Aboriginal Plant Use S

This tree has been growing here, on what was Kaurna land, for more than 250 years -100 years before Europeans came to South Australia.

Near the River Murray, Ngarrindjeri people cut long slabs of bark from river red gums to make canoes. The bark was best cut when the sap was flowing freely. The pattern of missing bark on the trunk of this tree is similar to the shape cut for canoes. The hard, durable red gum wood was used for a range of utensils and weapons including digging sticks, carrying dishes, shields and boomerangs. Burls or rounded growths, like the one at the base of the northern side of the trunk, were used for bowls.

Many insects, birds and other animals which live in and around the tree were hunted. Scratches like the ones on the northern side of the trunk helped hunters locate possums. Possums live in a hollow halfway up the trunk of the tree on the western side. Possums provided food and fur skins to make blankets and cloaks. Directly above the possum hollow is a colony of bees. Native bees were a source of honey and wax. Hollows also provided homes for birds like parrots, kookaburras and wood ducks all of which could be hunted for food.

It was not considered safe to camp under red gums because of their habit of dropping limbs without warning.

Many plants were used for medicines. The smoke from red gum leaves placed on camp fires was used to clear congestion and to chase fevers away.

This massive tree produces large amounts of fruit and is native to the forests of NSW and Queensland. The fruits of all native figs are edible but vary in quality and size. They taste best when fresh, ripe and soft. When figs were in abundance, they were preserved as fig cakes by mixing the pounded fruit pulp with honey and flour from ground seed. This mixture was then baked in a ground oven to produce fig cakes which were eaten long after the fig crop had finished. Here in Adelaide the fruit drops almost continually filling the air with a distinctive fermenting aroma.

This local plant is a source of sweet nectar in the Spring when the flowers are in bloom. The shaft of the flower spike was used by Ngarrindjeri people for light weight spears and for fire sticks. Grass tree spears were made by attaching a pointed, hardwood end to the stem of the flowering spike. This sharp end was tied on using kangaroo sinews and a cement resin gathered from the trunk of grass-trees. Both the whitish base of the young leaves and roots of the plant were edible. In summer the seeds were ground to make flour for damper.

The stems of the flower sticks were joined to make rafts that allowed the Ngarrindjeri to collect duck and swan eggs from the deep water. In the Dreaming story Ngurunderi, Ngurunderi’s wives escaped across Lake Albert on a raft made from grass tree stems and reeds.

Look for small holes in the lower trunk. This is where edible moth or beetle grubs have burrowed into the tree. Fresh sawdust coming out of these holes is a sign live grubs are inside. The grubs were often removed using a fine, flexible, sharp stick. Grubs found in tree trunks were called ‘barti’ and were considered men’s food only. Grubs dug from roots were called ‘koope’, they could be eaten by anyone in the group.

Kaurna people licked the sweet nectar which dripped from the dense flower heads of the local silver banksia. They also soaked the flowers in water to make a type of nectar cordial ‘kundanye’. The old dried flower heads were clumped together and used to filter water. Some Aboriginal groups used the porous, slow burning central core of the banksia flower head as an instant fire starter.

Look for evidence (charcoal) that this old red gum has been burnt. It is likely that Kaurna people burnt the trunk as a basis for a shelter. The shelter would have been made more comfortable by blocking off openings exposed to the weather and lining the dirt floor with bark and animal skin rugs. A verandah, made of leaves, bark and branches, probably extended the size of the shelter. The tree shelters or ‘wattowadli’ were most often used in winter as family groups moved inland to escape the cold winds and flooded wetlands near the coast.

Aboriginal groups often moved through different parts of their land at different times of the year. This allowed the plants to regenerate and the animals to repopulate areas after they had moved on. Next time the group visited the area the land could support them again with food and materials. Seasonal movement also reduced health problems associated with a build up of human waste.

The delicious macadamia nuts from this tree have one of the hardest shells in the world and are difficult to crack without mashing their contents. Aboriginal people in Queensland engineered special ‘nutting stones’ which consisted of slabs of tough rock with a number of depressions ground into them. Nuts, tightly held in the depressions, were expertly cracked with a blow from a hammer stone.

Mature macadamia trees can produce up to 25kg of nuts. Until recently this plant was the only Australian native plant to be used for horticultural food production.

Find and feel the shiny seed cases on this tree. In North Queensland Aboriginal hunters would use the very sticky pods of this plant to trap ground feeding rainforest birds. The birds were caught by placing the sticky parapara pods in a circle surrounding a tasty fruit lure. The pods stuck to the birds as they crossed the circle of sticky pods making flight difficult and capture easy. Methods which reduced the energy hunters needed to use to catch prey were common throughout Australia.

In particularly bad dry spells in northern Australia this tree could save your life. The shape of the tree may give you a clue as to why! The bottle tree survives long periods of dryness by storing water in its trunk. Aboriginal people needing water would chop into the trunk and squeeze the soft, moist wood to obtain a drink. The wound was sealed with a stone thus making it easier to use again the next time the tree was visited.

The seeds, shoots and roots are edible and the trunk exudes a gum which is the source of starch. Scars formed by the dropping of limbs from the trunk make an attractive pattern on the trunk. The soft wood was used for fire-making and for shields.

Macrozamia seeds look the perfect food; they are large, rich in starch and borne in abundance on cones in the centre of female plants. The one problem is that the seeds are poisonous to eat, but Aboriginal people devised ways of removing the toxin. Preparation methods varied from place to place but usually involved crushing the seeds, then leeching the poison out using running water followed by roasting. The brown flour produced from the processed seeds made a staple food in some areas of Australia and could sustain gatherings of hundreds of people for weeks at a time. Fire was used in groves of macrozamias to trigger the growth of many seed bearing cones.

This tree is one of a number of Australian plants that have toxic leaves and bark. The bark would be beaten and ground up then placed in water-holes, lagoons or dammed streams. Fish in the water were stunned and easy to collect as they floated up to the surface. The fish only absorbed a small amount of toxin and were generally safe to eat soon after they were caught. In some cases, if left for a short time before eating, the toxins would breakdown naturally.

The poison in this tree is called saponin. It is abundant in the inner bark. Laboratory tests have shown that at concentrations of 1:1000  the saponin from this tree can causes fish to die in less than one hour.

The Kaurna split the long, strap-like leaves lengthwise to make instant string. The leaves were also pounded to fibre, rolled into a ball and then used as a sponge to gather nectar from the yacca or grass tree flower spike.

The ripening of the massive bunya pine cones signalled the time for many groups of Aboriginal people from south eastern Queensland to come together for a harvest festival. Sustained by a plentiful food supply, it was a time for feasting, celebrations, sport, gossip, dance and music. To obtain fresh, juicy, young seeds, these massive trees were scaled by women using vine ropes and notches cut into the bark of the tree. The very sharp leaves (feel them - carefully) would not have made the task an easy one.

Wood from casuarina is hard and ideal for making a number of implements including spears, clubs, clapping sticks, digging sticks and return boomerangs. A specialised fighting boomerang was made from the junction between the trunk and the root. It is worth noting that not all Aboriginal groups used boomerangs..

Look for small cones high up on the trees. These were soaked in drinking water to provide a lemon flavoured drink. The green needle-like branchlets were chewed to reduce thirst. Casuarina was a good wood for making fire.