The
dilly bag, one of the
dreamings (
or, Aboriginal Art), is a very common type of traditional
Aborigine bag usually woven from
pandanus fibre. Its primary function is in collecting food but it can be used to carry
anything. It can be worn around the neck when
swimming and
diving to collect
waterlily roots and stalks, clams, turtles and fish. They are also used to collect
fish after
poisoning a
waterhole.
Dillybags are also used as a
strainer, such as when process
yam pulp. Also, when making fish poison, leaves are put in a
dillybag and the bag is rubbed in the water to get the soap out. This is done with the leaves of the
fish poison tree, or the
soapy tree, and freshwater
mangrove.
Dilly bags are sometimes painted with
ochre or with a yellow dye made from the roots of the
dye tree.
(note:
I'm sure in the Aboriginal Tongues, the names of the trees were quite beautiful and more interesting. Unfortunately there are over 400 indigenous languages to Australia and only about 40 of the languages survive, and so there's really no one name for the tree except it's rude translation, and it's latin equivolent. Though, doubtless the
aborigines each had their own names for the various trees.)
There are three types of Dilly bag: The
Fine-Weave Bag, the
Loop-Weave Bag,
and the
Net Bag. All three consist of four major parts:
Ass (
I'm not kidding),
Handle,
Mouth,
Rim. This is probably the source for the saying "...
ass-end of a dilly bag".