Did Aborigines learn to boil water?

None of us in WA boil water any more - electricity costs have skyrocketed over the last 2 years !

Wer'nt they able to separate the fat from meat to use in some of their medicines/rituals? I was under the impression they did this by boiling, then skimming the fat.
I guess they could have found another way.

so why is it exactly you ask ?????
Yes they boiled water, they boiled water to make a "poltice" (or however you spell it) to place on sores, they boiled it with tree leaves in it for a varity of reasons ...............
But bear in mind they also did not actually have anything metal to boil in so did it in other methods, the used to make canoes and heating them over fire was a big part of it, spears were often heated also, meat was cooked with hot stones .............
So really if you look at it fire and heat was used a lot, not just for water but for everything else, it was a communication method, it was used for hunting, warmth and the list goes on.....
Just remember the principle reason we boil water is for safety, to kill bugs, that is almost always from water in tropicial areas also, a lot of Aboriginals were in desert areas or mild climate coastal areas and the water was NOT polluted by man made crud, it was clean and pure as it gets, there was NO CATTLE so all the northern waterways would have been a lot cleaner, you go bush now and look at the turds of native species and compare them to cattle, really interesting thing to do eh NOT!!!.. it is no wonder that on the first heavy rains all the "run off" is disgusting, there were very few flies, yep ask any really old men, no flies because there were no cattle or sheep and for that matter no camels and donkeys....
So really, why would they even need to boil it, all there water supplies were clean and pure .... in the northern tropics they settled around safe water supplies in the dry, in the wet the rain water was safe to drink and it rains every day...
How sad are we white man eh, we drink it, wee it out, store it in a big tank, so called clean it and re drink it and wonder why we have e-coli in our vegies... HOW GROSS ... no wonder we need to boil it hahahahah
Cheers
Joe

I recall a pollie getting into PC shtoom some years back for pointing out that the aboriginies didn't even develop a wheeled cart ! I presume they didn't want such a thing - didn't need knives and forks either - or umbrellas................

If they boiled water what did they boil it in?

They werent as lucky as the Moari's as there water was already bubbling in plenty of rock pools...

Thanks for all the humorous replies

I have actually boiled water in a plastic bag on fire coal. But plastic bags only came to the fore a short while ago :-)

Boiling water may have been a way to cook a variety of vegetables and or meat and for a way to preserve foods longer. Then again, they obviously had no need for it and that development never took place.

In the top end at least, yes, they did boil water, for a variety of purposes, one being to use dye root to dye various things, like pandanus leaves, also for various seeds, fruits etc that needed boiling.

D'day SIF4X4, I have found "potholes" in granite boulders on the Darling Scarp. If the need had arisen, water in these depresssions could easily have been heated by placing hot rocks in them. Enough hot rock would boil the water, but why boil unless it was necessary as part of another process. Water could have been from rainfall or transported in animal skin containers. These "potholes" are also near a grass tree grove which is a source of firelighting material. Over the back of a hill in a gully is the water supply in a rocky creek. The original "light industrial area" with all the resources at close hand.

Dont know.

Bit off topic though aint it?

This aint a book club

Yeah????
Never seen a blackfella with a cup of tea or seen a billy can laying around a community?