🌟 Unearth references to Indigenous agricultural practises by searching archival records

There is increasing interest in foods that were grown on this continent for millenia, awareness of Aboriginal farming practices, and the history they reveal about Australia pre-colonisation.

“It was a very inconvenient truth that Indigenous Australians lived in permanent structures and in large communities, built dams and wells, planted and irrigated and harvested seed, and preserved and stored the surplus.” Bruce Pascoe, Young Dark Emu p9

Cultural knowledge of cultivation, harvesting, and food preparation passed on through oral traditions was also documented by European explorers and settlers in journals and diaries.

This challenge is to search Trove for these early descriptions of land care, cropping, harvesting, fishing and food storage, to add to the bank of knowledge of Aboriginal farming. Trove has a well-documented API which could be used to unearth references to these agricultural activities. Searching Trove may result in finding previously unknown references, leading to a better understanding of how people lived.

Showcase this bank of knowledge.

Please refer to https://www.firstlanguages.org.au/resources/reporting when including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in the project.