Fire and Indigenous People — The Knowledge Tale Still Ignored
“Academia tend to select the smarted ones, giving them the chance to shut their minds for changes and misconceptions. Things evolve, and mainly these people need to be able to accept their lack of knowledge over time.”
When you look at a eucalypts flower, you may see fads unnoticed before. As the usual aspect of reproduction, these flowers do not differ from the others you know. Both have a stigma to collect pollen, a style with its tube-like form to transfer pollen to the ovary and an ovule where seeds are formed after fertilisation. Although they are similar, eucalypts seeds are remarkable in their rights.
They depend on some sort of protection to avoid damage and to maximise germination. Most Eucalyptus fruits are solid, thick and fireproof. The capsule containing the seeds has several different designs for each species, which correlates to environmental conditions over millions of years of evolution. These fruits have capsules, allocating in each segment one or more seeds. The capsules are contained by valves, which protect them from abiotic and biotic factors.
These are angiosperms, flowering plants, and they have inhabited Australia’s continent for more than 45 million years. They depend on fire to release the valves open, drop the seed to the ground, and allow germination in a warm soft-blanket soil post-burning. For such a successful survival rate, you have to consider why and how they manage to grow so vastly and prolifically throughout the country. One of the main reasons eucalypts, including acacias and banksias, are successful species in various Australian regions is fire.
This ‘mysterious’ fire, once ignited by primitive humans but today fear by many, is the primary source of life. Indigenous peoples managed, used and continue to appreciate fire as the primary source of biodiversity for generations. And their fire management practices are ancient techniques yet undervalued by us today.
Reasons to justify the undermining of Aboriginal land care techniques are today the minor subject discussed in a circle of people. With a bit of digging, you can then understand deeper what happened during the settlement period, including the massacres and the loss of identity generated on behalf of the land’s peoples. This dialogue about colonisation could go further, but this article aims to promote the indigenous knowledge towards fire instead.
As Neville Bonney put brilliantly: “Whether gathering yams and fruit, hunting kangaroos or extracting resin from plants, Aboriginal people evolved a series of successful and different economies”. These practices were once considered primitive and lacking in technology by the ones claiming superiority.
The people’s cultural diversity throughout the land would make them the expert of each piece, also cultivated by them for thousands of years. Disregarding the clan or tribe, Australian Aboriginals knew how to read the land. They understood the changes overtime and played in favour of it. They were the gardeners of a land that owns them, as they well claimed. This mutual respect made them appreciate where they live and made them comprehend the ground needs to survive.
“Humbleness towards what created you in the first place is an attitude to be applauded”.
I am not here to deny the changes that occurred on the land from indigenous activities. For thousands of years, they modify for specific purposes, facilitating a better hunting spot, a more suitable agriculture practice, adjusting a proper aquaculture technique, and increasing biodiversity in certain regions. Their ancient methods of gathering food were accurate and efficient. Today, as a few scholars say, “science has been practised for the last 60 000 years by indigenous peoples through pure experiments and observation”.
Some stories say that some groups would use fire to control kangaroos’ herd and other species, bringing them as a closer target. They would use these hunting techniques frequently, not just for catching purposes but also to promote bush regeneration. They understood that fire was a must to encourage new growth and to allow plant species to shoot back later in the season. Burning certain areas invigorates the land, giving more chances to new plants and offering indigenous people more time to come back to the same spot after their walkabouts.
Unfortunately, Australian Aboriginals did not have a writing culture. They rely on storytelling, so information about these events are scarce. That is why we rely on journals from previous explorers. “These journals revealed a much more complicated Aboriginal economy than the primitive hunter-gatherer lifestyle we had been told was the simple lot of Australia’s First People”, as Bruce Pascoe says with a mouthful of pride. We need indigenous peoples to tell about their country, their land, their water. Finally, to remodel the education system, including their story, language and culture, to be accepted by us, ignorant about it all.
Thanks for reading!
