Nouvelle-Hollande: Nouvelle Galles Du Sud ... | State Library of New South Wales

Nouvelle-Hollande: Nouvelle Galles Du Sud, grottes, chasse et pêche des sauvages du Port-Jackson
by Auguste Delvaux (b. 1786) after Charles Alexandre Lesueur (1778-1846).
Hand-coloured engraving (reproduction)
From Voyage de découvertes aux terres Australes by François Péron, 1824.
Ref: Q/82/41

Nouvelle-Hollande: Nouvelle Galles Du Sud, grottes, chasse et pêche des sauvages du Port-Jackson

Fire (gwee-yong), used for cooking, warmth, and to deter insects and evil spirits, was the focal point of Eora families. As making fire by rapidly rotating a stick was laborious, wrote Arthur Phillip in The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay (London, 1789), they were 'rarely seen without a fire actually made, or a piece of lighted wood, which they carry with them from place to place, and even in their canoes'.

Here, a group sits by their fire outside a 'cave' or rock overhang used as a shelter, while men fish from canoes or hunt. At the left, a sea eagle (goo-le-be) hovers over its nest on a rock ledge.