The Biggest Estate on Earth

by Bill Gammage

  In some places roos could be kept off even small paddocks. Near Daylesford (Vic) in 1840 John Hepburn showed Robinson

  a small plain with some open forest upon it . . . where he said the natives usually encamped. Said it was a favourite place for the natives. He has seen 30 women on the plains at the time, digging murnong whilst the men went into the forest to hunt kangaroos, opossums &c which are abundant . . . The trees . . . stood at a distance of from 20 to 40 to 50 yards, and the whole, which was about half a mile square, had a park-like appearance . . . The banks on the opposite side [of a creek] was thickly wooded. A small table land, grassy, was directly opposite.11

  In other places separating roos and yams was not possible or not preferable. In Tasmania,

  kangaroo bounded before us in every direction. The country in this part is delightfully pleasant, with little grassy hills and extensive plains where the young kangaroo grass was shooting up on the burnt ground, forming a beautiful carpet of green pasture, and the plain was studded with a yellow flower.12

  Possibly the grass was burnt at harvest time, deterring the roos and exposing the yams.

  The most obvious templates were for kangaroos, the biggest and fastest grazers. These illustrate how precise templates must be, but how possible this was. Red (plains) and grey (forest) kangaroos prefer to graze in the open. They eat herbs, grass and tips, but as a professional hunter put it in 1860, are ‘very partial’ to Kangaroo Grass.13 They prefer, and when young need, grass golf-green high and fresh, when it is softest to eat and most nutritious, with high nitrogen content—except in drought it is 75–95 per cent of their diet. Usually only young males travel far, but reds can see and smell rain up to 20 kilometres away, and will move up to 30 kilometres to green pick. Searchers spread, one finds feed, the mob smells its breath and follows it back. In forests with more water and grass, greys will travel 5–7 kilometres for pick. Reds have favourite places but are opportunist in finding feed; greys have a beat between feed and camps. Both drink little, dew often sufficing, but prefer water nearby. For shelter reds seek shade, not too dense, with a view and in open country, preferably in long grass in summer and short grass in winter. Tree clumps on tussock plains are ideal. Greys prefer cool gully scrub on hot days, dry rises out of the wind on cold days, and timbered rises at night, all without enough undergrowth to slow them down. Both prefer edges. Both fear recent killing ground, so places to lure them must be changed frequently, and the roos left to forget the spears, locate on another template, stand ‘gazing at us like fawns, and in some instances came bounding towards us’,14 and breed. In the north pick has most nutrient in the late Dry so grass for breeding was burnt then, but in general roos are opportunist breeders, holding a foetus until conditions are right.

  To meet such complexities, simply patch-burning here and there—the management level Europeans have so far detected—is haphazard and awkward. The work of decades was not to be frittered away like that. Instead, ‘Only a small fire was lit so that it would not get out of control and burn neighbours out. Marsupials would, of course, be attracted by the new shoot of grass after a burn, and if the area were restricted the game would be more easily taken.’15 People chose and patch-burnt templates in sequence to give a mob a good beat and to schedule which edge it would use, so from which to hunt. A mob fleeing one template to seek another made ready might cross several with no burnt patches or appeal. These would be worked later. All this must be varied as seasons, species balance, and ceremonies or gatherings dictated. Hard work and planning were constant, but so vital that after 1788 survivors risked their lives to do it. In Tasmania Mannalargenna’s people took this risk (ch 4), and Backhouse saw Tasmanians still working templates after most of their kin were ‘removed’. ‘This forest . . .’, he wrote in November 1832, ‘is interrupted by a very few, small, grassy plains. One of these had recently been burnt by a few Aborigines still remaining in the neighbourhood. They burn off the old grass, in order that the Kangaroos may resort to that which springs up green and tender.’16

  On the other hand, many smaller marsupials prefer the safety of long grass. There were templates for them too. Whereas a clearing might be patch-burnt to bait a kangaroo trap, for scrub wallabies grass might be left long until a hunt was ready. On the Herbert, Lumholtz watched a hunt on

  a large plain, surrounded on all sides by scrub and overgrown with high dense grass . . . [Men] spread themselves out, set fire to the grass simultaneously at different points, and then quickly joined the rest. The dry grass rapidly blazed up, tongues of fire licked the air, dense clouds of smoke arose, and the whole landscape was enveloped as in fog.17

  Templates were highly effective. Grey glimpsed their efficiency:

  [people] always regulate the visits to their grounds so as to be at any part which plentifully produces a certain sort of food, at the time this article is in full season: this roving habit produces a similar character in the kangaroos, emus, and other sorts of game, which are never driven more from one part than from another—in fact, they are kept in a constant state of movement from place to place.18

  From patch to patch, he might have said. North of Swan Bay (Vic) Batman crossed

  land a little sandy in places, but of the finest description for grazing purposes; nearly all parts of its surface covered with Kangaroo and other grasses of the most nutritive character, intermixed with herbs of various kinds; the Kangaroo grass, and other species from ten to twelve inches high, of a dense growth, and green as a field of wheat . . . As a relief to the landscape, the rising eminences were adorned with wattle, banksia, native honeysuckle and the she-oak . . . we passed over another thinly-timbered and richly-grassed plain, of not less than two to three hundred acres, on whose rich surface a large number of kangaroos were feeding.19

  Batman described a sequence of fire sensitive herbs and grass ‘of the finest description’ too tall for kangaroos, belts of fire tolerant trees on rises, and kangaroos concentrated on a ‘richly-grassed plain’. Understandably, he missed the significance of these changes. Southeast of Tambo (Qld), Mitchell saw a little more:

  we traversed fine open grassy plains. The air was fragrant from the many flowers then springing up, especially where the natives had burnt the grass . . . The extensive burning by the natives, a work of considerable labour, and performed in dry warm weather, left tracts in the open forest, which had become green as an emerald with the young crop of grass. These plains were thickly imprinted with the feet of kangaroos, and the work is undertaken by the natives to attract these animals to such places.20

  The work made animals predictable. Allan Cunningham realised that the ‘marks of kangaroo and emu among the fine brown grass and forest land in the vicinity of the creek are proofs of the abundance of these animals in these fine grassy grounds’,21 and Mary Bundock recalled,

  a man came to an uncle of mine and asked him for matches, as he had lost his firestick while following a big old man kangaroo. My uncle asked him ‘What do you want matches for?’ The black man replied, ‘To cook my kangaroo.’ ‘Have you killed him then?’ asked my uncle. ‘No’ was the answer ‘he is up there’ pointing to a mountain about two miles away, ‘very tired and I go back there and kill and eat him.’ Which he accordingly did!22

  He found what he expected. Predictability is an advantage farmers claim over hunters, but a template system spread and programmed was more drought and flood evading, more certain, than a farm.23

  Templates explain 1788 plant patterns otherwise puzzling. From the 1880s until the 1967 fires, the McDermott family had a small farm on Hobart’s Pipeline Track, where their cattle kept open a skilfully placed clearing. Poa grassland covered a saddle and ran up slopes at each end to meet forest edges. Depending on the wind, people could drive game uphill either way, slowing it for spears or nets in the timber. Today wattle and peppermint are reclaiming these edges.24 In the southern alps in 1840, amid

  the apparent sameness of the forest, may be often found spots teeming with gigantic and luxu
riant vegetation, sometimes laid out in stately groves, free from thicket or underwood, sometimes opening on glades or slopes [picture 38] . . . Sometimes, again, the forest skirts an open country of hill and plain, gracefully sprinkled with isolated clumps of trees, covered with the richest tufted herbage.25

  On the Gwydir west of Moree (NSW), Mitchell

  crossed a small plain, then some forest land, and beyond that entered on an open plain still more extensive, but bounded by a scrub, at which we arrived after travelling seven miles. The soil of this last plain was very fine, trees grew upon it, in beautiful groups—the acacia pendula again appearing. The grass, of a delicate green colour, resembled a field of young wheat. The scrub beyond was close,

  and four days later:

  The country consisted of open forest, which, growing gradually thinner, at length left intervals of open-plain . . . Penetrating next through a narrow strip of casuarinae scrub, we found the remains of native huts; and beyond this scrub, we crossed a beautiful plain; covered with shining verdure, and ornamented with trees, which, although ‘dropt in nature’s careless haste’, gave the country the appearance of an extensive park. We next entered a brush of the acacia pendula, which grew higher and more abundant than I had seen it elsewhere.26

  Walker thought the country around Mt Alexander (Vic)

  good undulating forest, very open, with here and there, spaces devoid of trees altogether . . . for a couple of miles we passed through scrubby ranges; but just where we halted, the country . . . looked beautiful, and we all exclaimed—‘There is Australia Felix!’ The country was not a flat or level one, but consisted of fine ridges, ranges of very open forest, with many apparently open tracts entirely devoid of timber: these are what are called ‘plains’ or ‘downs’.27

  Mitchell found this country a sequence of dense and open forest, and grass. He approached Mt Alexander over rich ‘downs’ full of emu and kangaroo, crossed a eucalypt wood to its base, climbed the north face through giant eucalypts open enough to ride through, and on top met dense timber, the south edge thick with tree ferns, wombat holes and fallen trunks. Some researchers argue that this area carried grass on basalt and trees on granite,28 but the changes were too local for that. People were working both with and against the country. They linked forest hills to grass and scrub belts on plains, and left dense timber on colder south slopes but north slopes open enough to ride horses up. Mitchell continued southeast to Mt Macedon, crossing from granite to basalt. The forest was denser, but again north slopes were more open than south, and both were more open than now. South of the mount Hawdon found both thick forest and downs of ‘park-like scenery’.29

  In Tasmania and probably on the mainland, people moved grass templates. ‘Grass is a fertility debtor; trees aren’t,’ Peter Andrews has noted.30 Despite careful fire and stock rotation, sooner or later the best grasses are eaten out and give way to less palatable species, or accumulate silica, or acidify and sour. Pick becomes less alluring and herbs and tubers thin as soils break down and lose nitrogen, fire ash and other nutrients. As on cropland, such signs show that the soil needs rest and revival.31

  The simplest way to move a template was to drive successive grass fires downwind into forest, and let forest recapture grass on the trailing edge. This cycled each community, yet kept plains a useful hunting size, and over centuries steadily moved grass–forest templates across country. In northwest Tasmania in the 1950s Bill Mollison noted 1788 plains moved progressively north to south by firing rainforest. At south edges grass gave way abruptly to mature rainforest; in the north eucalypts were advancing onto grassland. There was no soil change. Every few years hot summer northerlies sweep down from the mainland, bringing shrivelling heat. Tasmanians waited for it, moved clear of the young eucalypts north, and drove grass fires south into the rainforest. Slowly, sometimes no doubt by mere metres, they pushed the rainforest south, regulating the eucalypts north to match.32

  In this way Gatcomb Plain looks to have moved south (picture 46), and in a valuable chapter in 1988 RC Ellis and Ian Thomas concluded of Paradise Plains near Mathinna (Tas):

  The present area of grassland on Paradise Plains was formed during the last 200 years or so by the burning of rainforest. To the east of the Plains is primaeval rainforest; but to the west of the Plains is closed eucalypt forest of recent origin, as is shown by the presence of old open-grown trees and occasional remains of rainforest trees, amongst the tall forest-grown younger eucalypts. As one progresses further west across the plateau, the eucalypt forest appears to have been established for longer, since it contains forest-grown veterans and fallen trees and older secondary rainforest. At the western extremity of the plateau, the remains of eucalypt logs were found on a ridge top beneath secondary rainforest more than 200 years old. It may be that, as existing grassland became impoverished or overgrown with fire-resistant vegetation, the Aborigines abandoned it and generated new grassland by burning adjacent rainforest.33

  Fire drove rainforest east, grass and rainforest survivors like tree fern took charge of the burnt ground, eucalypts reclaimed the trailing edge, rainforest returned under shielding eucalypts. This was no random pattern. It required varied fire regimes and more skill than today’s firemen have. Tasmanians did it consistently for centuries. Ellis and Thomas noted similarly transformed landscapes nearby, at Diddleum Plain and near Mt Maurice, and Thomas thought grassland at Big Heathy Swamp may have been moved 5500 years ago.

  Robinson unwittingly crossed a template being moved. On the Ringarooma he met ‘immense gum and stringy bark trees, some of which was forty and fifty feet round, and the intermediate space filled up with lesser trees of the dogwood, stinkwood, sassafras and musk, as also the stately ferntree’. Four miles west he

  passed through an extensive forest of mimosa . . . trees . . . and numerous ferntrees . . . After travelling in this route for about ten miles came to an open and extensive plain covered with grass and fern . . . I was much gratified at meeting with this country after being immured in a forest for four days . . . kangaroo . . . were plentiful . . . The fern and trees had been fresh burnt.34

  ‘Mimosa’ regenerates quickly and thickly after fire (picture 6). It is among the first colonisers of burnt land. Without fire, in time other species top it and it dies. Here this had not yet happened, so the burning was quite recent. Tree fern prefers rainforest. It resists fire and survives in grass, but under repeated burning does not generate there.35 Its presence indicates former rainforest. So walking east to west, Robinson described eucalypts over rainforest indicating no fire for centuries, then recently fired land carrying wattles and tree fern, then a grass and fern plain made by fires repeated for enough decades to clear the trees. Like Ellis and Thomas, he reported colonising fires moving from west to east.

  Curr ‘saw’ templates being moved in the Hampshire Hills. ‘It has always been a matter of some doubt to me’, he wrote,

  whether the forests in this Island are encroaching on the clear grounds, or the clear grounds on the forests. An attentive examination of the Hampshire Hills establishes the very important fact that the forest by the agency of fire is undergoing gradual destruction & that useful grass is taking its place. I am of the opinion that, compared with the old settlements, these plains are of very recent date & almost every season is adding something to their extent. The middle of the clear ground near the banks of the river, seems the oldest formation; towards the outskirts the burnt forest in some parts thickly strews the ground as yet undecayed & in one place the destruction of the Forest has been so recent that the ferntree still survives . . . added to the above circumstances I observed that the tops of the forest trees immediately surrounding the clear ground were in most parts dead & lifeless—indicating that they will soon be in a state to burn & that the process of destruction of forest and the spread of grass is going on gradually but surely.3637

  On the other hand, water might anchor a template. It was a valuable component, varying and extending resources, most obviously in dr
y country. On the Balonne (Qld) Mitchell passed

  through woods partly of open forest trees, and partly composed of scrub . . . [to] land covered with good grass, and having only large trees on it, so thinly strewed as to be of the character of the most open kind of forest land. Saw thereon some very large kangaroos, and throughout the day we found their tracks numerous . . . [Camped] on a grassy spot surrounded by scrub.38

  North of Julia Creek (Qld) John McKinlay

  crossed a couple of small creeks flowing northward (the natives burning a short distance on our left); then over a variety of fair open country, and a small portion of very thick and scrubby myall forest; then over a spinifex ridge; then over well grassed table lands for several miles; then over a pretty thickly timbered spinifex rise of considerable length; and lastly, for the last five miles over plains, light belts of timber here and there.39

  On the Flinders a mile east of Hughenden (Qld) Ernest Henry found

  a lovely valley of undulating downs, studded here and there with groups and belts of graceful myall trees . . . the grass had evidently been burnt off a few weeks previously, but now clothed the rising and falling ground with the very richest pasture, trackless and undisturbed by a single hoof. A small creek, whose winding course is indicated by the trees that grow on either bank, trends northward through the centre of the valley . . . to the north [it] widens out and joins the extensive valley of the river, along whose course open downs stretch far away, unbroken save by narrow belts of timber.40

  He put his head-station there. Allan Cunningham came

  to an exceedingly pretty patch of plain . . . Its soils proved to be exceedingly rich, and well clothed with grass and other esculent vegetables . . . [It] is watered on its western side by the Logan . . . In the forest ground on the south side of the plain we reached a lagoon . . . [then] through an open forest, having the river, overshadowed by a density of viney thicket immediately on our right, we traversed flats of good ground, liable, however, to occasional inundation.41