the dirtiest savages in the world, with regard to the nature of the food they eat and their mode of cooking it, yet such is not the case. It is quite true, as many writers have reported, that the produce of the chase, such as opossums, squirrels, pademellas, guanas, ducks, &c., are thrown down, unskinned and unembowelled, before the fire, and devoured, entrails and all. But having often observed the mode of cookery pursued by the Australian Aborigines, I have never seen them omit to extract the entrails as soon as the animal was warmed through, and they are then carefully cleaned and cooked separately. With regard to the skin being left on (which is not always the case), it is purposely done, in order to retain the juices of the meat, which would otherwise be dried up by their simple mode of cookery; but as soon as the animal is sufficiently done, the skin is easily pulled off and rejected. The Macleay River natives always clean and gut their fish, and cook them carefully on hot embers, and they eat nothing whatever in a raw state, except cobberra and grubs. The Australian Aborigines, therefore, though not remarkably scrupulous as to cleanliness, are, at least, equally so with the less uncivilized New Zealanders, and much more so than many of the African tribes."[2]
The common kinds of shell-fish eaten by the natives are as follows:—Fresh-water mussel (Unio sp.); mussel (salt-water) (Mytilus Dunkeri); mutton-fish (Haliotis nivosa); periwinkle (Lunella undulata); limpet (Patella tramoserica); and cockle (Cardium tenuicostatum).
The sea cucumber (Holothuria sp.) is also eaten.
The Rev. Mr. Bulmer gives the native names of these, as follow:—
| Fresh-water mussel | Nerridewan. | Cockle | Tagera. |
| Periwinkle | Moondara. | Mutton-fish | Walkan. |
| Limpet | Banawara. | Sea cucumber | Jirawon. |
Mr. Hodgkinson says that the oyster (Ostrea mordax) is eaten by the natives of the Bellingen River.
The crab (Pseudocarcinus gigas)—Krangalang (Gippsland); and the cray-fish (Homarus annulicornis)—Terndang (Gippsland)—as well as the cray-fish commonly found in creeks and ponds—the large Murray one (Astacoides serratus), and the smaller (A. quinquecarinatus), afford excellent food.[3]
- ↑ North-West and Western Australia, vol. II., p. 276.
- ↑ From Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay, p. 229.
- ↑ "At Moorunde, when the Murray annually inundates the flats, fresh-water cray-fish make their way to the surface of the ground, from holes where they have been buried during the year, in such vast numbers that I have seen four hundred natives live upon them for weeks together, whilst the numbers spoiled, or thrown away, would have sustained four hundred more."—Eyre's Journal, vol. II., p. 252.
