AY Honors/Aboriginal Lore/Answer Key

Australian Aborigines had a history of making bread for many thousands of years – commonly called bush bread.

Aboriginal grinding stones - a pestle and mortar - vital in making flours for breads.

With the arrival of Europeans and pre-milled white flour, this traditional bread-making process all but disappeared, although the tradition of cooking bread in hot coals continues.

Bread-making was traditionally a women's task. It involved collecting seasonal grasses or nuts, and preparing these into a flour or a dough. It was generally carried out by several women at once, since it was quite a labour-intensive process.

Bread-making from grains

Seeds of grains were collected. Seeds varied depending on the time of year, and the area in Australia. In Central Australia, native millet, spinifex and wattleseed were commonly used grains.

In north Western Australia, around the Kimberley region, Aboriginal women observed that, after the dry season, many seeds would gather around the opening of ants' nests. The ants husked the seed for them, and they were able to collect this seed.

The grain was then winnowed, often using the coolamon, the multi-purpose carrying vessel used by women. Once the grain was winnowed, it was ground using a millstone, to create a flour. Millstones have been discovered which prove to be as old as 50,000 years. The flour was then mixed with water to make a dough and placed in the ashes for baking. The results could be small buns, known today as johnny cakes, or a large loaf, known as damper. Damper appears to be a mix of this traditional style of breadmaking and European breadmaking.

The dough could also be eaten raw. Cooking was a good way to prepare the bread if the group were about to travel for some time.

Damper is cooked in hot coals in the way traditional Aboriginal bread has been for eons.

Bread-making from other plant products

Bread could also be made from roots and corms of plants. In the Top End of Australia, people such as Yolngu used the lotus root. The root was ground, then mixed to a paste to make the bread. In Queensland, the people of the Mount Tamborine area, used the Bunya Pine cone, which is endemic to that area, in this way to make bread.

Some names for Aboriginal bread

• Bunup

References

• Bush Bread artwork
• Grass seed artwork
• Aboriginal Technology
• Australian History
• Peterson, Nicholas, Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land, Melbourne University Press ISBN 0522850634