of the harvest has been passed on for as long as
anyone can remember.
“Muttonbirding’s been happening since the
beginning of time,” says Maynard. “Muttonbirding’s
been part of my life all my life. Through all the
stories that I’ve been told by my cousins, aunts,
my father and grandfather and grandmother.”
Nathan’s first season on the island wasn’t until he
was 15, which makes him a late starter. His own
son was six when he made his first trip over, and
his dad was being taken over to the islands when
he was a baby.
There’s a bleaker edge to the history of humans
and muttonbirds, however. “Harvesting the birds
for a commercial purpose has been happening
since the early 1800s. Basically we had sealers,
men that used to hunt the seals, and they stole
some of our women who were taken to these
islands around the Bass Strait. That’s how the
Aboriginal communities there were formed,
through these ‘relationships’ between the sealers
and our traditional women. When the seals ran out
they needed something else to harvest and they
turned to the muttonbirds. Because our women
could hunt the seals, they used our women to get
the muttonbirds as well.”
As The Season proves, though, the generations
who have returned to these islands to maintain
the practice of muttonbirding have carved for
themselves a tradition on their own terms, and
for a slice of the year every year reunite to remind
each other that the real reason for the Season is
as much about family as anything else.
—JOHN BAILEY