Indigenous Australian food groups

Indigenous Australian peoples traditionally classified food sources in a methodical way. Below are a few examples.

Central Australia

In Central Australia, people used innovative means to obtain a balanced diet.

The food categories, and their Arrernte names, are:^[1]

Some other category words from Arrernte that are used in relation to food include:

• Thipe fleshy flying creatures; birds (not emus), bats
• Kwatye water in any form, sources of water; water, rain, clouds
• Arne trees, shrubs, bushes, woody plants, some grasses
• Ure fire, things to do with fire.

Top End

In the Top End, seafood plays an important part in the diet. The food groups and their Yolngu names are:

The old people would talk about the need to eat from both murŋyan' and gonyil food groups and the need to supplement their diet with gapu (fresh water). While this balance was maintained, the people knew they were eating correctly.^[2]

When the men would come back from the magpie goose hunt, they would be craving murnyaŋ foods after having eaten so much meat and eggs. Meanwhile, the women, children and old people back in the camps would be looking forward to gonyil, magpie goose meat and eggs, after eating so much murnyaŋ'.^[3]

References

1. Turner, Margaret-Mary, Arrernte Foods, Foods from Central Australia, IAD Press, Alice Springs, 1994, ISBN 0-949659-76-2 pviii
2. Richard Trudgen, below
3. Thomson, Donald and Peterson, Nicolas, Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land, Miegunyah Press, 2003, ISBN 0-522-85063-4, p 158.

• Trudgen, Richard, Why Warriors Lie Down and Die, ARDS, Darwin, 1996, ISBN 0-646-39587-4, p 140