Muttonbirding: an unbroken connection with the birds and islands

Nathan Maynard’s first play, The Season, is a glimpse into the lives of Bass Strait muttonbirding families.

Nathan Maynard, author of The Season, on Big Dog Island, where he goes muttonbirding every autumn. Picture: Peter Mathew

Walking along a bush track on a snake-riddled island in Bass Strait, our guide suddenly throws himself to the ground and with lightning speed thrusts his left arm down an evil-looking hole.

Within seconds he is cradling a creature of awkward beauty: a bird with sleek, dusky grey and black feathers but short, pale legs, webbed feet — and a decidedly startled expression.

For our guide, Tasmanian ­Aboriginal playwright Nathan Maynard, windswept Big Dog ­Island and its burrowing muttonbirds are a vital part of his cultural and personal identity.

As he has since the age of 15, Maynard will in March join an annual pilgrimage to the granite and white sand-fringed speck in the ocean between the larger Flinders and Cape Barren islands.

Along with his “mob” and a handful of other Aboriginal families, Maynard will clean out ramshackle sheds, set up home and “go birding”, for a five-week season from late March to late April.

The practice involves harvesting juvenile short-tailed shearwaters, called muttonbirds for their taste, from their burrows and preparing them for eating or storage.

Aboriginal exploitation of the birds, which migrate to the Arctic each year, goes back thousands of years, and became an important food and cultural practice for island communities in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Maynard took The Australian to Big Dog Island to explain the inspiration for his first play, The Season, being staged in Hobart from March 16 to 19, then Melbourne, after premiering at the Sydney Festival this month.

Featuring an all-Aboriginal cast led by Trevor Jamieson, the play provides a humorous glimpse into the lives of muttonbirding families.

A 36-year-old “non-arty farty person” who discovered playwriting after falling in love with the theatre, Maynard hopes The Season will educate and erode cultural barriers, as well as entertain.

“I hope audiences get a better understanding of Tasmania Aboriginal culture and how strong it is; that there is an unbroken connection with the birds and this land,” he explains. “All that nonsense … about our fellas (Tasmanian Aborigines) not existing anymore just highlights deficiencies in the education system, and it’s a bit unfair that in 2017 our ­fellas still have to wear it.”

A former Aboriginal field officer with Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife Service, Maynard says he was never a top English student at school; loving only two subjects: cattle handling and drama.

When he fell into a role in a children’s play in 2013, the experience rekindled that childhood joy.

Bursting with ideas for plays, The Season was nurtured and developed with vital encouragement and assistance from Tasmania Performs and the Ten Days on the Island Festival.

The Australian travelled to Big Dog Island courtesy of Ten Days on the Island Festival