Adapted from Richard Gould (1969), Yiwara - Foragers of the Australian Desert. Collins, Sydney, pp. 5-8. An account of the daily life of a group of 13 Nyatunyatjara people (2 men, 3 women, and 8 children) he and his wife accompanied in the Clutterbuck Hills (175 km north of Warburton) during December 1966.

Action at the camp begins with the first faint glow of sunrise. It will still be dark for another half hour, but while the air is cool and there is no wind the birds do most of their singing, and there is conversation and joking in camp. Children are given wooden bowls and sent to fetch water. They have done this so often in the last month there is now a narrow little trail running from the camp to the waterhole. When they return everyone has a drink and takes a few bits from the seedcakes that the women prepared yesterday. The flies are not very active yet, so this is the most comfortable part of the day and a good time to make plans…

The talk about the activities for the day goes on for a long time. From time to time a person takes a drink of water or a bit of food or retires to go to the toilet. The women and girls generally go off a few yards into the bush for this function, but the men often urinate right where they sit, in camp. The men have decided to hunt emus, so the discussion centres around what the women will do.

…They head northward, directly toward the sandhills to collect bush tomatoes and bark for making sandals…By six o’clock the camp is empty.

One nice thing about getting away from camp is there are fewer flies about. Offal tends to accumulate around a campsite, providing the main fare for the dogs. Animal bones, after they have been shattered for marrow, are tossed out at random and accumulate literally a ‘bone’s throw’ from the living areas. Scraps of food, poo and other litter, also accumulate nearby, and before long the area swarms with flies.

Adapted from Dawson (1881), Australian Aborigines. Robertson, Melbourne, pp. 12, 54

It is worthy of remark that nothing unhygenic is ever to be seen near the places Aboriginal people live; and although their sanitary laws come from superstition, the principles of these laws must have been suggested by experiences of the dangers of uncleanness in a warm climate, and more deeply impressed on their minds by faith in supernatural action and sorcery.

It is believed that if enemies get possession of anything which has belonged to a person, they can use it to make him ill; hence adults and children bury their human waste at a distance from their dwellings. For this purpose, they used the muurong pole (yam stick), about six or seven feet [180-200 cm] long, with which every family is provided. With the sharpened end they remove a circular piece of turf, and dig a hole in the ground, which is immediately used and filled in with earth, and the dirt carefully replaced that no disturbance of the surface can be observed.

…They are, therefore, very careful to burn up all rubbish or uncleanness before leaving a camping-place. Should anything belonging to an unfriendly tribe be found at any time, it is given to the chief, who preserves it as a means of injuring the enemy.