Aboriginal Food...and Water

Traditional aboriginal food is whatever nature is offering.

To survive in the desert, Australian Aboriginals learnt various ways to find water and food.

Australia is a dry country and a large part of it is arid land. However it is teeming with life. Amazingly, it has a huge number of plants, which are also food and shelter for animals. So there's the complete food chain.

Some of these plants make excellent, nutritious food for humans.

aboriginal food and water - rock waterhole A rock waterhole

As Australian Aborigines were not growing their crops or vegetables they had to be extremely mobile. They moved around in search of daily fodder and water.

And as incredible as it may seem, there is water in the desert.

You just need to know how to find it and dig for it. Or know what plants shelter it. Such as the red malee, which has water in its trunk.

Rainfall does not happen very often, but when it does, Aborigines move quickly to get the water that remains trapped in waterholes, rocks, tree hollows or underground in the roots of trees.

aboriginal food and water - turkey nest

A turkey nest, as the one above, is a waterhole that captures rain. The eucalyptus that surround it bring shade and keep water longer from evaporating.

Indigenous people extract water stored in tree hollows by pushing some sort of pipes or straws into a hole and then sipping the precious liquid.

aboriginal food and water - blue malee A rock waterhole

Tree roots also store water. A lot of eucalyptus have extremely long roots that extend many metres away from the trunk and relatively close to the surface. This helps them find underground water.

Australian Aboriginals dug and harvested water from the roots of various trees such as the red or blue mallee. They also learnt to collect and drain the dew drops from the plants.

When all the other sources were exhausted Aborigines could even squeeze out the "water holding" frogs. This is a frog species that has large amounts of water stored in its body. They can be found below the surface of claypan wetlands.

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