Did Aborigines learn to boil water?
Submitted: Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 13:25
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SIF4X4
So often we are reminded of the 50,000 year culture of the First Australians, yet it seems that in all of that time they had never learned to boil water.
According to the book The Triumph of the Nomads by Geoffrey Blainey, this is so.
The boiling of water apparently came as far south as the Torres Straight and Solomon Islands but never to mainland Australia.
Interesting!
Reply By: greydemon - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 14:01
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 14:01
None of us in WA boil water any more - electricity costs have skyrocketed over the last 2 years !
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457073
Reply By: SDG - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 14:40
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 14:40
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.
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Follow Up By: Michael ( Moss Vale NSW) - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 15:59
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 15:59
That fat skimming has been going on for some time now!!:) Michael
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Reply By: Member - Joe n Mel n kids (FNQ - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 15:05
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 15:05
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
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Follow Up By: the redbacks - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 17:28
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 17:28
Hmm!! no cattle,no camels, no dirty turds, no dirty smelly diesel vehicle's to visit these wonderful
places you speak of !!
All he asked was "did they boil water" ?
redbacks
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Follow Up By: Member - barry F (NSW) - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 18:34
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 18:34
"So why is it you exactly asked"????
Well, I dunno, but maybe the OP is doing some research & is interested in the view other EO users who might be able to assist by way of some direction to a source of further information to help.
Or maybe he/she is just simply interested as to whether or not they had the necessary hardware to boil water. We know they used fire for many things, but to boil water you need a container that will not melt/burn etc. to do so.
Or maybe he/she was just curious.
As redbacks said, all he asked was "did they boil water". A simple question realy & maybe the pollution you refer to caused by
European settlement does not have any bearing on the OP question if he was referring to pre
European settlement. Cheers
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Follow Up By: Bonz (Vic) - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 21:46
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 21:46
Maybe Baz he's just trolling for comments too mate
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Follow Up By: Member - Joe n Mel n kids (FNQ - Sunday, Jun 12, 2011 at 22:42
Sunday, Jun 12, 2011 at 22:42
Fair call :-)
i guess my question (to try to answer a question) was based on that they would not have needed to boil water .....
I spent a short time living in one community beside Vic River station and seeing first hand how dirty the water gets and having the old men explain how some of the
places they used to drink from are now "bad" and also they told us about the first rains bringing down the river tons of dead fish, prawns ect from the run off it was something i realised that we could have survived for a long time out bush without needing to do the things we now take for granted that we assume we "must do" to not get sick.....
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Follow Up By: Rob! - Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011 at 09:35
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011 at 09:35
That was exactly what I first thought when I read the thread. "why would they need to boil water?"
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Reply By: MEMBER - Darian, SA - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 18:00
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 18:00
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................
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Follow Up By: muffin man - Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011 at 10:35
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011 at 10:35
Apparently housing with walls and floors is not mandatory either !
MM
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Follow Up By: ross - Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 05:35
Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 05:35
Wheeled carts were only used in
places where they had cattle or some other animal to pull them.
And they also had to be efficient at growing crops so they had time to work with
tools to invent these things.
The early humans on the european and asian land mass also had a much wider and varied pool of knowledge to draw from.
The australian aborigine got by without pack animals by adapting to life without them.
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Reply By: Member - Kerry F (WA) - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 19:12
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 19:12
If they boiled water what did they boil it in?
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Follow Up By: Olsen's 4WD Tours and Training - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 19:37
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 19:37
On coals, water will boil in lots of containers before the container is lost, skins, hardwood, you name it.
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Follow Up By: timglobal - Sunday, Jun 12, 2011 at 03:55
Sunday, Jun 12, 2011 at 03:55
You can boil water in a folded sheet of A4 paper, if so inclined, so it's not a stretch to imagine bits of tree or animal being used to heat water in.
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Reply By: River Swaggie - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 19:42
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 19:42
They werent as lucky as the Moari's as there water was already bubbling in plenty of
rock pools...
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Reply By: SIF4X4 - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 19:52
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 19:52
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.
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457101
Follow Up By: Member - Duncs - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 20:49
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 20:49
SIF,
I have boiled water over an open fire in a cardboard milk carton. The trick is to fill the carton because if you don't the cardboard above the top of the water line will burn.
Did the aboriginies boil water??? Don't know, never really thought about it before.
Duncs
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Reply By: Tjukayirla Roadhouse - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 20:12
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 20:12
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.
AnswerID:
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Follow Up By: Tjukayirla Roadhouse - Sunday, Jun 12, 2011 at 23:00
Sunday, Jun 12, 2011 at 23:00
so it seems maybe the op wasn't after a serious reply, but ws just trolling a bit...
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Follow Up By: ross - Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 05:38
Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 05:38
I seem to remember they had a way of boiling and mashing poisonous seeds from a palm tree to make an edible type of flour in times of lean.
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Follow Up By: Tjukayirla Roadhouse - Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:13
Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:13
that's right, pandanus, .. but that also had to be run through running water for about four days.
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Follow Up By: ross - Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 19:58
Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 19:58
Yes ,it was like cyclad plant.
I seem to remember Harry Butler or Malcom Douglas showing how they did it.
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Follow Up By: Tjukayirla Roadhouse - Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 20:19
Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 20:19
ahhh yes, Cycad.
Got my plants all messed up. The pandanus isn't poisonous, it is the cycad that is. Something i definately should have remembered.. need to brush up on my top end knowledge, been away too long..lol
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Reply By: Farmboywa - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 22:11
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 22:11
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.
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Reply By: Muntoo - Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 23:29
Saturday, Jun 11, 2011 at 23:29
Dont know.
Bit off topic though aint it?
This aint a book club
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Reply By: Hairy (WA) - Monday, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:33
Monday, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:33
Yeah????
Never seen a blackfella with a cup of tea or seen a billy can laying around a community?
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Follow Up By: Bongo (NT) - Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011 at 22:46
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011 at 22:46
Yeah????
I have had plenty of cuppas with indigenous people. Water boiled in electric kettles.
I am game to say it; racist crap!!!
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Follow Up By: Hairy (WA) - Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 00:19
Friday, Jun 17, 2011 at 00:19
Not sure what you mean Bongo?
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Follow Up By: Member - Krakka - Tuesday, Jun 21, 2011 at 18:03
Tuesday, Jun 21, 2011 at 18:03
Hairy,
I think maybe it is OK for a blackfella to call us "whitefella" but definately not OK for us to call aboriginal people "blackfella" I could be way off the mark, but for me racism is obviously only a one way street in this country. I have been called many names by all types of migrants and aboriginal people, but I can handle that, they definately can't.
Cheers
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Follow Up By: Hairy (WA) - Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 14:08
Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 14:08
Funny, isnt it......
Ive got heaps of mates who are blackfellas and thats what they call themselves......I worked in indigenous education for about 5 years and they all called themselves blackfellas and me a whitefella.....and the only people Ive ever found who find the term black or whitefella ofensive are some whitefellas???
Its a bit like being offended by being called a bigfella or a tallfella of a handsome fella?
Hes right.......racist crap!
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