Aboriginal Peoples and Terrestrial Invertebrates in Australia: Historical and Cultural RelationshipsBy Philip A. Clarke, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. ISBN 9781486320431 334 pages, with 60 colour pictures

Abstract

Aboriginal peoples have deep connections with Australia's terrestrial invertebrates. The different tribes value insects and other terrestrial arthropods as food, as totemic ancestors, creators and spirit beings, and as sources for materials and medicines. In this book anthropologist and ethnobiologist Philip Clarke, focuses on these nutritional, cultural and practical relationships.

Using a historian's approach, Clarke has consulted a very wide range of sources, including documents from early explorers, conversations with Aboriginal elders and scientific publications. Among these sources, the studies of two researchers feature prominently. Firstly, the publications of the very productive Norman Tindale (1900–1993) are heavily cited. Tindale was an anthropologist, but also a hepialid (Lepidoptera) taxonomist, a group that contains some of the species with ‘witchetty grub’ larvae (however, most witchetty grubs are cossid moths, and some are even cerambycid larvae—see below). Secondly, the work of Alan Yen (1950–2017) receives much attention. Alan was an entomologist, conservationist, and invertebrate ecologist and an active member of the Australian Entomological Society. The Society's conservation award is named in his honour. In addition to his focus on conservation Alan published papers on insects as human food.

Clarke's book brings together an immense number of terrestrial invertebrate species, and explores how they have been named, classified, foraged for, used, and celebrated by the many different Aboriginal cultures. For those interested in ethno-entomology, this overview of terrestrial invertebrates as sources of food, medicine, storytelling and spiritual significance for Aboriginal Peoples is a goldmine of information.

In the introductory chapter, the stark differences in the traditional Aboriginal knowledge of invertebrates as food and the European classification of a largely unknown invertebrate fauna is noted, together with cultural differences and disinclination of early explorers to record them as food (as opposed to hunting vertebrates).

Where possible, Clarke has included the current scientific names for the invertebrates mentioned. Not surprisingly, there were many profound difficulties in identifying the species or even their families. One of these problems was that at the time of the early explorers almost no Australian species had been described. This led to vague documentation and a tendency to refer Australian invertebrates using European classifications. For example, the early reports often referred to mygalomorph spiders as ‘Tarantulas’ but the same term could also indicate Wolf- or Huntsman spiders (collectively representing three different spider families). In addition, the spoken dialects were often incorrectly put into writing or wrongly translated into English. Furthermore, the classification itself could be sacred and hence not revealed, and local names could disappear, for example after a person with the same or a similar sounding name had died. Sadly, in many cases this cannot be traced back, because languages, as well as cultural knowledge have also disappeared. Clarke notes that ongoing collaboration between indigenous speakers, linguists and scientists is contributing to dictionaries, that together with reinforcement through lived experience, aims to increase the transmission of cultural knowledge.

This compendium of information is written factually and concisely, as text in sentence form. It occurred to us that much of the data could have been presented as a series of Tables, which may have made searching for specific information easier, but obviously would have been less entertaining to read!

In Chapter 2, it becomes clear that the various Indigenous classifications often neither matched each other nor the scientific ones. For example, some tribes classified food sources after the type of food: vertebrate, invertebrates and plants. Others classified them according to a range of different criteria such as behaviour, their place in the environment or their associations to plants. For example, criteria for classifications included: movement (leading to groupings of flying birds, bats and insects, slithering snakes and worms, and crawling beetles and spiders); the production of sound (Orthoptera, Cicadidae and tree frogs); the production of silk (various caterpillars and spiders); or production of sugar (sugarbag bees and honey ants). Then there were classifications based on place or ecological niche (e.g., whirligig beetles and turtles) or their plant host (e.g., witchetty grubs). The author warns against comparing the Indigenous and Western scientific perspective on classification and the environment in general, as one is dominated by ancestral traditions and life experiences, while the other is based on established scientific principles.

Chapter 3, titled ‘Terrestrial invertebrates as creators and spirit beings’ provides a selection of the wealth of Aboriginal Mythology on insects and allied arthropods. The chapter includes stories about invertebrates as creation ancestors and spirit beings. Many of these are invertebrate species that were either encountered often in daily life, or major sources of food, medicine and useful materials. The chapter contains stories about grubs and galls, caterpillars and butterflies, sugarbag bees, ants, termites, spiders and nuisance invertebrates such as lice, botflies, ticks, mosquitoes, leeches (including a ‘leech dreaming’!). We were surprised that the totemic systems of Aboriginal Australia were teeming with terrestrial invertebrates. This clearly reflects their fundamental importance for sustenance and survival and highlights their cultural significance.

The ensuing four chapters comprise regional information on foraging for certain groups of invertebrates. The chapters cover woodboring grubs (Chapter 4), moths (including the iconic ghost moths and bogong moths of southern temperate and alpine Australia, respectively), butterflies and galls (Chapter 5), bees (including anecdotal observations by Aboriginal peoples that the European honeybee had detrimentally affected native bees) and ants (Chapter 6), and termites, lerps and other terrestrial invertebrates (Chapter 7). As noted, the nomenclature used by Aboriginal people may often differ between adults and larvae of the same species (creating two ethnospecies from one biological species) or aggregating similar life forms, e.g., ‘grubs’ (forming one ethnospecies from multiple biological species). As well as recording the identity of species, each of these chapters detail their importance as a food source, laws and strategies around foraging and food preparation, as well as the environmental impact of foraging practises.

In Chapter 8 ‘Terrestrial invertebrates working for people’, details how terrestrial invertebrates were used for purposes other than a source of food. This included using distribution of ant nests to assess the likelihood of flooding, or forecasting seasonal change, studying the behaviour of wasps, bees and ants to find water, nectar or vertebrate prey. Furthermore, worms and insects, in particular larvae, were used as baits or lures for catching fish or even birds. Seeds were collected from ant granaries, which saved labour. Woodboring grubs, caterpillars, galls cockroaches and beetles were used to provide various skin and wound treatments. Termites and termite soil were used in a wide range of ways, maggots were used for cleaning wounds, and honey, pollen, eggs, wax and waste from sugarbag bees provided cures for general sickness, eye sores, festering wounds, and tinea.

Chapter 9, ‘Material culture’ features (among other applications) using ants to make glue, the many uses of bees wax, the use of wasps, ants and termite nests as sources of clay for hearths and earth ovens, and molluscs for tools and spider web for cord. In addition, the chapter includes cultural applications such as molluscs as ornaments, spider web as ritual tools, and dry hard galls as marbles. The chapter also briefly mentions the sacred imagery of invertebrate ancestors, as well as the importance of termites for making digeridoos.

The final chapter details the differences in attitude of Europeans and Aboriginal peoples regarding the consumption of terrestrial invertebrates, and explains that the development of a deeper understanding of Aboriginal relationships with terrestrial invertebrates serves an important contemporary need. It emphasises the symbolic importance of invertebrates such as the Yeperenye totem of central Australia, the frequent depiction of invertebrates such as witchetty grubs and honey ants in art and the enormous reliance on invertebrates as food. The chapter observes the growing popularity of ‘bush tucker’ as a niche market in ecotourism and the specialist restaurant industry, with a corresponding cautionary note on invertebrate conservation and the sustainability of ‘wild harvest’. The chapter concludes with the prophetic observation that invertebrates are integral to building and maintaining Indigenous cultural identities.

In summary, for persons with an interest in ethno-entomology this book is an absolute treasure trove of information, gleaned from a career-long accumulation of literature and observations. Each of these observations are meticulously cited at the end of each chapter, and referenced in full, with an impressive 978 references concluding the book! The book is illustrated with 60 colour images (as 30 colour plates) and well-illustrated with line drawings throughout the text. However, we do not only admire the book for its content—we are in awe of the way Clarke has managed to structure this plethora of very diverse facts. This is an admirable feat as, there are many tribes with different cultures and languages, very many terrestrial invertebrates, all with different distributions, requiring different foraging techniques and having different uses. Additionally, many of the explorers and early ethnobiologists did not have names for the invertebrates they found, and Philip Clarke has tried to attach current scientific names to all species. Importantly, this book explores, rather than ignores, the gaps between the knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples and Western science. It does so very respectfully, with the aim to encourage acknowledgement, understanding, and future collaboration.