Bird-LandscapeArchitectureFire-2016

A Landscape Architecture of Fire
Author(s): Douglas W. Bird, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Brian F. Codding and Nyalangka Taylor
Source: Current Anthropology , June 2016, Vol. 57, No. S13, Supplement 13: Reintegrating
Anthropology: From Inside Out (June 2016), pp. S65-S79
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26545619
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Current Anthropology Volume 57, Supplement 13, June 2016 S65
A Landscape Architecture of Fire

Cultural Emergence and Ecological Pyrodiversity
in Australia’s Western Desert
by Douglas W. Bird, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Brian F. Codding,

and Nyalangka Taylor
Aboriginal foraging systems in Australia’s Western Desert have been structured around landscape-burning
practices for millennia. These systems are mediated at one end by factors that influence an immediate-return
economy and at the other by the way that burning transforms vegetative succession and habitat heterogeneity
(pyrodiversity). The distinctive pyrodiversity of anthropogenic landscapes are where Martu insist that they and
their estates are conceived. These estates are transgenerational storehouses of relational wealth that operate in a
delayed-return ritual economy. These storehouses were ransacked by colonialism in the mid-twentieth century,
precipitating a collapse in the anthropogenic fire regime and a decline and extinction of many endemic species.
Since returning to their homelands in the 1980s, Martu have reestablished a tight patchwork of vegetative suc-
cession and rescaled the landscape mosaic. Previous work has shown how the emergent ecological consequences of
foraging and burning interact to create greater local diversity, increase landscape patchiness at massive spatial
scales, and buffer against climate-driven ecosystem disturbance. In this paper we explore how the rescaling of patch
diversity through anthropogenic fire operates as a form of dynamic cultural and ecological niche construction
shaping systems of sociality among people and their interactions with other species.
A call to demolish the two-story edifice of dualism constructed contexts. In many other worlds, no such dichotomy exists,
to separate humans from nonhumans is nothing new. It or it exists in radically different forms (see Elkin 1969 for an
should be demolished not only because our natural worlds are Australian example). An important goal, then, in developing a
culturally constructed but because our cultural worlds are reintegrated anthropology—one that combines rigorous em-
wholly natural. Cultural niches and social intuitions are con- pirical analysis with an appreciation of diverse epistemologies
structed in the interactions of decisions, bodies, materials, and institutions fashioned in complex interactions between
values, and intentions of organic beings designed by natural people, other species, and physical space—is to
selection. The barriers that we build between natural and ar- render intelligible the way in which organisms of a particular
tificial phenomena are constructs specific to very particular kind find a place in the world, acquire a stable representation
of it, and contribute to its transformation by forging with it
and between one another links either constant or occasional
and of remarkable but not infinite diversity. . . . For although
Douglas W. Bird is Associate Professor in the Department of An- it is commonly said, these days, that worlds are constructed,
thropology at Pennsylvania State University (409 Carpenter Build-
it is not known who are their architects and we still have very
ing, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, U.S.A. [dwd5537@psu
little idea about what materials are used in building them.
.edu]). Rebecca Bliege Bird is Professor in the Department of An-
thropology at Pennsylvania State University (409 Carpenter Build- (Descola 2013:xvii)
ing, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, U.S.A. [rub33@psu.edu]). Reintegrating anthropology as imagined by Wiessner (2016)
Brian F. Codding is Assistant Professor in the Department of An- and Fuentes (2016) will involve just that: figuring out (1) who
thropology at the University of Utah (270 South 1400 East, Room
the architects of niches are and (2) what construction mate-
102, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, U.S.A. [brian.codding@anthro.utah
rials they are using. We suggest this will require building a
.edu]). Nyalangka Taylor is a Manyjilyjarra Martu woman and Se-
nior Custodian of the Kulyakarta estates in the far northern regions science that fully embraces an understanding of people in
of Martu country. She is a renowned hunter, ecologist, translator, and ecosystemic relationships. This will involve deliberate acts of
artist at Martumili Artists (Parnngurr Aboriginal Community, Via both analytical reductionism and holism to identify scaled
Newman, Western Australia 6753, Australia). This paper was sub- links between processes that shape decision making in re-
mitted 18 IV 15, accepted 19 I 16, and electronically published 9 V 16. source use and vehicles through which they emerge as com-
q 2016 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2016/57S13-0007$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/685763

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S66 Current Anthropology Volume 57, Supplement 13, June 2016
plex systems.1 We see the contributions to this special issue of we do so from a reductionist stance. In the heart of the anal-
Current Anthropology as an honest attempt to continue the ysis presented here, we intend to show how reducing complex
job. All of the contributors to the Wenner-Gren conference phenomena to measurements of key interactions gives critical
from which this volume grew were intent on seeking expla- insight into the processes involved in making dynamic and
nations of diverse human worlds, including peoples’ complex complex social-ecological systems. This provides an ecologi-
and divergent representational models and perceptions of life, cal and quantitative perspective into how Aboriginal people
by teasing apart processes and materials that shape the ways often characterize themselves and their lands. Thus, we argue
through which our habitats (or niches) are constructed, ex- that distinctive Martu selves do not exist independently of the
perienced, and made meaningful. ecological relationships that make and signify family and
In what follows we set out to investigate some of the play- homelands (Tonkinson 2011). Their notions of homeland and
ers, interactions, and materials used in constructing aspects of family are inherently relational, similar to notions captured in
Martu worlds in a remote part of Australia’s Western Desert oikos, the Greek for home and the root for ecology.
(fig. 1). We are especially concerned with measuring factors that It is important to note at the outset that the relationships
influence contemporary Martu hunting decisions, the expres- many Martu have with their country, framed in Jukurrpa (the
sions of which are mediated in social practices and the appli- Dreaming, as discussed below), do not reflect a “conservation
cation of landscape fire, that feed back through ecological ethic,” or what Sponsel (2012) refers to as “spiritual ecology.”
mechanisms to transform social-environmental relationships.2 As Martu often explain it, the Dreaming is more than just a
We agree with recent theorists such as Descola (2013) and spiritual relationship between them and the natural world.
others (e.g., Cormier 2003; Hartigan 2014; Kohn 2013) in Many traditionally oriented Martu believe that the proper
calling into question notions that we, because of culture, exist taking and use of resources—not their conservation—is the
buffered from the natural environment. While this is old hat key to a healthy country and healthy selves. To conserve re-
in anthropology, “a dichotomy between the material and the sources is akin to hoarding and requires managing the labor
mental, between ecological interactions in nature and cultural and consumption of others through dictatorial action. More-
constructions of nature” (Ingold 1996:144) continues to dom- over, they do not perceive of themselves as having a spiritual
inate the policy and science of global environmental change, connection that makes them “closer to the land” and thus
where “human dimensions” are cast principally in terms of natural conservationists; they insist that they are their coun-
how people affect the “natural” system (Castree et al. 2014). In try in the sense that humans are a critical component of eco-
this paper we hope to further dissolve such dichotomies, but logical relationships. For many Martu, country and self are
foraged in work (spiritual, ritual, mundane) that consumes
1. Our use of “emergence” follows a common definition in evolu- and regenerates, especially in the application of fire to the
tionary ecology, focusing on the synergistic processes shaping system landscape. There are sacred geographies, but they are diverse
organization that feed back on the fitness-related trade-offs of the or- in scale and arbitrated in the intensity of living interactions
ganisms that compose complex systems. “In evolutionary processes, and exchange between people, other species, and place. The
causation is iterative; effects are also causes. And this is equally true of key, as Tonkinson (2005) and Myers (1988) have suggested, is
the synergistic effects produced by emergent systems. In other words, in how a lived world of material transfers between and among
emergence itself . . . has been the underlying cause of the evolution of people and other species is interwoven with a world of reli-
emergent phenomena in biological evolution; it is the synergies pro- giously/spiritually constituted ownership (Bird and Bliege
duced by organized systems that are the key” (Corning 2002). This is
Bird 2010; Bliege Bird et al. 2012a). At the core of these re-
not a call to a return of the old systems ecology of the 1960s and 1970s
lationships are practices associated with landscape burning
but instead to a new ecology that fully embraces agency and a science of
individual decision making while recognizing the emergent properties
and the way it is situated in the function of ecological systems.
of larger-scale social and ecological systems that interact with individual Following a summary of contemporary Martu economies
decisions. and ecological organization, we illustrate how many Martu
2. Much has been written about how Western Desert Aboriginal selves express the architecture of their country and how they con-
and identities are conceived in relation to country and landesque capital: ceive of themselves and their land-based estates especially in
Aboriginal “country” is constituted within sets of social practices, dy- relation to fire. We then provide a rough framework to situate
namic rights, and contested values that link people to land (e.g., Dussart humans in general as niche constructors, especially in the
2000; Myers 1988; Tonkinson 2007, 2011; Tonkinson and Tonkinson emergence of distinctively pyrodiverse habitats. We argue that
2010). As Tonkinson (2011) and Myers (2002) so clearly explain for such a framework requires investigating the effects of exis-
Western Desert Martu and Pintupi, respectively, their ngurra—their
tential trade-offs people face in decisions about resource use.
homelands—come into being not only through the lived experience of
We thus describe the ways that Martu hunting decisions
hunting and gathering (the concrete labor entangled in an environment
of direct experience, sensu Ingold 1996, 2008) but also through processes
transform their lands into homelands in a series of analyses
of previous and lived experience shaped at all points by tiers of social in- based on Martu accounts and quantitative records of over a
teraction. “People do not simply ‘experience’ the world; they are taught— decade of participant observation in Martu foraging, and we
indeed, disciplined—to signify their experiences in distinctive ways” combine this with remote sensing and spatial analyses of
(Myers 2002:103). anthropogenic and nonanthropogenic landscapes. We argue

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Bird et al. Emergence and Pyrodiversity in Australia S67
Figure 1. Map of the Martu homelands showing the Martu Native Title (darkest gray), Karlamilyi National Park (light gray within the
Native Title), and the location of the three remote Martu communities within the Native Title (Parnngurr, Punmu, and Kunawarritji).
that these distinctively measurable landscapes emerge from run primary school staffed by a Martu advisory council and
the daily business of hunting and make up the owned ritual mostly non-Aboriginal teachers. Based on a series of obser-
estates that form the basis of Martu-conceived heritage. vational time-allocation surveys conducted in 2006 (Scelza,
Bird, and Bliege Bird 2014) and 2009–2010 (Codding 2012;
Martu Economic and Ecological Organization Codding et al. 2016), our research team recorded that adults
and children five and over in Parnngurr spend an average of
The contemporary economy in remote Martu communities 23% of their days foraging, producing bush foods that make
is a hybrid of customary, state, and market sectors (sensu up 29%–49% of daily caloric intake for a person (man, woman,
Altman, Biddle, and Buchanan 2012). In Parnngurr (fig. 1), or child). Today this often involves the use of vehicles to ac-
the community where we are based, this includes hunting, cess temporary foraging camps from which most hunting and
gathering, some wage labor in mining and related industry, gathering then proceeds on foot. Foraging—modified with the
arts and crafts production through Martumili Artists (sup- incorporation of new technologies, entanglements with mar-
ported by the East Pilbara Shire), a new ranger program for kets and governments, and changing mobility and settlement
Karlamiliyi National Park and Martu Native Title Lands (fa- patterns—remains fundamental to ecological and social or-
cilitated by the Martu-based NGO Karnyirninpa Jukurrpa), ganization.
as well as government benefit payments, some money from
the Martu Lands trust, and work in the Community Devel-
Contemporary Foraging
opment Employment Program. The links are dynamic, and
labor within each sector is interwoven with commercial, sub- Between 2000 and 2010, members of our research team par-
sistence, social, and religious values (Bird et al., forthcoming). ticipated in 368 foraging trips with Martu. During foraging
Since the early 1990s Parnngurr has also had a community- trips (averaging just over eight foragers per trip), we recorded

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party composition, route, locale, and time that each participant growth vegetation to expose a searchable area. Hunters work
devoted to active foraging. Resources acquired were counted alone or in small cooperative groups, searching for dens and
and weighed before processing, usually at mirrka ngurra (see tracks and probing the area around an encountered den with
below), a locale where foragers gathered to prepare, share, and a long, narrow digging stick to locate the resting chamber,
eat before returning to the settlement. Edible masses were which lies 10–20 cm belowground.
converted into caloric measures using Brand-Miller, James, In the winter, if foragers do not burn a patch of late-
and Maggiore (1993). These records make up a data set of successional-age vegetation, they gain only 25 5 407 (SE) kcal
1,831 individual adult foraging bouts consisting of all the time per hour of search and pursuit. Older-growth vegetation in-
each forager spent in search, pursuit, capture, and processing hibits search, and at that rate (given energy expended while
of resources per day. foraging), on average hunters would work at energetic deficit.
Men, women, and children are active hunters. Men tend However, if they burn those patches, their returns increase
to concentrate more of their effort on larger game (especially dramatically to 1,552 5 326 kcal per hour (Bliege Bird et al.
kangaroo and bustard hunting, which together make up 61% 2013). Then, over the course of an average foraging bout (just
of men’s foraging time), and women focus much of their for- under 3 hours), a single forager can very reliably supply daily
aging in pedestrian sandplain hunting, targeting sand moni- food requirements for two to three people. There is a clear
tor lizards (which makes up 72% of women’s foraging time). linear relationship between time invested and harvest size, so
However, there is a high degree of fluidity in gendered differ- unlike less reliable activities such as kangaroo and bustard
ences of labor, and there are times when men and women hunting, foragers can predictably adjust harvest sizes with
cooperate in hunting, especially during the summer in long- more search if there are more consumers at camp (Codding,
distance pursuits of large monitor lizards (Bird, Bliege Bird, Bird, and Bliege Bird 2010). Both men and women conduct
and Codding 2009; Bliege Bird and Bird 2005, 2008; Codding, broadcast burns while sandplain hunting, but women do so
Bliege Bird, and Bird 2011). more often (Bird, Bliege Bird, and Parker 2005; Bliege Bird
Today, mutually exclusive foraging activities (made so by et al. 2008).
differences in habitat, technology, seasonality, and search In the summer, when fire behavior is often unpredictable
strategy; see Bird et al. 2009, 2013 for details) are usually or- and monitors are active on the surface and pursued by track-
ganized around the search for five staple animal prey: hill kan- ing, burning is uncommon. Access to ground that was burned
garoo (kirti-kirti [Macropus robustus], 24.7% of total produc- earlier in the year is then critical in the warmer months. Sum-
tion by whole weight), bustard (kipara [Ardeotis australis], mer returns per hour hunting in late-successional patches are
24.1%), sand monitor (parnajarlpa [Varanus gouldii], 19.1%), significantly lower (76 5 771) than those in early-successional
larger monitors (maruntu and yalapara [Varanus giganteus patches (1,838 5 446). With ready access to patches burned
and Varanus panoptes], 2.7%), and feral house cats (1.5%). earlier in the year, there is little need to burn extensively in
The remaining bush food comes mostly from solanum fruit, order to pursue lizards in the summertime (Bliege Bird et al.
nectar, geophytes, and feral camel. When they choose to go out, 2013).
a forager typically acquires about 3,000 kcal per day. The main fuel burned in hunting fires is the highly flam-
While kangaroo and bustard hunting produce occasional mable spinifex hummock grass, mainly Triodia schinzii and
bonanzas, much of daily bush food comes from pedestrian Triodia basedowii, which dominates much of the arid interior
hunting in spinifex (Triodia spp.)–dominated grasslands. of Australia. Patches regenerating after fire are associated with
The activity targets sand monitor but also includes the on- different community composition, referred to as seral stages
encounter pursuit of skinks, snakes, fruit, feral cats, and larger (Latz and Green 1995; Pianka and Goodyear 2012). Martu
monitors. As shorthand we will refer to this as “sandplain use a five-tiered seral classification of spinifex grasslands to
hunting.” Martu refer to the activity as parnajarlpa wartilpa, characterize their landscapes. Nyurnma is the stage immedi-
or sand monitor hunting, because sand monitors are the ately following a burn, when there is no surface vegetation
principal resource acquired. Overall, Martu in Parnngurr al- except surviving shrubs and trees. Waru-waru characterizes a
locate more time to sandplain hunting than any other type of community of new green shoots from the seed bank of diverse
foraging activity. While this type of hunting is an important forbs and grasses, usually following a nyurnma within a few
economic activity for all, it is especially so for older women months, depending on precipitation. Nyukura is a community
and when money is short (Bird et al., forthcoming; Bliege Bird where fruiting plants have matured, and there is an abun-
and Bird 2008; Scelza et al. 2014). dance of resources for people and other herbivores. Herbs
such as Solanum diversiflorum and other bush tomatoes, along
with seed grasses such as woolybutt (Eragrostis eriopoda), are
Contemporary Burning
most abundant in nyukura, usually 1–4 years postfire. Manguu
Because monitor lizards are denned in the cool-dry season, characterizes patches where spinifex has started to crowd out
sandplain hunting is constrained by den visibility, so foragers other grasses and forbs, a process that usually takes 5–10 years
either target patches characterized by early-successional veg- following a burn. Manguu has spinifex hummocks close enough
etation or set a broadcast fire to clear off a large patch of older to carry a fire. Kunarka is the final stage of spinifex growth, in

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which large hummocks of grass completely dominate the patch, Gone were several small marsupials that had been common
and the hummocks are so old that they begin to die in the prey: the rufous hare wallaby (mala [Lagorchestes hirsutus]),
middle and form circular rings several meters across, a process the brush-tail possum (wayuta [Trichosurus caninus]), the bur-
that can take up to 20 years. rowing bettong (jamparn [Bettongia lesuer]), and the golden
Animals, too, show differential fire responses. Bustards bandicoot (minkajurru [Isodon auratus]), and in their place
(Ardeotis australis) come into nyurnma to feed and also to en- were feral house cats, camels, and foxes. These new landscapes
joy the desert raisin (Solanum centrale) so abundant in nyu- were dominated by extensive lightning fires that burned 10 to
kura. Hill kangaroo prefer waru-waru, where newly emerging 100 times larger than the fires Martu were used to (Bliege Bird,
green shoots offer more nutritious browse, and nyukura, where Codding, and Bird 2016). Nyalangka Tayor recounted that in
solanum fruit is more abundant (Codding et al. 2014). Sand 2004,
monitors are omnivorous edge lovers: they often den in “is- when the first lot of folks came to Parnngurr after being
lands” of older growth manguu or even kunarka adjacent to gone for 20 years, they burned the area first before they made
younger nyukura patches for foraging. As such their popula- their ngurra. When they went out hunting, they burned in
tions increase with edge density in the finer-grained anthro- every direction to keep lightning fires from coming close to
pogenic mosaics Martu create (Bliege Bird et al. 2012b, 2013).3 camp. Martu like to make sure that they burn areas in all
Having many different patches at different regrowth stages (a directions from camp and keep the waru [fire] small, con-
tight mosaic of seral stages) is a good indicator of both animal trolled, so that it doesn’t burn places that it shouldn’t.
and plant species diversity at the landscape scale (Bliege Bird
et al. 2008). Between 1986 and 1990, ethnobotanist Fiona Walsh made
several visits to Parnngurr to document customary foraging
and land use and found that fires were becoming smaller and
Contact History and Ecological Changes the country more diverse. Yet people were still concerned that
Many remote Western Desert people who walked west at Eu- not enough habitat had been burned, and there was a per-
ropean contact are referred to as Martu,4 while those who went ception of food scarcity—not just the decline of marsupials
east are called Pintupi. Some bands from a number of dialect- but the disappearance of fruiting trees (e.g., Santalum lan-
named groups, mostly Manyjiljarra and Warnman, remained ceolatum) and the limited distribution of fruiting forbs, in-
fully autonomous in the Karlamilyi and Percival Lakes regions cluding staples such as solanum fruit. Martu in 1986 “attrib-
until the mid-1960s, when they went west, mostly to Jigalong uted the scarcity of bush food species to factors other then
(Davenport, Johnson, and Yuwali 2005; Tonkinson 1991). In hunting. In their view, the converse was true, traditionally
the 1980s many of these people began a process of reoccupy- oriented people believed hunting, gathering, and the manip-
ing their homelands, establishing three remote communities at ulation of country and resources to be critical to their per-
Parnngurr, Punmu, and Kunawarritji in the Little and Great petuation” (Walsh 2008:170). That hunting, gathering, and
Sandy Deserts (fig. 1). Unlike other parts of Australia, the Sandy burning is not the cause of resource scarcity but the critical
deserts have been spared the ecological degradation of pasto- support for resource persistence seems paradoxical, and to
ralism, agriculture, and development: in the absence of Martu, many, evidence of a logic that has little to do with ecological
the desert had been silent, the only visitors being mining ex- reality. Many Martu insist rather that the continued perfor-
ploration teams intent on gold and uranium. Even so, when mance of these activities is critical to the integrity of both the
Martu returned to their homelands, they confronted an eco- ecological and socioritual landscapes.
system far different from the one they had left. Paradoxically,
their hiatus coincided with the local extinction of numerous Fire, Food, Family, Home: “We Are [Kin]. . . .
species of endemic mammals and the decline of many more. We Are Painters. . . . We Hunt. . . . We Burn.”
The painting shown in figure 2 is titled Yarrkalpa (hunting
3. Termite specialists such as Ctenophorus nuchalis, the netted dragon, ground). Its accompanying caption, composed in Martu
a 50–100-g slow-moving lizard, are more prevalent in the recent burns of Wangka by the artists, begins with a rehearsal of the seral
nyrunma, while Ctenophorus isolepis, which requires long-unburned spi- stages of vegetative succession that follow the application of
nifex for refuge and thermoregulation, is more abundant in long-unburned fire to the landscape (nyurnma, waru-waru, nyukura, manguu,
areas (Letnic et al. 2004; Masters 1996; Pianka and Goodyear 2012). kunarka) and then transitions to a verse translated here by
4. “Martu,” meaning “people” (indigenous people), is commonly used Nyalangka Tayor, who is also one of the artists.
as a term of self-reference for members of different linguistic dialect
We are sisters, mothers, daughters, granddaughters, aunties,
groups that migrated to Jigalong in the 1950s and 1960s. It is not a cul-
turally, linguistically, or relationally self-contained ethnic unit, and thus
nieces.
some of the beliefs and practices we describe for our mainly Manyjiljarra We are painters, we are Martu women, caring for our country.
and Warnman interlocutors in Parnngurr and Punmu will differ from We hunt in this country to look after it.
those described by Tonkinson, who worked mainly with Kartujarra We burn it, then gather bush fruit.
speakers in Jigalong. We burn it, and the animals eat the waru-waru,

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Figure 2. Kumpaya Girgirba walking in front of a section of the large canvas Yarrkalpa painted by women whose estates make up
contiguous country across the Martu homelands. Yarrkalpa (hunting ground), 2013, 300 cm # 500 cm, by Kumpaya Girgirba,
Yikartu Bumba, Karnu Taylor, Ngamaru Bidu, Yuwali Nixon, Reena Rogers, Thelma Judson, and Nyalangka Taylor. Photo by
Gabrielle Sullivan. Used with permission from Martumili Artists. A color version of this figure is available online.
Then they get fat, and we hunt and eat the animals: to a core set of sacred sites and ceremonies, but each of those
Goanna, hill-kangaroo, bustard, cat. individuals will also have ties to other estates through negoti-
We are telling lots of little stories about hunting in the ations about initiation, decent, spirit travel, totemic concep-
Parnngurr area tion place, and residence (Tonkinson 2011). Both men and
All of the women putting their stories together on a big women can be estate holders (such that siblings are often co-
canvas. owners), but within an estate there are gender-specific seg-
It is special to teach others—Martu and non-Martu—how ments of knowledge and ceremonial performance (see Dussart
we live now 2000). However, even the most sacred “men’s business” usu-
And always have ally requires participation of senior co-owning women (Ton-
In this country. kinson 1991). Below we suggest that Martu estates are con-
This country is us. stituted by social ties of relational wealth (Borgerhoff Mulder
We need to share it, and talk about it, and protect it . . . keep et al. 2009) facilitated in part through trust bound in foraging,
it strong. burning, and food sharing.
Taken together, the whole of the patches, points, and tracks
Each of the eight artists (and their apprentices) has painted in figure 2 represent the ancestral estates that make up much
her own estate. An estate is a co-owned body of “little stories”: of the Martu homelands (“All of the women putting their
sets of owned and heritable responsibilities for maintaining stories together on a big canvas”). Note that the artists begin
the ceremony and totemic geography depicted in the painting by drawing attention to the ties that define their social rela-
as patches and paths forming mosaics from a bird’s-eye view tionships and the means—both on country and on canvas—
of the landscape. Each estate contains a core group of custo- used to represent how those relationships are expressed. The
dians who are most closely tied to one of the regions associ- forms used show vegetative mosaics, dunes, watercourses, rock
ated with the principal Martu dialect-named groups (mostly holes, clay pans, playas, Dreaming tracks, and roads. The shapes
Putijarra, Kartujarra, Kiyajarra, Warnman, and Manyjilyjarra; and colors represent both the terraforming activities of ances-
Tonkinson 1991). While owned corporately, the estates are tral beings and different patches of seral stage regrowth.
not necessarily clearly bounded units in space or held to the Martu often use the patchwork of seral stages (both on the
exclusion of all others by a discrete group of people—each ground and in painting) as an index of devotion to one’s es-
estate contains individuals who claim the most responsibility tate: the efforts of those that hunt to share enough to support

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large networks of people are signified in landscapes that Martu of many Australian societies and ecosystems (Bowman et al.
refer to as ngurra juri, or sweet country, that have a tight mo- 2011).
saic of seral stages. In order to share, one must burn the land For Martu, following the Law set out in Jukurrpa requires
(waruku ngurra) to produce food (waruku mirrka). Burning that one burn in particular ways: holding (kanyini) the
both destroys and creates, but it is necessary for sharing. And country, not managing in top-down fashion, but holding it as
sharing for Martu is simultaneously virtuous and political part of a larger set of caretaking responsibilities over people.
(Bird and Bliege Bird 2010; Bliege Bird et al. 2012a; Bliege To burn outside of the context of permission from estate
Bird and Power 2015). owners, or at times or in areas where a fire will threaten sacred
The act of painting ngurra juri, or maintaining it through sites, will bring consternation at the least and likely severe
burning, is as much an asserted claim to an estate as it is an punishment. However, any designed “management” of land is
ecological, commercial, and spiritual representation of home. an epiphenomenon of kanyininpa, the treatment of people
Only those artists whose claims are recognized as legitimate and resources that Martu insist is based on encouraging in-
by an audience of fully initiated owners would dare to assert dividual autonomy (sensu Folds 2001). Kanyini means liter-
representation of an estate through painting (Carty 2010), and ally to carry something, but it is often used in the context of
only those who know the sacred geography would dare to nursing: to nurse a child, or to nurse a fire stick and keep it
burn within an estate. The legitimacy is forged in part through from going out. When one kanyininpa ngurrara, carries the
a reputation built by hunting and sharing. In turn, the cu- country, one is looking after country like one would look after
mulative existential processes of foraging and burning on coun- a child, nurturing, feeding, giving it room to grow according
try are a rehearsal of the terraforming acts of ancestral beings to its own inevitable processes, fostering its autonomy and
that brought homelands into existence in the Jukurr, the self-direction, and not controlling and managing it.
Dreaming. Traditional Martu beliefs emphasize that holding the coun-
Jukurrpa, described by Martu and others variously as “Law” try involves reenacting the creative forces first established by
or “Business” and by anthropologists as “The Everywhen” the Dreaming ancestors who brought the landforms into ex-
(Stanner 1979 [1953]), is cosmology, religion, philosophy, istence. Burning is a requisite reenactment of this creation
politics, and natural history. Jukurrpa encompasses the cre- given expression by the mundane business of everyday work.
ative epoch of Dreamtime ancestors and the contemporary This, they say, ensures the fruitful reproduction of Martu, of
practice/knowledge required to sustain a homeland. It is the species that sustain Martu, and the animals and plants that
totemic geography, epistemology, and body of knowledge and sustain those species. Thus, they claim that the estates repre-
ceremony concerning the terraforming performance of an- sented in figure 2 exist only as a result of the terraforming ac-
cestral beings that left their life force across the landscape, the tivities of the Dreamtime ancestors sustained in kanyininpa by
sacred and mundane activities that maintain the world, and emulating their landscaping through burning.
prescriptions concerning the nature of the relationships be- Nurturing sentiments in kanyininpa are most often ex-
tween humans and other species and how those relationships pressed through food sharing, especially unconditional shar-
are sustained (Tonkinson 2011). It “provides an explanation ing (yankupayi) with family (walytja-marri, defined as those of
of nature, establishes a social code, creates a basis for prestige us who share, whether it be a home, country, birthplace, food).
and political status within the community, acts as a religious Kanyininpa creates both walytja and ngurra, a camp. Ngurra is
philosophy and forms a psychological basis for life” (Cane a profoundly complex term incorporating notions of place,
2002). Critical to the perpetuation of life is the proper ad- belonging, home, country, habitat, and generosity (Tonkinson
herence to the Law contained in Jukurrpa, which for many 2005). Elsewhere in Australia there may be more clearly defined
Martu frames the importance of hunting and sharing within differences between the spatial notions of ngurra and the social
the notion that “country must be used and appropriately notions of walytja, but many remote-living Manyjilyijarra- and
burned” if life is to continue. As one elder put it, to stop using Warnman-speaking Martu insist the distinction is blurry and
up resources, to stop hunting and burning, would mean “the that ngurra exists only within walytja. There is no home with-
end of the world.” out family, and walytja share ngurra by definition. Ngurra is
Jones (1969) and others (e.g., Gould 1971) have noted a not bound in space or time; it can be formed and transformed at
clear link between Aboriginal fire ecology, harvestable food any spatial or temporal scale, with any group of people that
resources, water sources, and religious practice in Jukurrpa. come together as family, especially to share food.5
Gammage (2011) has recently expanded the argument, sug-
gesting that at the time of European invasion, the “landesque
5. Within a ngurra, kinship always affects how individuals interact,
capital” of Aboriginal Australia existed as a set of contiguous
but kinship does not, in a direct sense, determine the outcome of food
estates held together by systems of land management facili- sharing. For example, outside of a highly constrained and specific re-
tated by anthropogenic fire. Whether or not these systems ligious context, two yumuri (a mother-in-law and son-in-law of or-
were designed as long-term land management strategies (which thogonal alternate merged generational groups; Tonkinson 1991) would
for Martu, we argue, they are not), most acknowledge a pro- never address each other, sit near each other, or make eye contact, let
found role for landscape-burning practices in the function alone hunt together or directly transfer food between each other. But

193.48.187.1 on Mon, 23 Sep 2024 03:54:55 UTC
Out from the settlement foragers often establish a central The obligations to ensure consumption equality emerge
locale to which they return in the evening to prepare, cook, through the way social status is maintained, which is me-
share, and consume the day’s take. Martu call this a mirrka diated through the maintenance of social networks of shar-
ngurra, a dinner camp, and the location of that camp, as well ing and cooperation. We have argued elsewhere that indi-
as the individuals in the foraging party, will usually shift viduals are motivated to return as much food as possible to
from day to day. Regardless of how ephemeral, at a mirrka the ngurra because they gain respect and some measure of
ngurra, Martu assert they have an obligation to share evenly prestige from distributing a greater percentage of their har-
with everyone at the camp—if the day’s take was meager, vest, as in kangaroo hunting (Bird and Bliege Bird 2010;
everyone will be equally hungry (Bliege Bird and Bird 2008).6 Bliege Bird 2012a) or, as in sand monitor hunting, that they
Our data confirm that this is largely the case in practice, but gain social capital from the costly support of extensive social
any biases that emerge materially disfavor the more consis- networks and an honest display of pecuniary disinterest, of
tent large producers (Bird and Bliege Bird 2010; Bliege Bird not benefitting from one’s own overproduction (Bliege Bird
et al. 2012a; Bliege Bird and Power 2015). For a producer to and Power 2015). The benefits of costly sharing thus con-
bias the consumption away from others based on kinship dition the return of all foraged foods to the dinner camp.
would be offensive.7 How shares are nominally identified, as Martu are thus strict central place provisioners with respect
well as who hands what shares to whom and how one can ad- to the formation of the ngurra. Hunters very rarely eat while
dress someone regarding a share, are of course matters of kin- searching for and pursuing prey and do not cook prey except
ship (think of the closest grandparental relationships, which at the hearth in the ngurra. Even children return all prey back
are same or parallel sections, vs. the most restrained in-law to the ngurra for cooking before consumption. The only ex-
relationships, which are orthogonal sections; Tonkinson 1991). ception is the consumption of small amounts of fruit or nectar
But this does not structure the composition of people present at while collecting or occasionally a snack if gutting larger game
ngurra—where food is delivered, prepared, distributed, and at a kill site. This is not conditioned by the constraints of tools,
consumed—nor does it bias the amount and quality of who cooking pots, or other items left back at the central place:
consumes what (Bird and Bliege Bird 2010; Bird et al. 2013). nearly all foraged food Martu acquire is either eaten raw or
Martu claim that tiers of distribution ensure that all adults roasted whole over coals or in roasting pits. Ironically, the
present ultimately get an equal share, and it is the obligation of formation of the ngurra trumps residential patterns in the
the producer to act modestly—and the distributor compas- community at large. Martu are not strict central place pro-
sionately—toward those with less (Bliege Bird and Power visioners with respect to the settlement; only what is not
2015). consumed at the ngurra is brought back to the settlement.
Most of the small prey is thus consumed by the ngurra, while
there are often yumuri sharing a camp and sharing food that they or only leftover portions of larger prey are brought back to the
others produce—they simply separate themselves in space. For example, community and redistributed. The formation of a ngurra is
if out on a temporary camp, yumari will often separate themselves by at determined simply by coresidence around a cooking hearth.
least a few tens of meters, backs to each other and a brush divider or Those who share a cooking fire are “at table” together re-
vehicle between them. Yet yumuri are fundamentally family and fun- gardless of their kinship relationships or residency in other
damental to family in part, say Martu, because they share food at camp. contexts (Bliege Bird et al. 2012a). They are made family.8
6. While for Martu, social interactions—including food sharing— Martu family making includes the sharing of a multiplicity
never exist independent of concerns about kinship relationships (in fact,
of ties created through consubstantiality and rituals of un-
parcels of game are often referred to in terms of a kinship relationship
conditional economic exchange (Tonkinson 2011). “Consub-
between a hunter and an idealized recipient of the share, e.g., a kangaroo
rump is often called the in-law share), kinship relationships do not
diametrically regulate the everyday flows and amounts of food distrib- 8. This does not mean that all family are equal or that everyone who
uted from producers to consumers. Martu that we live with insist that is considered family gets an equal share. It is simply that those present
all of the adults present when food is distributed at a ngurra should when food is prepared, distributed, and eaten are made family and get
receive equal shares of food (or defer shares as they wish) regardless of an equal share (or have the right to refuse an equal share). Those not
the kinship relationship between the producer and the consumer. present get nothing, or only what is not consumed immediately. In the
7. This is so even under broad obligations young men have to hunt context of most foraging today, someone not present in a foraging party
for their in-laws or other older men, especially a mother’s brother. (the group that makes a mirrka ngurra) cannot expect to get much of
Younger Martu men often declare that affinal obligations influence their anything that was acquired that day. They may be upset about that and
decisions to go hunting and that they have responsibilities to work for may address their concerns according to kinship (“I am your auntie, you
old men and affinal kin, but a young hunter almost never takes the lead went foraging; why did you not bring me anything?”), but neither the
in cooking, butchering, or distributing large game. Distributions are producers nor distributors control distribution in a way that would
conducted by the most senior person present, and they do not bias ensure shares at a foraging camp are biased in order to return portions
portions such that larger shares go toward affinal kin or mother’s to specific individuals in the settlement. One could defer consumption
brother of the hunter (Bird and Bliege Bird 2010). This does not mean, of a share received at distribution and then deliver it to someone in the
however, that younger men do not have special responsibilities to their settlement, but that is likely to raise questions from others in the set-
in-laws or older men. tlement about perceived bias (see Bird et al. 2013).

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stantiality” refers to the possession of a common substance discourage contingency in the sharing of food. Those who ac-
as the basis of a social tie between two individuals. In some quire more do not benefit in consumption from their over-
societies, this is primarily the substance of genetic decent, production: better hunters share a larger proportion of their
but in others, it also includes the shared intake of many harvest and do so routinely without contingent reciprocity in
different substances. For Martu, family (walytja) is generated food (Bliege Bird and Power 2015). However, the better hunter
through the sharing of one mother’s milk, the consumption who eats little, shares most, and cooperates extensively with
of the same hunted animal, or sharing souls or spirits that poor hunters does benefit, and although we cannot measure
have emerged from the same yinta, a spring with life-giving pukurrpa, we can measure the social networks of interaction
water. Families are said to be established through sharing the that are created through sharing. The benefits of sharing lie in
love of the same mother(s) who raised them as her own the construction of social relationships of trust and cooperation
children, sharing the same or parallel section (merged al- that build family ties. Those who are more generous on average
ternate generational groups: Karimarra and Panaka or Mi- have higher centrality scores in the cooperative hunting net-
langka and Purungu; Tonkinson 1991) or sharing material work, meaning they cooperate more with others who are also
without the expectation of return (yankupayi). It is not that cooperative (Bliege Bird and Power 2015). More generous
consanguinity is unimportant; it is that one can buffer ques- sharers are thus able to create a social network of strong ties
tions about descent by creating social bonds through shared between connected individuals. Where “generosity is the main
experience and “substance,” and these bonds can be given measure of a man’s goodness” (Hiatt 1982:14), building and
just as much weight as those characterized by clearly defined maintaining a reputation for virtue generates trust in many
ancestry (Tonkinson and Tonkinson 2004). Being walytja- different dimensions of Martu social life. Foragers share a
marri (those of us from the same spring, yinta) is about shar- greater percentage of their harvest the larger it is, feeding and
ing, and it can be as much about sharing the same country, holding those who cannot or will not forage for themselves. For
meat, fire, water, or mother’s milk as it is about sharing an this is how Martu gain a measure of social prestige and become
ancestor. respected as those strong in the law: through disengaging with
For Martu, decisions about foraging are thus shaped by material property (Tonkinson 1988) and fostering egalitarian
decisions about sharing. Martu often say they hunt to share: material relationships in the holding of ngurra and walytja
hunting is always embedded in a context of social exchange. (Bird and Bliege Bird 2010).
When hunters leave ngurra thinking about yunkupayi
(sharing without expectation of return), they are said to bring Emergent Pyrodiversity: “We Hunt in This
back more meat, and in bringing back more, the goal is not to Country to Look After It. The Animals Get
eat more but to share more to other members of the ngurra.
Fat, and We Hunt and Eat Them.”
Sharing unconditionally is partly a manifestation of one of the
central emotions of Martu existence: sympathy, or sorrow As expressed in the poem above, the notion that people are
(nyarru). One shares with those less successful because one critical for the perpetuation of life in the desert has parallels
feels sorry for them. Yet there is also a motivation to share to with nonequilibrium theory in ecology, which recognizes the
receive the rewards of being mirtilya, a good hunter. Mirtilya importance of disturbance and the positive effects it can gen-
are skilled hunters who broker their excess production into erate. When organisms disturb ecological communities, some
social capital. A hunter who produces more than anyone else species experience population reductions, but others may do
should eat as little as possible from his or her own production better. If in influencing local population declines among a few
and share the surplus widely and unconditionally, especially species an organism provides positive effects such as enhanc-
to those with whom she has little obligation to share—those ing food or shelter for other species, they are referred to as
who are not genealogical kin. A mirtilya has that status be- “ecosystem engineers” (Jones, Lawton, and Shachak 1996) or
cause she builds kinship ties with those to whom she is not “niche constructors” (Odling-Smee, Laland, and Feldman
necessarily closely related. A productive hunter’s reward is not 2003). The classic example is that of beavers constructing dams.
the meat but the pukurrpa (happiness) that comes from Dams flood creeks, which causes localized mortality to some
binding people together in a family through the meat they plants but increases wetland habitat and produces greater en-
have provided. This binding of family is kanyininpa, holding, vironmental heterogeneity, in turn supporting larger popula-
and it is simultaneously economic, parental, and ritual. tions of a wider range of species at a landscape scale (Wright,
Among Martu, holding country requires that you feed and Jones, and Flecker 2002). Ecosystem engineers can have positive
nurture others without restricting their autonomy in any way: effects through a variety of different mechanisms. They can
shares are thus distributed in ways that defuse the “power of affect landscape heterogeneity, which may stabilize species in-
the gift” (Mauss 1954). The power of the gift is muted in sev- teractions and provide a variety of habitats for shelter and
eral ways typical of “immediate return economies” that disas- feeding (Holt 1984; Roff 1974; Roxburgh, Shea, and Wilson
sociate the hunter with ownership of the food he or she has 2004); they may also increase food web stability simply by being
acquired, create egalitarian distributions of economic goods, a predatory generalist who hunts prey at different trophic levels
promote tolerance of free riding, encourage cooperation, and (Gross et al. 2009). Organisms that play a key role in holding

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communities together are often referred to as “keystone species” This increase in game, in turn, doubles Martu hunting ef-
or “foundational facilitators.” Remove that species and you may ficiency and increases success rates six times over in more
precipitate a wave of extinctions that ripples through an entire heavily hunted regions compared with regions that are rarely
food web (Terborgh et al. 2001). visited (Bliege Bird et al. 2013). As a result, foraging return
Like species, physical processes can act as keystone facil- rates across all different hunting and gathering activities are
itators. Fire shapes global ecosystem patterns and is often a highest in areas under intermediate human use, where the
keystone process, a form of disturbance that causes mortality negative effects of human predation are dominated by the
at local scales but may have positive effects at the scale of the positive effects of anthropogenic fire (fig. 4). Even in high-use
community or landscape (Bowman et al. 2009). At the scale of regions, foragers do significantly better than they do in more
a burned patch, fire immediately removes vegetation and remote regions less affected by anthropogenic fire.
reduces local animal populations, but it may increase in-patch Martu hunting fires also shape population distributions of
species diversity (alpha diversity) by interrupting the process other desert species that benefit from access to a more di-
of plant succession that results in domination by a few com- verse successional mosaic, such as hill kangaroo, which are
petitive species. Communities associated with different time more abundant in regions associated with higher patch di-
since last fire may have a very different set of plants and ani- versity (Codding et al. 2014). Characteristics of many of the
mals associated with them, and species diversity may actually animal species that disappeared or are in decline also suggest
be highest not at the endpoint of recovery from fire but at that they, too, may have been advantaged by Martu fire
some point in the middle. Across a landscape, fire may in- mosaics. Hare wallabies are browsers that rely on plants in
crease diversity by increasing the heterogeneity of community many different successional stages as well as mature spinifex
types across the landscape (beta diversity). hummocks for nesting and predator predation. Before the
Across a vast landscape of nearly 500,000 hectares, Martu set 1960s, they were abundant and widespread throughout the
approximately 360 fires per year, averaging around 100 hectares spinifex sandplains and were hunted frequently. The con-
in area. These hunting fires are very different from lightning tinued persistence of the population has been argued to be
fires: they are ten times smaller on average and 10 times closer dependent on continued patch mosaic burning to maintain
to each other (Bliege Bird et al. 2012). Fires are smaller for a access to early-successional habitat adjacent to mature spi-
number of reasons. Martu light fires mostly under conditions nifex (Lundie-Jenkins 1993; Lundie-Jenkins, Corbett, and Phil-
when fire size can be more easily controlled. Under conditions lips 1993; Lundie-Jenkins, Phillips, and Jarman 1993; see Kerle
unfavorable to control of fire, hunting fires tend to be larger. et al. 1992 for similar effects in other endemic mammals).
Lightning fires are large regardless of conditions because they Landscapes where hunting is most intense also have more
tend to be lit mainly when temperatures are high and winds are patches of midsuccessional grassland, which has a significantly
unpredictable. The size of lightning fires is limited mainly by the greater density of high-ranked seed grasses such as Eragrostis
contiguity and amount of fuels, which is measured by ante- and fruits such as Solanum. Anthropogenic landscapes reduce
cedent cumulative rainfall (Bliege Bird et al. 2012). When the the cost of accessing such patches by rescaling habitat structure.
grass is thick, Martu simply light more small fires, because thick Foragers in an anthropogenic landscape have a 96% chance of
grass reduces sandplain hunting search efficiency. The small, being able to find a patch within 3 km; in regions far from
patchy fires scattered throughout the landscape by Martu Martu influence, the chances of finding such patches nearby
hunters have the incidental effect of creating firebreaks that drop to 82% (Zeanah et al. 2015). Essentially, an anthropogenic
prevent the spread of lightning fire during seasons when large landscape rescales resource patch density to reduce the cost of
fires threaten. accessing a wider range of resources.
To explore the interactive effects of over 4,500 observed
foraging hours on the structure of the landscape and its in- Ecological Emergence of Homelands: “This
teraction with resources, we stratified the entire study area by
Country Is Us.”
different levels of human use, ranging from more than two
forager days per square kilometer to practically zero, and then In a very real sense, Martu foragers and their resources (es-
overlaid land-use intensity on a composite seral stage (vege- pecially sand monitor lizards) are locked in coevolutionary
tation age since fire) classification map (fig. 3). The patchy dependence with deep temporal roots, one that is akin to
landscapes created through several years of wintertime hunt- farming but on a spatial scale that requires more expansive
ing shown in figure 3 have significant effects on the distri- mobility than most systems of horticulture. This is so in spite
bution of both plant and animal species. Sand monitor density of (and in part because of ) the fact that contemporary for-
is increased in regions where there is greater environmental aging and mobility are entangled in and modified by extrinsic
heterogeneity: the higher the density of habitat edges—con- markets and settler colonial constraints and opportunities.
trasts between new burns, regrowing vegetation, and old The customary sector of a Martu economy thrives because of
growth—the higher the density of monitor lizards. In fact, the social value that Martu place in sharing: sandplain hunt-
lizards are more abundant in landscapes where they are more ing is fundamental to sustaining relationships whose value
intensively hunted (Bliege Bird et al. 2013). is defined by pecuniary disinterest (Bliege Bird and Power

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Figure 3. Study region within the Martu homelands stratified by different levels of land-use intensity from more than 4,621 ob-
served forager hours between 2000 and 2010. As illustrated in the lower graphic, the highest-use areas (category 4, black) include
those regions within a 25-km radius of Parnngurr with 12 forager days recorded per square kilometer. Moderately high-use areas
(category 3, dark gray) include those regions within a 50-km radius with between 0.26 and 2 forager days recorded per square kilo-
meter. Moderately low-use areas (category 2, light gray) include all regions with between 0.06 and 0.25 forager days per square ki-
lometer. Low-use areas (white) include those regions with !0.05 forager days recorded per square kilometer. The mosaics (shown to
scale in location in the lower graphic) are composite satellite images creating a cumulative 10-year fire-history map (Bliege Bird et al.
2012b) to illustrate patchiness of seral stage (earlier succession is shown in lighter shades) according to use rank.
2015). For Martu this is fundamentally tied to pedestrian hunt- ciency of searching for small prey. The immediate benefits of
ing in the sandplains and the burning that supports it. burning to hunt offset the costs of collective action required
High predictability and density of lizards is a necessary for intentionally designed systems of management (policing,
precondition to produce desert livelihoods characterized by in effect) that characterize more intensified farming: Martu
reductions in residential mobility, the mid-Holocene hall- “farm” lizards with “fire sticks” (Jones 1969), but on a req-
mark of broad spectrum foraging economies in arid Australia uisite spatial scale (supported by expansive logistical mobility
(Smith 2013). Even today, with vehicles and metal digging out from a residential base) that would make maintaining
sticks, hunters cannot be efficient enough to support them- long-term exclusive rites of producer control over a “culti-
selves or others without burning (see “Fire, Food, Family, vated” plot inordinately expensive. Ownership of land-based
Home”; Bliege Bird, Codding, and Bird 2016; Zeanah et al. estates is maintained in a delayed-return ritual economy
2015). Such livelihoods can only be sustained through the (Sutton 2003) in which the exclusivity of an estate is defined
creation of a fine-grained mosaic of diverse vegetative suc- by the accumulation, performance, and inheritance of esoteric
cession produced by the cumulative effects of anthropogenic knowledge, not directly through the maintenance of long-
burning (Bliege Bird et al. 2008, 2012b). These anthropogenic term rites to exclude access to a spatially bound set of re-
landscapes, however, are emergent phenomena: they are sources cultivated through burning. The route to sustaining a
maintained through attempts to increase the immediate effi- claim to an estate is indirectly linked to the maintenance of a

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important keystone species and fire is a keystone process. The

ritual significance of burning is that Martu fulfill their role
within the food web by burning to acquire food and distrib-
uting it to the younger generation, holding them and in so
doing, holding the country for inheritance.10 Holding country
emerges naturally out of the holding of walytja, a group who
at the most local scale share ownership of “a little story” (see
“Emergent Pyrodiversity”), often a single yinta, or waterhole.
The patterning of fires on the landscape is not designed to-
ward some optimal management goal, it is simply meant to
be. If the mundane and ritual practices of life were not inte-
grated, the land would not reproduce, and it would be the end
of the world.
Conclusions
Many Martu emphasize that the social, ecological, and meta-
physical landscape exist simultaneously, inextricably inter-
Figure 4. Relationship between foraging efficiency (kcal per twined in a complex web of interaction. Hunting in the sand-
forager hour, N p 1,831 foraging bouts) and intensity of land
plain grasslands is integral to the maintenance of this web and
use (see fig. 3). Landscape heterogeneity increases as a result of
higher levels of anthropogenic burning in more intensively used ultimately sustains important networks of cooperation (Bliege
area (Bliege Bird et al. 2008, 2012b). This feeds back to increase Bird and Power 2015; Bliege Bird et al. 2012a). Such hunting is
subsistence returns for pedestrian foraging in intermediate-use possible only within an environment where small animals
regions. Even in the most intensively used areas (category 4), the flourish, which requires the intervention of human fire sticks
positive effects of an established mosaic of anthropogenic
(Bliege Bird et al. 2013). Fire makes possible high foraging
burning outweigh the costs of localized resource depression
from more intensive extraction. Return rates from foraging production, increasing both predictability and return rates in
bouts in categories 2, 3, and 4 are all significantly higher than hunting small animals. The foraging benefits supplied by fire-
return rates in category 1 (P ! .05). maintained habitats are invested into social relationships via
food sharing. Fire sustains the generosity of the mirtilya (hunt-
distinctive anthropogenic landscape through the way that skill ers with a lifetime of reputations based on skill and generosity)
and generosity in hunting forge the rights of ritual perfor- and supports a moral economy that emerges from generosity,
mance and ownership (Bird and Bliege Bird 2010). These sys- which fosters stronger social ties between individuals by gen-
tems of social exchange thus emerge from the distribution of erating trust and facilitating cooperation.
resources across the landscape, which is fundamentally shaped Anthropogenic fire sustains a web of interaction that links
by anthropogenic fire.9 the realms of the economic, the social, and the ecological. Fire
Implicit within the Jukurrpa is the notion that the desert is the shaping of country, the reenactment of creation, and
supports a network of interactions between all species, what the holding of Jukurrpa (the Dreaming), and it sustains the
ecologists refer to as a food web, in which humans are an ties that bind people together. In binding networks together
through sharing, Martu also serve as ecosystem engineers,
creating small-scale habitats that prevent the spread of very
9. The status of being mirtilya (a skilled and generous hunter) is
dependent on a lifetime of holding others and building relational wealth
large fires and buffer small, ground-dwelling mammals from
(sensu Mulder et al. 2009). This holding of others (kanyininpa), which both the effects of climate-driven fire and from the heavy pre-
are bonds of trust, requires honest displays of asceticism, of devotion to dation that ensues when animals are exposed in burned areas.
dispossession (Bird and Bliege Bird 2010; Bliege Bird and Power 2015; The logic behind the Dreaming places humans within the
Bliege Bird et al. 2012a). Paradoxically, it is through this dispossession web of ecological relationships critical to the coexistence of a
that a claim to possess an estate is maintained. The means of estate wide range of desert species, predicted the trophic collapse
inheritance are complex and vary geographically across desert societies that occurred during the Martu hiatus, and explains why
(Cane 2002; Dussart 2000; Myers 1986). For remote-living Martu, rights Martu understood species extinctions to be linked to the loss,
to stake and maintain a claim to an estate and negotiate its performance not the intensity, of human hunting. Once Martu began the
in ritual and artistic expression are in part based on respect generated by
how well you can bind together networks of co-owners (sensu Myers
1988). Hunting to share requires immediate returns that can only be 10. Similar themes are expressed in the burning of a vehicle to forge
realized in landscape burning, the long-term (“emergent”) effects of trust in co-ownership: if there is a dispute over a vehicle, Martu will
which are the distinctly anthropogenic landscapes that Martu call home. burn the vehicle (e.g., Myers 1988). It is a display of commitments to
That becomes the landesque capital of a delayed-return economy of hold together networks of people and country made honest in your
ritual inheritance. ability to bear the burden of subjecting an object to destruction.

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mid-twentieth-century process of migration onto missions, issue and their integrative vision in organizing the Wenner-
pastoral stations, and European settlements and stopped Gren symposium, and we are grateful to them and all of the
hunting and burning on the landscape, fire mosaics began conference participants for their inspiration, engagement, sug-
to break down, large fires swept through, both invasive and gestions, and intellects. In addition, Laurent Dousset and an
endemic predators spread and increased in population, and anonymous reviewer greatly improved an earlier version of this
many species of both plants and animals went extinct (Bliege paper with many insightful comments and critiques. To all of
Bird, Codding, and Bird 2016; Bliege Bird et al. 2012b). The our Martu friends and family, we owe you our deepest grati-
world, as Martu knew it, did come to an end, as the Dream- tude for your tireless support and tutelage. Many of the artists at
ing had predicted it would. The homelands came back to life Parnngurr, along with Gabrielle Sullivan and her devotion to
as Martu returned in the 1980s to hunt and burn. Dreaming Martumili Artistis and John Carty’s insights, provided critical
logic is thus revealed as a deep understanding of the social- guidance in our approach to Western Desert artistic expression.
ecological relationships between human foragers and their
environments.
Rather than viewing Martu conceptions of “looking after References Cited
country” as management, we show here that what many Altman, Jon, Nicholas Biddle, and Geoff Buchanan. 2012. The indigenous
Martu mean when they talk about caring is that the long-term hybrid economy: can the NATSISS adequately recognise difference? In
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spectives. Boyd Hunter and Nicholas Biddle, eds. Pp. 163–191. Canberra:
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tained by the short-term benefits to small game hunting Bird, Douglas W., and Rebecca Bliege Bird. 2010. Competing to be leaderless:
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land-use patterns. People, and other species, then capitalize on terpretation. American Antiquity 74:3–29.
the ecological properties that emerge. Bird, Douglas W., Rebecca Bliege Bird, Brian F. Codding, and Brooke A.
Our hope is that the analysis illustrates one way by which Scelza. Forthcoming. The dynamics of indigenous livelihoods and ecolo-
gies in the Western Desert: economic, social, and environmental values of
anthropological disciplines can be reintegrated through ques- foraging in a remote Martu community. Journal of Rural Studies.
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National Science Foundation (BCS-1459880, BCS-0850664, Bliege Bird, Rebecca, Brooke A. Scelza, Douglas W. Bird, and Eric A. Smith.
BCS-0314406, BCS-0127681), the LSB Leakey Foundation, and 2012b. The hierarchy of virtue: mutualism, altruism and signaling in
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A Landscape Architecture of Fire

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A Landscape Architecture of Fire

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important keystone species and ﬁre is a keystone process. The

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