The Aborigines traditionally lived by hunting and by collecting food. They were semi-nomadic, that is, they moved over limited areas of the countryside, sticking to their own territory, which they knew well.

Food. All areas where Aborigines lived contained enough animals and plants to enable them to survive, even though some areas were dry and arid. Only droughts and floods caught them unprepared. Meat was the most popular of foods, even in areas where fish was available. However, their main foods were vegetable roots, or seeds that women ground into flour for flat cakes. The Aborigines caught and ate almost every kind of animal-not only kangaroos, wallabies, and emus, but smaller creatures such as possums, carpet snakes, and goannas. They also ate shellfish, crabs, oysters, wild fowl and their eggs, as well as turtles and tortoises and their eggs. They also ate various insects, especially tree and root grubs, which were rich in fats and sugars, and some ants. Other foods included roots, fungi, tree-gums, honey-laden flowers, water lily stems and roots, some leaves, and many kinds of fruit.

Food collecting was mainly the responsibility of women. Their main tool was a hard, pointed digging stick It was especially good for digging out roots, small burrowing animals, and snakes and lizards. They collected fruit and berries, seeds, nuts, buds, leaves, shoots, bulbs, and root vegetables. The women had to treat some of these foods before they were edible. Many ordinary foods had to be pounded or crushed.

Cooking. Some foods were always eaten raw, but some were roasted over an open fire, on live coals, or in an oven. Men usually cooked larger animals, such as kangaroos, while women attended to the smaller ones. The simplest kind of oven was used for kangaroos. It was a shallow pit filled with hot coals and sand, with the animal's leg bones left sticking out. Sometimes an animal's insides were removed and heated stones were put into the hollow part of its body. Then it was covered with more hot stones, sheets of bark, coals, and sand to seal it. Yams and bush potatoes were mostly cooked in hot coals or ashes. So were eggs, goannas, snakes, and crabs. Fish were baked in carefully made wrappings of leaves or paperbark to keep their flavour.

Providing fire. People usually carried fire when they moved camp, instead of starting a new one each time. Hunters and women out collecting food often carried smouldering fire sticks. Every camp, however small, had a fire. If Aborigines needed to start a fire, they generally used the friction method-rubbing with a fire drill or a fire saw. Both tools involved hardwood, softwood, and tinder (dry material that caught fire easily).

Finding water. Life depended on water, just as it did on food. All adult Aborigines knew, within their territory, where they could expect to find it. If no surface water was available, Aborigines knew where to dig for water. They also covered water holes to prevent evaporation and fouling by animals. The roots of some trees, such as mallees, hakeas, bloodwoods, kurrajongs, and wattles (acacias), give off water. Aborigines dug them out, cut them into usable sections, and sealed the ends with clay until they needed them. Other sources of water for Aborigines were frogs, bottle trees in the Kimberley, and box trees on the Nullarbor Plains.

Providing shelter. Aborigines on the move usually slept in the open. But even when they camped for only one night, they always made a rough windbreak of branches and bark. This windbreak was partly for protection against wind, but it also marked the borders of one family group's camp with its own fire or fires. In cold, dry weather or in the rainy season, Aborigines made more solid shelters. There were three basic varieties. In one, sheets of bark were bent in the middle to form an inverted "V". Another was an oval or circular hut on a framework of saplings, interlocked at the top, criss-crossed with other boughs, and covered with bark, branches, grass, or reeds. Some were waterproofed with clay or mud, or the materials were held down with stones. In Arnhem Land and the Cape York Peninsula, Aborigines made rectangular huts with four or more forked corner posts, supporting a framework of stripped saplings covered with bark, and a bark roof on top. During the wet season, the men elevated these huts above the ground and kept a fire going underneath to discourage mosquitoes. In north-eastern Arnhem Land, when sandflies and mosquitoes were bad and the Aborigines had no stilted mosquito huts nearby, they slept or rested under cone-shaped pandanus mats. In some areas, people used caves and rock shelters during the wet season or dug drains round their huts. The floor of a hut could be hollowed out and filled with soft grass or paperbark, and in northern areas, mats were used. A fire was always kept alight inside. Each hut usually contained a family-one or more wives, the husband, and their small children. Youths and single men usually camped together to one side of the married men's huts.

Clothing. Aborigines usually went naked, except for a pubic covering (a covering for their private parts). In winter, in the Southeast and Southwest of the Continent, they wore cloaks made of kangaroo, wallaby, or possum fur, or huddled over their fires. In heavy rain, they sought protection in a hut or rock shelter, or put up sheets of bark. Members of both sexes decorated themselves with red and yellow ochres (coloured earths), white pipeclay, and charcoal, and wore necklets or armbands of bunched feathers. Hunting was usually a task for men. Usually two or three hunters would co-operate, although some men hunted alone. Spears and spearthrowers were the main weapons, but there were other weapons, too. Among these were boomerangs, clubs, large nets, and fish traps. Hunting dogs were especially useful for running down kangaroos and for smelling out such burrowing animals as bandicoots.

Large groups who took part in hunts included women and children who would drive the animals toward the men, perhaps by lighting grass fires if the wind was right.

Fishing. Pronged spears were popular for fishing. A man would stand quietly, almost waist deep, watching the water with his spear poised. In deeper water, he would work from a canoe or a raft. Aborigines used various nets, too, including dragnets and drum baskets. They trapped fish by making dams. They rarely used lines with hooks, but they had detachable harpoons, some attached to buoys (floating markers). They used harpoons to catch turtles and plant-eating sea mammals called dugongs. They also used harpoons to catch dolphins and such big fish as sawfish and shark. They harpooned crocodiles, but the really big ones were tough-skinned and hard to kill. Usually, several men joined in a hunt, driving the crocodile to the shore or river bank and then spearing it. Women and children hunted shellfish and crabs.

Courtesy World Book