A description of Gilburri cooking up a snake, swinging across a creek and duck hunting on the 1855/56 Northern Australia Expedition.
"The Australian blacks eat snakes of every kind, as well as any small animals they cancatch; and we have often seen fellows whose sole apparel consisted of a snake girdedround their waist, with two or three rats hitched by their tails to it. We were taught the
orthodox way of cooking them by a first-rate fellow, John Fahy, an Irishman, who had beennearly fourteen years among the blacks.
He first let the flame expend itself, and then spread out the embers, on these he coiled up the snake until the scales were slightly scorched; then taking it by the tail, he drew it repeatedly through his hand, brushing the crisp scales off toward the head, and again coiled it on the embers till it was thoroughly cooked; then opening it and throwing away the offal he picked out the tit bits and offered them to us, and afterwards divided the body."
This is from the 1871 book, "Shifts And Expedients Of Camp Life Travel and Exploration" by W.B Lord.
Gilburri was recruited by A.C Gregory, along with two of his Kabi brothers, to act as bush guides for this expedition up north. Gregory promised Gilburri a full pardon following a successful expedition. It was the first and only expedition where no blackfullahs were killed and nobody was stolen and raped. Even though AC Gregorys travel diary doesn't mention it ...the only reason AC Gregory and his team returned alive was due to Gilburri and his two Kabi brothers.
#stopborumbahydro #gilburri #kabibonyidjha Wild NT
