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Drawing by HS Melville of a Macassan processing site at Port Essington on the Arnhem Land coast in 1845. In the foreground the trepang are being boiled; in the background are the smokehouses for smoking/drying the trepang.
Published in
The Queen, 8 February 1862.
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Before British settlement in Sydney Cove fishermen from Indonesia annually sailed from Makassar in Southern Sulawesi to the Arnhem Land coast, a place they called Marege'. The purpose of their voyage was to fish for trepang (sea cucumber) which they traded to the Chinese who prized it as a culinary delight and aphrodisiac.
The story of the Macassan trepang industry will be told in Australian Journeys, one of the National Museum of Australia's new permanent galleries. This talk introduces the Macassan exhibit, including the objects which will be on display. It considers the places connected by the Macassan voyages and looks at the archaeological traces left behind by Macassan activities along the Arnhem Land coast of the Northern Territory.
This presentation was recorded at the National Museum of Australia on 9 July 2008.
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