Bush Medicine research

[Darthy]

Ok I will put another question to you all. I would like to research Bush medicine and Bush foods in Walgett and Lightenridge area. Does anyone know of any research that may of been looked at in this area. I have checked around and have only found 2 or 3 completed research in the whole of NSW. Any help would be great. This will be my first research as a new Aboriginal researcher.

[Bluetongue]

hi Darthy and welcome to the forum. I'm not familiar with that area. There's bound to be someone here who is... however forum members aren't always online regularly, so it might be a while before you get an answer. Just so you know you're not being ignored.

[Darthy]

Thanks bluetongue may need to chat with you later about some stuff later.

[roughbarked]

Aboriginal researcher?
Have you tried asking at your local Aboriginal Lands council?


I can tell you a lot of the species I know you will find in the area though I've never been to the Barwon.

[Darthy]

Thanks roughbarked,
Im an Aboriginal guy from out west NSW and this will be my first research project. I have asked LALC and men's group womens group elders, and the Aboriginal Medical Service. What I looking for is that of any actual research that has been done in the area. So far I have found very little. Being from the area I have local knowledge of whats there and how it's used and I'm sure i'll send you an message regarding some of the plants that I may not know and I hope you can help.

[roughbarked]

I'm just a bit further out west

[JumpedAngel]

Hi Darthy and welcome to the forum

I usually haunt the far west of NSW, and had been looking for specific bushfood/medicine knowledge for that area for many years with little success, eventually I got onto IAD Press now Jukurrpa Books, they have published a number of tucker and medicine books written by local people from around central Australia. I found that so many of the plants cited in these books apply just the same to most of arid inland NSW and I'm sure that much of that knowledge is transferable. Please see the link below:

http://shopping.iad.edu.au/store/listCa ... Category=5

Out of the lot I think 'Punu' and 'Bushfires & Bushtucker' are my favorites while 'Arelhe-Kenhe Merrethene: Arrernte Traditional Healing' gives the types of insights a white fellar like myself doesn't often get.

[Darthy]

Hi ,
Thanks jumpedAngel looks like I will have some fun doing this research, which I have until 2012 to do.
Thanks for the website I have 3 out of the 6 books.

Peter

[JumpedAngel]

From the white-fella perspective you might also want to have a look at a few other books, it may also help if you have access to a good research library.

Philip A Clarke wrote ' Aboriginal Plant Collectors' and 'Aboriginal People and their Plants', Clarke heads the Aboriginal collection at the museum of South Australia and is more of an academic than a nuts'n'bolts type man, much like his predecessor Norman Tindale even a mere traveller like myself can often pick large and obvious holes in their works. On the positive side, Clarke proves himself to be indeed an academic with well over 1000 references to other documents in each of the above named books, sometimes I feel that these are more interesting than the texts themselves and may well lead to productive research.

Unpublished works by Alfred William Howitt and Daniel Bunce may also be fruitfull if you have access to a good research library, Howitt was the bloke who brought back Burke and Wills' corpses and rescued King, he was an astute observer and went back out there to find out how Burke and Wills managed to starve to death on Nardoo after numb-nuts like Baron Von Mueller had spent a decade speculating, theorizing and ejaculating all manner of stupidities concerning this mystery (well, what do you expect from a chemist). Howitt spent a fair amount of time exploring between Menindee and Coopers Creek and may have a worthy back catalogue of unpublished works hidden away in some library vault.

Daniel Bunce was not only an astute observer but also one of very few people of that time who appeares to have been sympathetic to the Aboriginal people, he was passed over for the job of head of the Royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens in favour of Von Mueller, unlike Von Mueller, he did his own plant hunting and research, he was head botanist of the second attempted (failed) crossing of the continent from east to west under Dr Leichhardt and established possibly the first native plant nursery at St Kilda in Melbourne, He later went on to establish the Botanic Gardens at Geelong and I believe that his sympathies towards Aboriginal people won him no favours in Melbourne where he was forever under attack and discreditted by members of the Melbourne Club, his book 'Travels with Dr Leichhardt' doesn't reveal much in the way of interesting information, Another (available FREE as a download), 'Language of the Aborigines of the Colony of Victoria and other Australian Districts' reveals his street cred, and I hope that again there is more of this kind of stuff or more about his black-tracker/companion, Boongaree (Jemme) locked away in some dusty library vault which may eventually see daylight.

My own early research began some 30 years ago after I had managed to get lost in the Simpson and realized that I wasn't half the bushman that I thought I was, back then there wasn't much literature about but the Journals 'Oceania' and 'Mankind' were still on the shelves at the State library and you might find much good reference/research material in them, unfortunately down here in Melbourne those journals have been put into storage and have not as yet been scanned for computer access.

I guess you would be familiar with the story of Nanya (http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100643b.htm) from the Popiltah area, this being the last of the so called 'wild' NSW family groups, there may again be some as yet unpublished material available describing how he and his mob managed to survive in waterless country and elude their captors for 30 years. My dream is that one day someone who can round up the remnants of that mob within the Broken Hill and Mildura communitees might publish something similar to Punu.

[southerncross]

Hi Darthy
I came across this while looking for the name of a book I once owned but gave away unintentionally, the book I was after was a bush medicines of the NT but I cant recall the exact title, someone here must be able to help with the name of it, It was quite sizable and contained great phytological information along side traditional medicinal uses and observations such as kangaroo's using certain tree's for rolling in to rid themselves of lice etc.
Although it was an NT book there would be many plants that dont respect borders in it and it may also contain references that could be of help to you.I wish I had never parted with it.
anyways I came across this webpage that might be of some help.

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Search/Home ... ubmit=Find