Murnong

They are called by a variety of names in the many different Aboriginal Australian languages, and occur in many oral traditions as part of Dreamtime stories.

According to a story told by the Wurundjeri people, in the Dreamtime fire had been a jealously-guarded secret of the seven Karatgurk women who lived by the Yarra River where Melbourne now stands.

[4] The edible tuberous roots of murnong plants were once a vitally important source of food for Aboriginal Australian people in the southern parts of Australia.

On the spot are numerous mounds with short spaces between each, and as all these are at right angles to the ridge's slope it is conclusive evidence that they were the work of human hands extending over a long series of years.

This uprooting of the soil, to apply the best term, was accidental gardening, still it is reasonable to assume that the aboriginals were quite aware of the fact that turning the earth over in search of yams, instead of diminishing that form of food supply, would have a tendency to increase it.

[10] In 1803, convict William Buckley escaped from the settlement at Sullivan's Bay near Sorrento, Victoria, then lived among the Wathaurong people at the mouth of Thompson Creek.

An important source of food for Buckley 'was a particular kind of root the natives call Murning — in shape, and size, and flavour, very much resembling the radish.

Malcolm said, 'There is a nutritious root which [the Indigenous people] eat and are fond of; and that, I think, has greatly diminished, from the grazing of sheep and cattle over the land, because I have not seen so many of the flowers of it in the spring as I used to see.

'[12] In 1835, the Tasmanian colonist John Batman set up his base camp for the land speculation company Port Phillip Association at Indented Head.

While he returned to Tasmania to collect his family and additional provisions, the members left at the Indented Head camp were running low on imported food supplies, so they began to eat murnong.

'[14] Surveyor and explorer Thomas Mitchell came across a community of Aboriginal people who cultivated and harvested murnong tubers with specialised tools on the plains around the Hopkins River on 17 September 1835.

In 1839, Ngurelban man Moonin-Moonin said, 'There were no param or tarook at Port Phillip ... too many jumbuck (sheep) and bulgana (bullocks, cattle) plenty eat it myrnyong—all gone myrnyong.

'When British settlers moved onto the Hawkesbury River in 1794, they constructed farms by removing the yams and planting Indian corn (maize).

[citation needed] Other conflicts arose when Aboriginal people took potatoes from settler farms, on areas previously used for growing murnong.

[citation needed] Author Bruce Pascoe helped to form the Indigenous group Gurandgi Munjie in 2011 'aimed not only to recover First Peoples’ traditional foods and culture, but also to become a unique food-led form of reconciliation where the work of Indigenous growers could provide healthy produce for high-end and commercial chefs and restaurants.

'[25] Murnong was prominently featured in Pascoe's 2014 book Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?, which looked at the diaries of European settlers in Australia to understand Indigenous foods and farming methods.

[28] In 2019, the National Gallery of Victoria commissioned a large sculpture called 'In Absence' by Yhonnie Scarce and Melbourne architecture studio Edition Office.

The artwork consists of wooden tower rises upwards from a surrounding field of kangaroo grass, murnong and a path of crushed Victorian basalt.

A narrow vertical aperture, slicing the tall cylinder open, bisects the tower leaving a void and creating a passage into two curved chambers.

Inside each, hundreds of hand-blown, glossy, black glass murnong populate the walls and glitter in shafts of sunlight.