Women who hunt with fire: Aboriginal resource use and fire regimes in Australia's Western Desert.

Bird, Douglas W. ; Bird, Rebecca Bliege ; Parker, Christopher H. 等

A significant component of Australia's biotic web has been shaped by Aboriginal firing practices. Moderate burning on a regular basis decreases the potential for devastatingly large wildfires, increases the richness of plant species, and has an important effect on faunal populations (e.g. Bowman 1998, 2000; Bradstock et al. 2002). Long periods without anthropogenic fire lead to dramatic changes in the landscape. Between 1953 and 1981 in the eastern part of the Western Desert, Aboriginal occupants began to congregate on mission settlements and pastoral stations at the desert's margins. During this time, regular fire treatment ceased; the number of measurable fire footprints fell from 846 to 4, and the mean burnt patch size went from only 64 to 52 644 hectares (Burrows et al. 2000). The desert was transformed from a high diversity patchwork to a sea of spinifex grass interspersed with massive burns.

The diverse mosaics that result from regular fire disturbance in arid Australia often attract bustard (Eupodotis australis), emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), euro kangaroo (Macropus robustus), and plains kangaroo (Macropus rufa). These are frequently the focus of men's traditional hunting, so it is not surprising that some researchers have argued that Aboriginal burning strategies and beliefs are often designed to increase men's hunting success (e.g. Bowman & Robinson 2002; Yibarbuk et al. 2001). However, generally the role of women both in burning and in reaping the benefits of mosaic burning has remained unexplored (Gould 1971; Walsh 1990). Among the Martu Aborigines of the Western Desert, women hunt on a regular basis, but they do so differently from men. Over the last few years we have been investigating these differences and their relationship to the landscape burning practices of Martu traditional owners.

Martu (Mardu) Aborigines

The term 'Martu' conventionally refers to the traditional owners of estates that surround Lake Disappointment, the Rudall River, and the Percival Lakes in the north-west section of the Western Desert (Figure 1) (Tonkinson 1974, 1991; Walsh 1990). Today, the Martu (numbering about 800 people) consist mostly of speakers of Manyjilyjarra, and Kartujarra dialects.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

While limited contact between a few Martu and white explorers and settlers began in the early twentieth century, many families, especially those from the easternmost part of Martu territory had no direct contact with Europeans until the mid-1960s. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a prolonged drought and continuing depopulation drew the dispersed bands into Jigalong and neighbouring pastoral stations (Tonkinson 1974). While many Martu stayed in European settlements, by the mid-1980s many families (mostly those that were the last to leave the desert) returned permanently to their desert homeland (Tonkinson 1991:174-8).

Especially for the families at Parnngurr outstation (comprising a core population of about 100 people), their return to the desert meant a return to a hunting and gathering economy (Veth & Walsh 1988; Walsh 1990). While wild foods are somewhat less important today, foraging trips to 'dinner-time camps' within 50 km of Parnngurr are made on most days, and extended camps to more distant locales are common, especially during the cool/dry season (Wantajarra, May-August).

Since 2000, most of our time with the Martu has been spent in Parnngurr and on extended camps away from the outstations. Foraging locales are usually accessed with a vehicle, after which women and children hunt and gather on foot with digging sticks (wana), while men often utilise vehicles and small-gauge rifles. Usually 25-50% of the calories per person come from bush foods, while on foraging days, bush foods make up 80% of daily calories per forager (Bliege Bird & Bird, in press).

Ethnographic fieldwork

We have conducted much of our data collection during camps away from the outstation communities. Thus far, our analysis covers 422 forager-days in the cool/dry season (Wan tajarra, May--August). During extended camping trips we conducted daily detailed focal individual foraging follows, where each researcher asked permission to accompany a camp member over the course of the day, during which we recorded the time a forager spent travelling to and from a foraging locale, searching for a range of potential resources, tracking a particular prey item, capturing a particular item, and field processing. We then recorded the weight of each animal captured, the parcel harvested, and the total weight of the catch by resource type at the end of the day. A total of 252 adult focal follows (165 women, 87 men, consisting of 33 different individuals) is used in the analysis below (Bliege Bird & Bird, in press, discuss seasonal differences in men's and women's activities; Bird & Bliege Bird, in press, describe children's foraging). Energy values were taken from published sources analysing the composition of Aboriginal foods (Brand-Miller et al. 1993). As used below, foraging efficiency (kcal/foraging-hour) is measured as the gross edible energy gained per focal individual follow divided by the total time the forager spent in search, tracking and capture.

Burning regimes and habitat mosaic

Martu landscapes that have remained unburned for longer than about ten years are dominated by (>80%) old-growth spinifex grass (Trodia spp.) with characteristic 'donut'-shaped hummocks (Latz 1996:10). Martu systematically fire older-growth spinifex, especially during the cool/dry season of Wantajarra. Following a fire, the proportion of visible spinifex is reduced to nearly zero, and with any rain, plant diversity (e.g. Solanum, Eragostis, Dysphania, Trichodesma, and Evolvulus) in a recently disturbed patch increases dramatically. To characterise habitat mosaic and burn regimes we chose a straight 2-km transect in a random direction from each camp. A researcher walked the transect and noted the number of times they passed from one patch of vegetative regrowth to another. Fine-grained mosaics around camps were defined as those in which a researcher passed into three or more types of regrowth patches on a single transect. This type of mosaic results from moderate anthropogenic burns at regular intervals. Medium-grained mosaics at camps are defined as habitats in which a researcher passed into two patches of regrowth on a transect. These habitats result from larger fires (some greater than 20 km2), usually at intervals of more than five years but less than ten. Coarse-grained mosaics around camps are dominated by a single patch: either old-growth spinifex (>five years old) over a very large area, or a recent very large burn (>50 [km.sup.2]). In these areas a researcher never crossed into another stage of regrowth over a 2-km transect.

Martu hunting and burning strategies

Especially in fine-grained mosaics, Martu often encounter and collect a wide array of fruits (especially Solanum spp.), roots and tubers (Vigna lanceolata and Cyperus bulbosus), larvae (Cossid spp.), nectar (primarily Grevillea eriostachya), and grass, shrub and tree seeds (especially Eragrostis eriopoda and Acacia spp.) (Tonkinson 1991; Veth & Walsh 1988; Walsh 1990). Analyses of these other aspects of Martu foraging are currently underway. So far we have focused on differences between the major Wantajarra (the cool/dry season) 'hunt types': wana hunting for burrowed game and gun hunting for large game.

Wana hunting

Martu hunt for burrowed game on foot with a wana (a wooden or iron digging stick) exclusively in sandplains and dunes. During the Wantajarra season these hunts almost always incorporate burning tracts of spinifex savanna to clear the overburden and facilitate the lengthy search for tracks and dens. Wana hunters search mostly for burrowed sand goanna lizards (Veranus gouldii), but also python (Aspidites spp.), skink (Tiliqua multifasciata), feral cat (Felis silvestris), and ridge tailed goanna (V. acanthurus) (Bliege Bird & Bird, in press).

Burning during wana hunts is highly systematic: the size of the fire line used and the burned patch (nyurnma) that results depend on the wind velocity, accumulated fuels, and surrounding firebreaks--in the sandplains and dunes, firebreaks are primarily neighbouring patches burned within the last two or three years. Hunters ignite a line of dry spinifex by quickly flicking matches or dabbing a fire-stick into the occasional hummock as they walk along in search. With the ignition of a fire line, a hunter will immediately begin to look for tracks and fresh dens within the nyurnma, often following along just behind the advancing flames in the clear surface of new ash. Ideally this creates a nyurnma of about 2-5 [km.sup.2]. Generally each hunter will light his / her own line and search independently of others, although they often signal to each other in managing their burns and cooperate to extract prey from their dens. Tracking and capturing burrowed prey requires tremendous skill: highly specialised cues are used to determine the freshness of tracks and detailed knowledge is required to detect and probe for an occupied den.

Gun hunting

While spears and spearthrowers are still ritually important (and are occasionally employed during hunts), Martu now commonly use small-gauge rifles. Hunting with a gun focuses on larger, more mobile game. It typically incorporates long-range search (in vehicles and on foot) across a wide array of habitats for various types of larger prey, especially bustard (Eupodotis australis), feral cat, euro (Macropus robustus), plains kangaroo (Macropus rufa), emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), and perenti lizards (Veranus giganteus) (Bliege Bird & Bird, in press). Tracking often involves the pursuit of a particular animal over long distances, sometimes over days. Some larger animals are attracted to recent burns or the new vegetation that follows, but burning is not generally used to find and capture mobile game: a large burn can reduce the cover and increase the probability that an animal will detect the hunter. Martu do sometimes burn in the course of these hunts, but usually to flush game or simply to 'clean up the country'.

During the cool/dry Wantajarra of this study, women spent as much time hunting (defined as time spent searching, tracking and capturing game animals) as men, but there were significant differences in how they allocated their time to different types of hunting. On average, women spent 180 minutes per forager-day in wana hunting, and only 10 minutes in gun hunting. Conversely, men spent an average of 108 minutes per forager-day in gun hunting, and only 83 minutes in wana hunting.

Burning and hunting efficiency

Even though much discussion about the Aboriginal use of fire has focused on its benefits in men's hunting, gun hunters did not significantly increase their foraging efficiency if they burned while foraging. On average they obtained about 2300 kcal/foraging-hour whether or not they burned. However, firing the spinifex savanna had immediate and significant effects on the efficiency of women's wana hunting for burrowed game: burning resulted in 575 kcal/foraging-hour, while hunting without burning produced only 409 kcal/hour. It is also important to note that while gun hunting is associated with higher average efficiency, gun hunters failed to capture prey on 68% of the focal follows; wana hunters failed on only 3% of the follows. As a result of these differences in variance, on any given day wana hunting is more predictably efficient.

Habitat mosaic and hunting efficiency

If the vegetative mosaic that results from regular burning influences the predictable distribution and abundance of indigenous animals, it should also have an effect on hunting efficiency (Yibarbuk et al. 2001). However, our results do not show significant effects on gun-hunting efficiency according to the mosaic grain of the habitat: gun hunters obtained their lowest hunting returns in fine-grained mosaics (1175 kcal/foraging-hour), and their highest hunting returns in both medium (2059 kcal/foraging-hour) and coarse-grained mosaics (2701 kcal/foraginghour). The opposite pattern was observed for wana hunting where mosaic grain did have a significant effect on foraging efficiency. The highest efficiency was obtained in fine-grained mosaics (656 kcal/ foraging-hour), significantly lower returns in medium-grained mosaics (480 kcal/foraging-hour), and lower returns still in coarse-grained habitats with long fire intervals (246 kcal/foraging-hour).

Some broader implications

Our study strongly suggests that moderate and regular burning has an important impact on Martu women's hunting success. Women focus on tracking and digging for burrowed game, an activity immediately facilitated by firing tracts of old-growth spinifex grass. As such, women failed to burn only on those occasions when they were hunting near ritual sites that proscribed burning or when members of the foraging party were not within their own estates (Tonkinson 1991). We can detect no such effect on men's gun hunting: given the variability in efficiency, men's return rates while hunting for mobile game did not change with burning.

While the immediate benefits of burning when hunting for burrowed game are clear, we are less certain about the long-term relationship between hunting efficiency and habitat mosaic. Thus far, we have only a rough measure of habitat mosaic. Nevertheless, at the coarse-grained end of the habitat mosaic continuum, the results are intriguing. In these habitats, hunters were searching in areas that had not been burned for many years, so they spent all of their time in either old-growth spinifex or very large-scale recent burns with little or no regrowth. There, women experienced significantly lower return rates than in fine-grained mosaics. These patterns were not observed for men's hunting. While a 'patchier' environment from moderate burning might make mobile game more predictable in time and space (Jones 1969; Lundie-Jenkins 1993; Russell-Smith et al. 1997; Yibarbuk et al. 2001), these effects on men's hunting efficiency in the desert are muted by definition: men's game is mobile across numerous patches. As such, the influence of burning and habitat mosaics on mobile game populations is difficult to detect.

Land management and threatened species

Our study was not specifically designed to test the more general hypothesis that burning is a land management strategy designed to prevent or mitigate resource depletion, species extirpation, or habitat degradation (Smith & Wishnie 2000:501). Because Martu burning is often associated with increasing immediate hunting returns, there is a strong possibility that it is not designed to be a land management strategy at all, but, rather, the long-term effects are only incidental. However, there is some circumstantial evidence to suggest that certain aspects of their burning strategies might be linked to more longterm goals. We have thus far only measured the longterm benefits gained from hunting: many collected plant foods have very high energetic return rates, and these rates should peak one to two years after an area has been burned (Latz & Griffin 1978; Walsh 1990). Thus, while hunters may see a small benefit immediately, they may see larger, more general benefits in the future. But how do individuals solve the collective action problems created by a rather open-access land tenure system that allows those that didn't burn access to a managed landscape? It is possible that the immediate economic incentives provided to small-game hunters serve to eliminate the collective action problem: free-riding non-burners simply may not be able to find enough burned area to hunt when burns are small and hunters are able to search them entirely. It is also critical to note that the meaning of burning operates on many levels: in some cases (especially for men), burning may provide more social than economic capital, it can be a signal and index of land ownership, an aesthetic interpretation of homeland, and an expression of ritual linking events of the past and future (Rose 1994).

The Martu data may also be relevant for current debates about the causes of local extinctions and declines in populations of small-medium-sized marsupials throughout Australia's desert. Martu hunters state that populations of small to medium-sized marsupials collapsed after the human exodus from the desert in the 1960s. Whether this is a result of introduced fauna (e.g. Morton 1990; Short & Turner 1994) or changes in burning regimes is not known. But major declines in smaller-sized marsupial populations seem to be coincident with the departure of people from the heart of the desert, not with the introduction of non-indigenous species. Given the evidence of extreme changes in fire ecology in the Western Desert following Aboriginal exodus (Burrows et al. 2000), we might hypothesise that anthropogenic fire is an important factor maintaining small-medium-sized marsupial populations (in the sense used by: Bolton & Latz 1978; Burbidge & McKenzie 1989), and that this is primarily a consequence of short-term hunting goals maintained by burning. If so, formal policies to encourage traditional mosaic burning practices may have consequences that protect a host of threatened and endangered marsupials.

The issue of policy development

People have been participating in the dynamic mosaic of Australia's biota for at least 40 millennia (Kershaw et al. 2002; O'Connell & Allen 1998). Research for developing fire policy and land management prescriptions needs to recognise this, with a focus on Aboriginal burning and subsistence practices. Effective fire and land management in this region of the Western Desert will fail along most fronts without incorporating Martu participation and objectives. This will require a broad anthropological and ecological approach, building from within communities towards a better understanding of the dynamic factors that influence burning strategies and their consequences. The Martu data show that even within a single community, different people face different trade-offs relative to their subsistence and burning purposes: there is a very close link between burning practices and the immediate returns that women get from hunting. If burning is also related to a long-term land management strategy, it does not appear to be designed to enhance men's hunting success for large game; rather, it seems to be related to diversity of key small animal and plant species. Thus, incorporating women's hunting goals into fire policy will be critical for current conservation efforts in the Western Desert. This is more than necessary for developing operative policy: it will provide an opportunity for cooperation between land management agencies and remote Aboriginal communities that retain the skills and knowledge associated with burning and subsistence.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most of all, we are indebted to all of the Martu from Parnngurr, Punmu, and Kunawarritji for their friendship, tolerance, good humour and tutelage. This work has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0127681 and BCS-0075289) and the LSB Leakey Foundation. We wish to thank Doug Bird St, Eric Alden Smith, Neff Burrows, Sue Davenport, Peter Kendrick, and Debbie Bird Rose for discussion and comments related to Aboriginal burning. We owe special thanks to Bob Tonkinson and Peter Veth for their help in establishing our Western Desert research.

A similar version of this paper was published in Arid Lands Newsletter, vol. 54.

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Douglas W Bird is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maine. Since 1992 he has worked with Indigenous communities in Western Australia and the Torres Strait, focusing on the ethnography of contemporary subsistence strategies.

<douglas.bird@umit.maine.edu>

Rebecca Bliege Bird is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Maine. Her research interests include the ecology of gender, the economics of social capital and the dynamic relationships between culture, people and the environment.

Department of Anthropology, University of Maine, 5773 South Stevens Hall, Orono ME 04469-5773

Christopher H Parker is a PhD student at the University of Utah. His research focuses on Martu decision-making with regard to land management and burning.

Department of Anthropology, 207 S. 1400 E., University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112