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
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.
