Cooking magpie geese in ground oven | Arnhem Land

This footage was shot in November 1996 in the vicinity of Bundatharri/Yathalamara in north-central Arnhem Land. Yolngu are cooking gurrumattji (magpie geese) in a ground oven, quite an elaborate process that is time intensive and is worthwhile only if a large number of geese are being cooked. A faster method, if cooking smaller numbers of geese, is to cook on top of hot coals once the carcass has been 'split' in half and entrails removed.


In the ground oven method demonstrated here, the geese are plucked to remove all feathers... in itself a laborious process. The birds are then quickly placed on top of a fire to singe off any remaining down and to tighten/seal the skin of the geese before slow cooking.

A large pit is dug into which gundirr - broken-up pieces of termite mound - and firewood are placed. The whole lot is lit and allowed to burn down to form hot coals. Leaves from a special tree are laid down on top of the coals (for aroma and flavouring), the geese are then placed on top of this bed of steaming 'herbs', and the whole lot is covered with paperbark and a mound of dirt (for insulation and also to stop any leakage of hot steam from the ground oven).

Depending on the number of geese and the 'hotness' of the ground oven, cooking time can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour.

When the geese are ready, care is taken to remove the dirt and paperbark covering so as to prevent the cooked meat from coming in contact with soil.

In this instance, we were a little bit impatient and the geese were not cooked sufficiently. But we ate them nonetheless and thoroughly enjoyed the succulent fresh meat!

Anytime is a good time for Yolngu comedy with the guys joking around and keeping us entertained. The hunt itself was a huge success, with several dozen geese taken that day... enough to feed several families at outstations and at Ramingining.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• gurrumattji
• magpie
• goose
• geese
• yolngu
• hunting
• aboriginal
• arnhem
• land
• northern
• territory
• ramingining
• food
• yathalamara

[avau77]

man il love to live this life for a month... massive respect to the old native way

[ididjaustralia]

@avau77 thanks bro!

[glentton]

i heard there not allowed to use salt through old traditon when they cook under ground

[ididjaustralia]

@glentton u are correct!

[tallicafan86]

magpie goose is the best best best meat on this planet..a delicacy up north fuck i miss it.

[ididjaustralia]

couldn't agree more!

[HalfKaztBoy]

Sounds delicious. Interesting stuff.

[SkinTighteningCream]

Nice to see this video thank you.

[UndoneB4Broken]

i love this land and i love the TRUE people on it. best barra fishing up thata ways!

[MiissSammii]

@source1zero So very true. In fact, the reason they survived for so many thousands of years is because Indigenous people insured there survival by insuring the survival of the Earth, the floura and fauna. If you notice that most ancient civilizations had a hunger for power and technology, they all died out very quickly compared to Indigenous Australians. Call it whatever they like, I'd rather be out in nature then sitting in front of a box watching make believe life on a TV! :-)

[elprimersalvatrucho]

fuck man vrs wild...this is the G.O

[source1zero]

It's so funny how people view the Aboriginals as primitive, but let me tell you- this people are absolute geniuses!!! You wouldn't believe some of the tricks they could show you. I've never known people so attuned to nature...

[dawgunna]

is it like pelican or dolphin? black fellas eat them down the road from me

[Melizarra3]

Cooking's great fun isn't it. Can't say I've cooked quite like this before but after watching the vid I wish I could have a go at it. I feel like I've missed out.