‘Raising high its thousand forked tongues’: Campfires, Bushfires, and Portable Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century Australia

Abstract

This article explores the significance of the campfire to Australian settler culture in the nineteenth century. Considering the paradox that campfires could be both comforting and evoke terror, the piece considers how they provided a link between the northern and southern hemispheres. Drawing on a range of primary materials — many of which have been forgotten — the article addresses the thin boundary between warmth and tragedy that came to be associated with campfires. Furthermore, it examines connections between fire and the emergence of an Australian settler identity, along with the bush dweller’s role in changing the face of the wilderness and its fire ecology.