The recently released book, Australia's First Naturalists, heightens our appreciation of the previously unrecognised complex knowledge of Indigenous societies.
Authors Penny Olsen and Lynette Russell tracked historical records demonstrating the fundamental role played by Aboriginal people in the early stages of documenting Australia’s faunal wealth.
In an interview with NITV radio, Lynette Russel said that early settlers knew very well that Aboriginal people had a very intimate knowledge of their environment but this hasn’t been fully acknowledged in the national narrative.
“Aboriginal knowledge was absolutely intimately connected to the land. They understood the complex ecological environment they lived in,” Lynette Russel said.
Would Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson have ever crossed the Blue Mountains without the help of the local Aboriginal people? The invaluable role of local guides in this event is rarely recognised.
“Australia was a very foreign place for European settlers. We only have to look at Bourke and Wills. Bourke and Wills perished of starvation in a landscape that was full of food because they did not ask Aboriginal people what they might eat,” Lynette Russel said.
“Aboriginal people were perplexed that these people didn’t know what to eat.”
Well into the twentieth century, Indigenous people were routinely engaged by collectors, illustrators and others with an interest in Australia's animals.
Yet this participation, if admitted at all, was generally –barely acknowledged.
