Mithaka Language

Timber used for various tools and objects, including numerous ceremonial/sacred (message and rain sticks, boomerangs)

Curling pod used as ornament; powdered bark used as narcotic during initiation ceremonies; regarded as trees of evil and witchcraft

Small grove marked a neutral camp/meeting ground (?south of Bedourie)

A potion of boiled leaves said to 'drive you out of your wits; its name 'ulkilla' means mad or deranged

Flowering indicated that fish were fat and heavy with roe

Indicated position of hidden rockhole

Long-leaved Acacia that signalled that emus, brolgas and other ground-dwelling birds were laying eggs

Spirit-woman owned grove; both records from Mithaka country from property Caranya (matching ADK's name 'Karanya')

A rare and unwelcome visitor to the sandhills', regarded as 'bad magic' for young women and girls, representing the spirit of Oor-ee-war the sorcerer; also indicated when bustards were laying their eggs.

Indicator of mid-afternoon in good seasons; haunts of lizards, camp guardians that ward off snakes

Coveted medicine; dried in seeding stage and used in fevers and childbirth

Women avoided stepping on seeds, saying it 'brought too many piccaninnies'

Fruits eaten to induce trance, to learn rainmaking magic

Indicator flower of late-afternoon

Medicine for childhood stomach illness (juice of bulb); sacred child of sandhills and mythology around harvesting and use. Also used for wounds.

Roots hosted edible 'parasite ants'

Called Kunyan-Loongan, meaning 'tree of knowledge and healing'; sap and leaves soothed inflammation and sores; fruit forbidden except to women and children. Stated to grow on Merrybookner Creek, Connemarra.

Rare pink flower; maiden spirit

Drought food, then skin used as container and musical instrument; liquid thought to have medicinal properties; plant has its own ceremonial dance.

Crushed leaves used to treat skin complaints; floweres left as offering at sacred sites

Mark ceremonial site in Ellen Hills, regarded as trees of healing; known by women as er-lita ('the watchers'), guarding paths and sites.

Sap for stomach complaints + noomba (water) found in hollow trees medicinal; root used to treat snakebites; various names, one Tar-lay-lin meaning kindly female spirit.

Lemon-scented juice from roots - eye medicine + used ceremonially; only found in secret spot in sandhills

Rare herb of flats where water lay; infusion of leaves drunk as birth control potion

Powder from seeds used for burns; ovate green pods sacred men's symbol

Roots used for jaundice and liver complaints;

Male initiates only allowed to eat these beans (irrakura), uncooked roots and berries

Leaves eaten

Kudgee leaves used to heal wounds + as insecticide

Indicated that nearby Acacia roots not suitable for spears

Flowers of sunrise' gathered and used to mark paths in Grey Range (Jack in the Rocks area)

Root regarded as 'powerful dreamtime poison'

Leaves form 'magic love potion'

Various spirits (both kindly and evil) believed to inhabit lignum; spears used to stun fish

Used to keep ants away at Lake Teeta; possibly also used to treat scorpion bite

Cooked fruit and leaves eaten with meat; leaves used for cooking.

Stems and roots pounded to make herbal remedies; mud in which plant grew also taken internally or spread on skin for fatigue and skin problems.

Known as yunta, and regarded as good magic to ward off evil spirits

Grains gathered just before they fell from plant and made into bread; hollow stems used as 'straws'

Truffle host + indicator of its readiness; leaves pulped and spread over soil around truffle to deter pigs

Smoke from leaves used to subdue bees and extract honey

Medicine for cuts and wounds (leaves, roots)

Grew in remote sandhill area; used for covering bodies and as disinfectant

Leaves used in smoking ceremonies; spirit beings dwell in shrubs

Leaves used for water purification; likely to be 'Chanunga', the shrub barrier imprisoning mythical serpent in the Simpson Desert

Used for smoking during and after childbirth; various ceremonial/mythological associations, some similar to other areas, some novel

Root sap used in combination with Corymbia terminalis to treat snakebites

Described as 'semiprickly herb plant growing along beds of sandy watercourses'; sandy blight treatment

Generally similar uses to other areas, but novel ceremonial/mythological uses described including description of particular 'spirit trees', use of leaves and boughs for burial and lining coolamons for babies, water procurement from root hollows, and use of leaves as instruments.

Used to make a children's instrument, the 'kala' (observation made at Jack in the Rocks)

Flower's opening indicated 'goanna-hunting hour' and good seasons; legends around plant stated but not detailed.

Nye-ika-wari (place of Brown Waters) characterised by 'tindera' grass, and a sacred site.

Medicinal uses (not specified)

Indicator of coming rain

Plant beloved of 'moon people'; magic and medicinal uses

Crisp, sweet seed; creation story and dance; bartered if there is a surplus

Leaves and roots used as snakebite cure (mashed into paste and applied to punctures)

Two sacred trees in Mooraberrie horse paddock

Water procurement and materials similar to other areas; ceremonial/mythological aspects novel including dwelling place of Yamma-coona ('woman wizard') and hakea-flower rain dance

Most likely candidate for Unjimaba (red-flowering hakea bush), indicator of emus and brolgas nesting home to spirits.

Flowers indicated that goanna eggs were freshly laid; seedpods indicated crab mating

Munderries ('fairies') said to sleep under leaves

Roots used for childhood fever and gastro

Soaked in water and heated to produce syrup to treat dysentery

Needs to be treated before eating, then a very good food + soaking water used medicinally; found only deep in red sandhills beyond Georgina and Diamantina Rivers; mythology surrounds searching, harvesting and preparation. No such yams known from south-west QLD sandhills - undescribed species?

Bunch placed on playground or camp to prevent quarrels

Seeds brewed over fire and used for cramps or as love potion

Semi-intoxicating drink from flowers, bark used for cooking and shock-absorber for stone tool production; various novel mythological and ceremonial aspects recorded especially in relation to women and fertility

Indicator of frogs spawning and tender to eat; bunches worn by ceremonial dancers

Spirit plant; women were careful not to offend

Seeds ground for dysentry; mythology around harvesting and preparation

Offerings made to encourage fish breeding and ensure good camp and travelling; used as a water freshener

Seed ground for food and flour, rather bitter; creation story about this plant

This species seems to have been used in Mithaka and Wangkangurru country, where more potent species do not occur. Alice recognised two forms. Creation story and indicator plant; also used sometimes to stun fish.

Birth control herb (seed, leaf and root); indicator of swan breeding season

Seeding indicated pelicans would arrive soon

Creation story relating to Naren, the orange-tinted butterfly (also a shrub)

Tree of childhood; features in childhood and initiation ceremonies, and first 'churinga' cut from this plant; leaves lined child's cradle or smoked to calm restless babies. Flowering indicated yams ripe and fish in waterholes.

Berries ground for food; strong mythological associations and offerings made to this tree

Indicator of frog's spawning and important in women's frog totem dance

Indicator of honeyant store

Root said to have medicinal properties

Home of minute 'red devils', active on moonlit nights

Sacred plant, guardian of safe place for medicine men

Totem/spirit tree - any creature within its shade is immune from harm; women's tree but revered also by men.

Various medicinal uses, including for skin complaints, giddiness and migraine; flowers placed in trees to encourage bees to establish hive; ceremonial dance centered on this shrub.

Most likely the 'river grass' used for making nets, mats, baskets (material from Wantata Waterhole most valued); offerings made to Yammacoona; used to procure water from shallow claypans

Seeds eaten as in other areas (ADK states it was also mixed with roasted and ground grasshoppers during plagues); 'increase' ceremony described apparently unique to region

Considered to have 'deadly qualities'

Symbol of warrior child; called 'yunda'

Ancestral beings met by a 'mystic fire of green samphire-leaf' in a cave underneath Lake Eyre

Flower opens to 'farewell the piccaninny daylight'

Flowers open late afternoon

Sacred medicinal 'lily', very rare, restricted to stony ranges and locations kept secret; only seen flowering twice by ADK

Small stringy sandhill root scraped into water in which nahlyoora or 'bitey yam' is soaked to neutralise bitterness

Restricted to inaccessible stony hills; root soaked in water and administered during childbirth and post-partum; sacred women's plant.

Rare and secret lily, with numerous songs and stories

Kindly spirit tree, keeper of love magic

Leaves kidney and bladder medicine; caterpillars that eat plant also dried and ground into medicine

Powerful medicine (sap, fruit) for stomach complaints and fevers, but rare and difficult to find; strong mythological aspects to the search for this plant.

‘A blue flowering vine on the higher red ground would say, ‘snake’s eggs lie here.’

‘...system of roots, growing in loamy watercourses. About the size of a man's fist...broken into small sections resembling hazel-nuts of pale-brown colour and with tissue-thin skin which slipped off…to reveal a creamy substance, firm yet pliable. Soaked in water it had a soporific effect and...[assisted in childbirth ‘... a scent [of] strong vanilla when…dug out of earth...called by us the 'nutty' root because of its rich looking cream interior …divided into bits…about the size of a small onion…chewed by the gins for any severe pain...[found] in little gullies…between red sandhill country and white flooded flats of the Diamantina [,] about Kilapininna (S.A.)[,] around Lake Eyre and [on the edge of] the Simpson Desert (Glengyle)…the gins…can spot it at once, by a ragged little clump of grey-leafed twigs or by seemingIy dead twigs...not ready for use until the leaves and twigs dry off. The whole lot would fit into a medium sized tea cup.’

Leaves used to bandage snakebites; considered to have strong drawing powers.

‘…resembling parsnip; very bitter.’ Alice described meeting people travelling in dry country carrying little water who used this root ‘resembling a large turnip’. Not easy to find and difficult to recognize ‘for it had only a twiggy stem and sparse nondescript leaves; two feet underground its root was swollen to the size of a half-grown turnip’, but sometimes you would dig under the tell-tale leaves and find only a shrivelled root ‘the size of a pea, powdery and blighted.’ In very dry seasons it was called 'Wahlp-pa', the root was small and the juice was white, scarce and bitter. Alice described tasting a fragment of the root and how it felt in her mouth – painful but effective in quenching thirst.

‘…the water root or giant yam, that provides water for thirsty desert travellers.’

‘The small grey snake of the saltbush areas, is said to be very venomous, but beside the Old Man salt bush…lies a 'mindan' plant, broad leaved, dark green and scented (when broken) like a new-cut ripe water melon. This is the antidote to the 'moondir's venom, just a squeeze is all that is necessary.’

‘…the [large] centipede…had bitten the horse…causing great pain & acute Iameness. Moses...treated the…horse with juice & a poultice of green leaves from a small yellow flowered shrub. Pukena, Bogie called it."

‘The seeding Rookami grass, with its shy pink blossoms, and bitter-sweet nectar [indicated] that geese and ducks fed there prior to nesting and egg-laying.’

‘A small apricot flower open at first dawn light whispered that Pelicans were gathering…to nest and lay their eggs.’

‘…small seed-leaf plant growing in the sandhills during a good season, these seed leaves the gins gather and brew in a coolamon, it is said to be useful in fevers and sickness associated with childbirth.’

‘Moolyer-in [large monitor]…chose his [mate]…while they were nibbling the same small…yellow flowered plant. This narrow-leaved rather pungent tasting plant was, according to the aborigines, a tremendous love inducer…’

Tart-flavoured plant, the shoots of which were one of the spinifex pigeon’s favourite foods.

Underground medicinal plants growing in steep gully near Jack in the Rocks, ‘traced by the coloured threads or seed leaves that appear–d above the ground - threads finer than hairs and seed leaves the size of sixpence…tell[ing] of the valuable plant lying a few inches beneath the [soil]’

‘A yellow flower blooming on a narrow-leaved vine on the sandhill's edge’ – sign that yams were ripe.

"[Between garden fence and creek]…grew wild gooseberry and raspberry bushes: in good seasons…bore rich and luscious fruit…"

‘A yellow flower at the water’s edge would signal the time of the goanna’s egg-laying.’

‘A small plant, difficult to find, growing in sandy country where underground water…shallow. Yellow flowered and softly scented, the leaves [are] gathered and used by medicine men for checking and curing gastro-enteritis. The leaves are soaked, and the water used as a love potion, for men.’

‘Uri: Minute red flowers, clusters of the Urbu, a species of soft wood that told the initiated that…marsupials were choosing their mates, had young, or were fat, ready for hunting.’