ABSTRACT
The plains were seed country long before Europeans grew wheat on them.1 Wailwan people tended grasses at the edges of the Macquarie Marshes and across the plains where the gradient levels out and the main channels of the rivers disappear and spill into each other through a vast network of channels and lagoons and small clay depressions forming one great complex ‘alluvial fan’.2 Wailwan dug out and extended channels or blocked them to irrigate open plains. They let the grain ripen over the summer and harvested the cereals with stone knives or by pulling the grasses from the ground. They collected the harvest into large heaps ready for husking and grinding into flour for breads and cakes and for mixing with other foods.3
