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watkin tench : port jackson aboriginals, 1788 

Watkin Tench : Aboriginals of Port Jackson, 1788.

Tench, Watkin:
Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay.
J. Debrett, London, 1789.

The University of Sydney
http://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/view?docId=ozlit/xml-main-texts/p00039.xml
The University of Adelaide
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tench/watkin/botany/index.html


Introduction
Tench, Watkin (1759-1833).



CHAPTER XI
A Description of the Natives of New South Wales, and our Transactions with them.
Page 79

Exclusive of their weapons of offence, and a few stone hatchets very rudely fashioned, their ingenuity is confined to manufacturing small nets, in which they put the fish they catch, and to fish-hooks made of bone, neither of which are unskilfully executed.
On many of the rocks are also to be found delineations of the figures of men and birds, very poorly cut.

Page 80

To cultivation of the ground they are utter strangers, and wholly depend for food on the few fruits they gather; the roots they dig up

Page 81

in the swamps; and the fish they pick up along shore, or contrive to strike from their canoes with spears.

Fishing, indeed, seems to engross nearly the whole of their time, probably from its forming the chief part of a subsistence, which, observation has convinced us, nothing short of the most painful labour, and unwearied assiduity, can procure.
When fish are scarce, which frequently happens, they often watch the moment of our hauling the seine, and have more than once been known to plunder its contents, in spite of the opposition of those on the spot to guard it: and this even after having received a part of what had been caught.

The canoes in which they fish are as despicable as their huts, being nothing more than a large piece of bark tied up at both ends with vines.
Their dexterous management

Page 82

of them, added to the swiftness with which they paddle, and the boldness that leads them several miles in the open sea, are, nevertheless, highly deserving of admiration.

A canoe is seldom seen without a fire in it, to dress the fish by, as soon as caught: fire they procure by attrition.

Tench, Watkin:
Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay.
J. Debrett, London, 1789.

The University of Sydney
http://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/view?docId=ozlit/xml-main-texts/p00039.xml
The University of Adelaide
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tench/watkin/botany/index.html



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Geoff Cater (2014) : Watkin Tench : Aboriginals of Port Jackson, 1788.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1788_Tench_Aboriginals_Pt_Jackson.html