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Economy along
the Coast -
Summer
Families now
live in a base camp that lets them collect
food resources from the open forest and
grasslands as well as move to temporary
camps in the dunes to enable the harvesting
of food from the sea.
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Gathering and hunting:
shellfish, crayfish, fish, seals and
sea birds |
Gathering and hunting: plants,
lizards, snakes, kangaroos,
wallabies and emus. |
Gathering and hunting: daisy
yams, kangaroos and emus. |
Coastal Aborigines
Summer was spent near the
coast where food was plentiful however the
people were highly mobile changing location
to utilise other food sources. Autumn was
spent on the edge of the grasslands near
water resources in order to harvest fish and
eels. Winter was spent near fuel and food
resources. Housing was built according to
the weather conditions. Spring saw people
moving closer to the coast to utilise
seasonal food resources in the area.
Hunting involved the taking of
birds (during breeding
season) sometimes using traps, Mutton birds
(taken in burrow), swans and ducks (during
moulting), seals (breeding season), fish,
eels, stranded whales, koalas, kangaroos,
wallabies, emus and possums.
Collecting food in the form of fruit,
vegetables, seeds and shellfish were
extremely important in insuring a health
diet. Vegetables sometimes required being
removed from the soil with the help of a
digging stick while shellfish were collected
in two diffezront ways. Wavy turbo, limpits,
abalone, dog winkle, ribbed-top shells and
rock whelk were collected by hand while pipi,
wedge shell, mud ark and oysters were
collected by dredging.
All the material needs the people required
had to come from the local environment. Some
products produced from animals and plants
were:
* Bone tools, nose bones , fish spear
points: kangaroo and emu bones
* Headband decorations: kangaroo teeth
* Binding string: kangaroo sinews
* Rugs and cloaks: possum skin
* Arm bands: possum hair
* Necklace: reeds
* Awls and bipoints: long bones of seabirds
* Scrapers: marine shells
* Drinking containers: abalone shells
* Stone tools: flint found along beach
* Digging sticks, clubs, boomerangs, spears:
branch from tree
* Canoe: bark
* Nets: kangaroo grass or stringy-bark
fibers
* Fishing line: bark of Acacia
* Fishing hooks: bone
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