I think you got that backwards. They would become oriented (or disoccidented, if you will).
Isn’t this the same thing as pork rinds, which are commonly available as a snack in the US, and which George H.W. Bush was said to be a fan of? I think they were also popular recently during the low-carb craze as an alternative to potato chips and other carb-heavy snacks.
I think pork rinds are deep-fried, not dried or grilled.
Like most good rural legends there’s a grain of truth mixed with a load of crap to make a good story.
This particular story was widely popularised in the 20th century by Ion Idriess. Idriess was a good storyteller but his actual research left a little to be desired, far to often he picked up on local legends and reported them as facts. So, although he never actually lied AFAIK, anything he said should be taken with a grain of salt. There seems to be little doubt that NQ Aborigines practiced cannibalism, and there seems to be little doubt that they captured many Chinese. But the practice was never widespread enough to warrant such a practice.
Perhaps more importantly it was never so lawless that people could be captured in plain view of witnesses without resulting in major military operations against the offenders. Moreover if a party of armed miners, and they were all armed, saw someone being carried struggling into the jungle why would they allow them to be carried off without returning fire? It simply makes no sense even if we assume they placed no value on Chinese life. A cannibal is a constant risk to everyone’s life. As a result any raiding party looking for human captives would be forced to kill or attempt to kill all travellers, not just the intended lunch.
As for whether Chinese tasted less salty, it’s equally hard to tell. It’s a widely repeated myth, but it lacks credibility for a number of reasons. One of those reasons has already been given: human salt content is regulated within very tight bounds by the kidneys so diet doesn’t have any noticeable effect. Moreover salty flesh is normally relished by most people in the world. It’s hard to see how the slightly enhanced salty flavour could be considered a fault. Other versions of the legend sya that it was the Chinese diet that gave the meat a better flavour. That is certainly plausible since the flavour of non-ruminant species like humans is heavily influenced by diet.
The other reason to be dubious is that Aborigines were almost certainly scapegoats. There was a lot of bad blood between Chinese and Caucasian diggers in the NQ goldfields which led to several running battles. Caucasians murdered Chinese and I suspect Chinese murdered Caucasians. Under those circumstances claims that any missing Chinese had been taken by Aborigines because Aborigines preferred the taste of Chinese flesh are hardly plausible. It just seems too convenient a story under the circumstances to accept without questioning. Of course there were also frequent violent clashes with Aborigines as well, sot the idea of using them as scapegoats held probably double appeal. Added to that the Aborigines in question probably had a good reason to allay the fears of Caucasians by saying that they preferred Chinese anyway. In short there are too many reasons for everyone involved to lie to give much credence to any accounts.
In the final analysis it’s hard to say for sure if there’s any accuracy. It’s dubious for all the reasons given above., but it’s certainly a widely repeated legend. The fact that it’s repeated all around the world and not just restricted to NQ suggests that either it’s universally true or it’s a kind of rural urban legend.
I hate to break this to you, but pigs don’t sweat. They have sweat glands in a few tiny areas like the snout and feet and that’s it. The idea that crackling gets a salty flavour form the sweat of the pigs is simply nonsense. It gets the salty flavour from salt added at the factory.
Nobody suggested these were prisoners. As lawless as the NW goldfields were there were still constant troop patrols on the roads. Anyone talking a person prisoner would have very rapidly become a prisoner himself and probably hanged. The general idea was that Chinese would be invited to join a party of travellers and then strategically positioned in the front and rear.
There were several Australian gold rushes in places that were jungles, most notably the Palmer River rush. While most of the Palmer River finds were not in jungle themselves they required several week of trekking through jungle to reach the finds. Of course some of the fields themselves were within jungle.
There most certainly are ‘real’ jungles in Australia, no matter how you choose to define jungle. Millions of hectares of jungle.
Once more not even remotely true. The Palmer River rush took place late in the 19th century. The Aboriginal population was as high as it had been for the past 10, 00 years.
I have no idea what this is based on. Can you explain why anything could be more cost effective than free?
In case you didn’t get it the first time, “chinaman” is considered an ethnic slur in English, at least of the American variety. Not quite as bad as “nigger”, but on the order of “spick” or “pollak”.
Europeans. The other other white meat. 