LEAD Action News Volume
13 Number 4, June 2013, ISSN 1324-6011 Incorporating Lead Aware Times ( ISSN 1440-4966) and Lead Advisory Service News (ISSN 1440-0561) The Journal of The LEAD (Lead Education and Abatement Design) Group Inc. Editorial Team: Elizabeth O’Brien, Zac Gethin-Damon, Hitesh Lohani, Shristi Lohani and David Ratcliffe |
|||
About Us
|
Lead in Literature: Poems on Ancient and Modern Hunting
By Colleen Z Burke. The copyright remains with Colleen Z Burke. Reprinted with kind permission. Ravens croak no more, A permit to kill, The shooters and Towards the mountains were published in Colleen’s poetry collection Pirouetting on a precipice: Poems of the Blue and White Mountains (Seaview Press, 2000). See Colleen’s full list of published poems at http://colleenburke.com/publications.php - her books can be purchased Better Read Than Dead Bookshop and some of her poetry books can be purchased at Gleebooks. [Editor’s note: The following kangaroo hunting poems were chosen because the hunting method involves lead shot, and the moth hunting poem was chosen to compare old and new hunting methods. Bogong moths, hunted for millennia by Aboriginal Australians, on their annual migration to the Southern Alps / Snowy Mountains of South Eastern Australia (the White Mountains of Colleens’ poetry book title) are nutritious and “suited people in a cold climate who needed fat and a burst of energy…[as] 100 grams of bogong moth abdomen contains 38.8 grams of fat and 1805 kilojoules of energy.” See the World Health Organisation (WHO) edible insect story below, for links between insects as food and lead poisoning.] Back cover note from the book: With brilliant imagery Colleen Burke celebrates the awesome, fragile beauty of the Blue Mountains and the Snowy Mountains. Colleen’s fine writing explores the contrast with the city, and the history and myth that resonate in the landscape. It is a magic book, rich in wisdom and humour. In the splendour and vulnerability of the mountains Colleen traces a landscape of the heart. Alison Lyssa. White Mountain Poems Ravens croak no more “It would be a shame if the coming of the Europeans were to prove as disastrous for moths as for Man . . .” The Moth Hunters, Josephine Flood. The tribes gathered when the frost melted on the lower ranges of the Snowy Mountains and thousands of hungry ravens croaking and hovering around the granite rocks signalled the annual arrival of millions of Bogong moths from the north. Like a dark cloud the moths settled, aestivating in fissures, cracks, and crevices. After the bull roarer and appropriate rites There was much noise and revelry. During corroborees chanting women beat drums with yam sticks, or nulla nullas. Others played reeds with their fingers. Smoke signals heralded the beginning of the moth hunt. and groups of men climbed up to the high granite tors in search of prey. The moths, stupefied with smoke, fell onto sheets of barks, nets or skins and were then carefully cooked, lightly roasted, so as not to scorch bodies, or diminish their delicate flavour. These summer gatherings of the Walgalu and other tribes beneath the Bogong Mountains were for sociability, for marriage, initiation ceremonies and to settle tribal disputes. And the devouring of this luscious, fattening nutritious food made bodies sleek, glossy, even fat. And now the corroboree site has been obliterated under the solid weight of Blowering dam. The Tumut river drowned. There are no more corroborees here. Moth numbers are dwindling And ravens croak no more around high granite peaks. A permit to kill for Bridie A bright green clearing glows through the greyish bush. Wattle blossoms bend to the smell of abundant water tumbling down from high mountains. A kangaroo stands alert – sensing blood on the wind. Last night on a nearby property hundreds of roos were callously rounded up for slaughter . The owner/manager had a permit to cull - a licence to massacre. Silence – shattered by the sound of bullets screaming into fragile flesh. Bloodstains congeal in clear mountain air. The roo bounds away. Wattle blossoms shiver in the quickshadow of its passing The Shooters The pulse of the earth slow at dusk. The whispering bush still. Clusters of kangaroos listen warily as we move over the old homestead scuffing scent of dead roses. Grass shadows bend to our weight. The roos jump slowly downhill. Pause. The rifle shot is loud. In a lilt of green old rabbit bones glow. A roo skull lies awkwardly. As we walk over the hillside roos move away quickly gathering speed Towards the mountains for Paddy Cold air rising silhouettes of gum trees scalloped on sky glow A hawk hovering . . . Abundance of birds - king parrots, finches wrens, galahs, crimson rosellas. Dark cry of cockatoos flying home. Sonorous green air subdued in sunset. A roo poised on the hillside listening . . . Greedy for this wonder we’re reluctant to leave to turn homewards as though we’ll never walk this way again. |
||
About
Us |
bell
system lead poisoning |
Contact Us
| Council
LEAD Project | egroups | Library
- Fact Sheets | Home
Page | Media Releases |
|||
Last
Updated 19 July 2013
Copyright © The LEAD Group Inc. 1991- 2013 PO Box 161 Summer Hill NSW 2130 Australia Phone: +61 2 9716 0014 |