In Arnhem Land mangroves are full of rich smells and the clicking music of hidden life.
Harvesting the fruits of the mangrove is the particular obsession of Yolŋu women. Their knowledge of what lies within and under the trees and the mud is incredible. For, as beautiful as what can be seen is, there is hidden treasure everywhere, for those who can crack the code.
One example only of the hundreds of delicious foods on offer is Dhän'pala. The King, or more likely Queen, of Shellfish in East Arnhem is one that sustains many people and anchors many hunting trips. Found by feeling with feet or combing with hands, knife blades or rakes or sometimes spotted as cryptic lips just poking free of the mud or as a hole or crack in the surface of the mud indicating a subsidence below where she has moved.
It is a fist-sized clam with many names. The typically ugly English common name is Mud Mussel Geloina oviformis, , (previous scientific names Gelonia coaxans, Polymesoda erosa). Also known in Yolŋu matha as Dhäkururru, Räwiya, Rruŋundhaŋaniŋ, Yiwaḻkurr, Yuwaḻkurr. Rägudha. Rägudha means kneecap. This maypal (shellfish) belongs to the Dhuwa half of the world.
The group will emerge from the forest following ancient pathways with hundreds and hundreds of shells in buckets, bags and pockets. And then the feast will begin.
There is a technique where a small fire is constructed using specially chosen size and type of kindling around a stacked pyramid of Dhän'pala so that lighting one match will cook and open as many as thirty at a time.
Hidden aside these treasures are Djiny'djalma or Nyuka. Appetisingly named Mud Crabs by English speakers. Yolŋu women trek for kilometres atop the network of butiress roots anchoring the mangrove forest in the sweet black mud. There is a rhythm to the mud which a buried mud crab disturbs. Their holes, which are often wedged into hidden sections beneath the trees, are visible only to the trained eye. Then begins the task of extricating the crab with massive vice like pincers, from their deep dark wet hole usually with bare hands!
