CAPTURE OF THE DUGONG.
Another favourite article of food is the dugong (Halicore australis) of which a few are killed every year. Although it extends along the east coast of Australia from Moreton Bay to Cape York, it appears to be nowhere very common. About Cape York and Endeavour Strait, the dugong is most frequently seen during the rainy season, at which time it is said by the natives to bring forth its young. When one is observed feeding close inshore* chase is made after it in a canoe. One of the men standing up in the bow is provided with a peculiar instrument used solely for the capture of the animal in question. It consists of a slender peg of bone, four inches long, barbed all round, and loosely slipped into the heavy, rounded, and flattened head of a pole, fifteen to sixteen feet in length; a long rope an inch in thickness, made of the twisted stems of some creeping plant, is made fast to the peg at one end, while the other is secured to the canoe. When within distance, the bowman leaps out, strikes the dugong, and returns to the canoe with the shaft in his hand. On being struck, the animal dives, carrying out the line, but generally rises to the surface and dies in a few minutes, not requiring a second wound, a circumstance surprising in the case of a cetaceous animal, six or eight feet in length, and of proportionate bulk. The carcass is towed on shore and rolled up the beach, when preparations are made for a grand feast. The flesh is cut through to the ribs in thin strips, each with its share of skin and blubber, then the tail is removed and sliced with a sharp shell as we would a round of beef. The blubber is esteemed the most delicate part; but even the skin is eaten, although it requires much cooking in the oven.
(*Footnote. A slender, branchless, cylindrical, articulated seaweed, of a very pale green colour, was pointed out to me by a native as being the favourite food of the dugong.)
COOKING IN THE OVEN.
This oven is of simple construction--a number of stones, the size of the fist, are laid on the ground, and a fire is continued above them until they are sufficiently hot, the meat is then laid upon the bottom layer with some of the heated stones above it, a rim of tea-tree bark banked up with sand or earth is put up all round, with a quantity of bark, leaves, or grass on top, to retain the steam, and the process of baking goes on. This is the favourite mode of cooking turtle and dugong throughout Torres Strait, and on the east coast of the mainland I have seen similar fireplaces as far south as Sandy Cape.
CULTURE OF THE YAM.
A great variety of yam-like tubers are cultivated in Torres Strait. Although on Murray and Darnley and other thickly peopled and fertile islands a considerable extent of land in small patches has been brought under cultivation, at the Prince of Wales Islands the cleared spots are few in number, and of small extent--nor does the latter group naturally produce either the coconut or bamboo, or is the culture of the banana attempted. On the mainland again I never saw the slightest attempt at gardening.
The principal yam, or that known by the names of kutai and ketai, is the most important article of vegetable food, as it lasts nearly throughout the dry season. Forming a yam garden is a very simple operation. No fencing is required--the patch of ground is strewed with branches and wood, which when thoroughly dry are set on fire to clear the surface--the ground is loosely turned up with a sharpened stick, and the cut pieces of yam are planted at irregular intervals, each with a small pole for the plant to climb up. These operations are completed just before the commencement of the wet season, or in the month of October.
When the rains set in the biyu becomes the principal support of the Cape York and Muralug people. This is a grey slimy paste procured from a species of mangrove (Candelia ?) the sprouts of which, three or four inches long, are first made to undergo a process of baking and steaming--a large heap being laid upon heated stones, and covered over with bark, wet leaves, and sand--after which they are beaten between two stones, and the pulp is scraped out fit for use. It does not seem to be a favourite food, and is probably eaten from sheer necessity. Mixed up with the biyu to render it more palatable they sometimes add large quantities of a leguminous seed, the size of a chestnut, which has previously been soaked for a night in water, and the husk removed, or the tuber of a wild yam (Dioscorea bulbifera) cut into small pieces, and well steeped in water to remove its bitter taste.
Among the edible fruits of Cape York I may mention the leara, a species of Anacardium or cashew nut (the lurgala of Port Essington) which, after being well roasted to destroy its acridity has somewhat the taste of a filbert--the elari (a species of Wallrothia) the size of an apricot, soft and mealy, with a nearly insipid but slightly mawkish taste--wobar, the small, red, mealy fruit of Mimusops kaukii--and the apiga (a species of Eugenia) a red, apple-like fruit, the pericarp of which has a pleasantly acid taste. The fruit of two species of pandanus yields a sweet mucilage when sucked, and imparts it to water in which it has been soaked, after which it is broken up between two stones, and the kernels are extracted and eaten.