After the trading was done an invitation was given to the people by the Dhudoroa and other mountain peoples to join them for summer on the high plains. Bangerang man, artist and educator, Eddie Kneebone told me that all the weapons for fighting had to be placed on the ground and stepped over as a symbol that the time in the high country would be peaceful. Summer in the high country meant the days would be cooler and water abundant, fresh and clear. There was plenty of fish in the mountain streams and vegetables and leafy greens along the fertile gullies. But above all, there was feasting on Bogong moths.
These moths come from north and north-west NSW seeking cooler temperatures. They coat the walls of caves and rock crevices during the day and could be harvested using either the smoke from smouldering leaves which stupifies them or by inserting two thin sticks with a fine net, the fibres so thin they resembled human hair. These nets attached to poles could be readily folded up when full and easily withdrawn from the crevice filled with moths. (1)
The nets were made from a type of Pimela shrub known as old man’s boot laces. This shrub grows abundantly by the river banks and furnished the fibre for the nets. The bark was stripped and allowed to dry then placed in water and weighted down with stones for several days till it begins to rot. It is then taken out of the water and spread in the sun to dry till quite crisp, after which the fibre was freed by beating with sticks or flat stones which would then be turned into the finest of threads. (1)
When preparing the Bogong moths as food the people needed to take great care. The creator spirit was known to send sudden blizzards upon the mountain if the Bogong moth was not treated with respect.
A favoured method was lightly toasting the moths in hot ash or sand, free of glowing embers. This would singe off wings and legs. The body was considered cooked when it had shrivelled to the size of a grain of rice. The cooked moths were winnowed from the ash and what was left was a protein and fat-rich food that tasted something like roasted nuts. (1)
Josephine Flood in her book, The Moth Hunters, writes of the moths being prepared in a variety of ways. After cooking they could be pounded into ‘cakes’ resembling lumps of fat. These would then be preserved by smoking however, the method is now lost. It was said these smoked moth cakes would last for up to six months. (1)
Another writer said, ‘After being properly cured for eating they looked more like prunes and were carried about in coolamons.
While in the high country the people conducted ceremonies and rituals to connect with creator spirits. Thomas Mitchell is reputed to have said that, ‘while in the mountains the Blacks communed with higher spirits.’
There are signs of bora rings and places of ceremony and sacred places in the form of rings of stones and spectacular rock formations on the Bogong High Plains.
A Dreaming track or songline runs north-south following the ridges of the great dividing range and it is associated with the Rainbow Serpent.
At the end of summer, when the people saw mists laying in the valley floors they knew the spirits of winter were waking and it was time to leave the high country and head to the warmer low lands.
Eddie Kneebone believed the east-facing rock shelters around Mount Pilot near Chiltern would have been used as places to spend winter.
(1) The Moth Hunters, Josephine Flood. pg 67
