Aboriginal Australians -- Government relations; Dunk Island (Qld.); Natural history -- Australia -- Queensland
One of these rude seines which was overhauled was composed largely
of the long, leafless, twine-like branches of the leafless parasite
CASSYTHA FILIFORMIS (which the blacks term “Bungoonno”), IPOMEA
PESCAPRAE (“Koree”), Blady-grass (“Jin-dagi”), and the tough sprawling
branches of BLAINVILLEA LATIFOLIA (“Gallan-jarrah”), the whole being
reinforced with withes of CLERODENDRON IMERME (“Missim”), all of which
plants grow on the verge of the sea.
Vast as is the congregation of small fry, it gradually fritters away,
martyred to fish, flesh, and fowl. By the time the little terns are
thrown upon their own resources the violet frill of the sweet islands is
frayed and ragged, and drifts loosely in shabby remnants.
For large fish--groper, the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah,
sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and
grey)--a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a
point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with
fibre, the binding being made impervious to water by a liberal coating
of a pitch-like substance prepared from the resinous gum of the
arral-tree (EVODIA ACCEDENS).
The point is eight or ten inches long, the barbless end being swathed in
fibre so that it may fit easily into the socket of the eight or ten feet
shaft. A long line is tied to a point above the swathing, and, being
drawn taut along the shaft, is secured to the end by a series of
clove-hitches. When the fish is struck the point is drawn from the
socket, while the shaft acts as a cheek on, and an indicator of, its
course when just below the surface. Such harpoons and lines are also
used for the capture of dugong and turtle, the line being made of the
inner bark (the bast layer) of one of the fig-trees, and is of two
strands only. Occasionally the HIBISCUS TILLIACEUS is laid under tribute
for ropes and lines, which, however, are not considered as durable as
those from the fig. Nets, set and hand, are also made with twine from
the fig or hibiscus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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