Mutton fish: the surviving culture of Aboriginal people and abalone on the south coast of New South Wales.

Nash, Daphne

Mutton fish: the surviving culture of Aboriginal people and abalone on the south coast of New South Wales

Beryl Cruse, Liddy Stewart and Sue Norman

Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2004, xiii+118pp, ISBN 0855754826

Mutton fish (abalone) are good eating and good business, and this book zooms in on the lives of Indigenous peoples on the far south coast of New South Wales, revealing living knowledge of a highly valued resource. Currently state laws regulate abalone hunting and, according to Aborigines, severely restrict their ability to follow traditional practices. The authors, both Koori and non-Koori, share an Aboriginal perspective inviting the reader to shift focus to understand their stories.

Beryl Cruse, Liddy Stewart and Sue Norman present a convincing, well-researched account of their community's long-term association with coastal living. In this context abalone features as a symbol of both physical and cultural survival from pre-contact to today, supported by much archaeological and historical evidence as well as oral history. Except for Aboriginal involvement in nineteenth-century exports of dried abalone to China, the ethnographic record is relatively sparse. To account for this, the authors suggest that non-Aboriginal observers were unaware of the importance of shellfish generally and abalone in particular, and so perhaps each mention of shellfish in the record needs to be looked at more critically.

While beginning with an evocative reconstruction of traditional life in the region, the greater part of the book presents interviews with members of the Cruse, Nye and Stewart families who describe living off the sea and engaging in commercial activities for several decades. It was a risky business when young people dived for long periods with only a glass (goggles) and footy jumper. Times were hard and although recalled nostalgically, people don't necessarily wish to return to those days. Nevertheless, their stories present a powerful argument for the continuing cultural significance of abalone.

The final section demonstrates the Aboriginal community's strong commitment to passing on their cultural values and practices to their young people through abalone hunting. However, some questions need to be explored more fully. What traditional resource management did Aboriginal people practise and how can these strategies be applied or adapted in modern times with competing cultural and commercial interests? Appropriate answers are crucial to Indigenous people's fight for rights to access coast resources in the future, especially in relation to mutton fish.

Through many personal stories and scientific evidence, the reader is rewarded with a new perspective on the survival of Koori culture.

Reviewed by Daphne Nash Canberra <daphne.nash@anu. edu.au>