Introduction

Aboriginal people have relied upon, observed, tended, and celebrated Australia’s flora and ecosystems for at least 65,000 years (Florin et al. 2022). Plants have sustained diverse cultures through major climatic and ecological shifts (Jones and Clarke 2018), and over 4000 vascular plant species—nearly 20% of Australia’s scientifically described flora—are documented to have been used as food and medicine; many more were used as materials (Ens et al. 2017; Isaacs 1987). In some areas, particularly in northern and central Australia, Aboriginal communities continue to supplement their diets and western medicine with native plants, and ethnobotany remains an integral part of contemporary culture (Green 2003; Napangarti Ward et al. 2023; Oliver 2013; Pearn 2005; Walsh 1998).

In the more intensively settled agricultural and rangeland areas of southern and eastern Australia, the upheavals of European settlement resulted in ancient and complex systems of plant knowledge being severely diminished within a couple of decades. While some traditional knowledge and practices survive in these areas (e.g. Dank 2022; Euahlayi Gamilaroi Elders 2006; McKellar 1984; Packer et al. 2012; Simone 2016), ethnohistoric sources are typically used to reconstruct detailed ethnobotany. These reconstructions can help connect people with their ancestral homelands and cultures and inform emerging native food and medicine ventures (Brown and Thompson 2020; Jones and Clarke 2018); however, they are often limited by the sources available.

Fragments of ethnobotany can be gleaned from early explorer and traveller records, nearly all written by men who were passing through areas and primarily focused on their survival and the pastoral potential of the country (Ryan 1996). They rarely recorded more than glimpses of people and their resource use. Early pastoralists and public servants lived among Aboriginal people for longer periods, and some recorded detailed ethnographic information (e.g. Mathews 1904; Palmer 1883, 1884; Roth 1897). However, domestic lives of women including gathering and processing of plant food and materials, and medicinal and ceremonial plant use, were rarely recorded, partly due to the secrecy and ritual that often surround the latter (Farnsworth 1966; Webb 1959).

A small canon of white women writers lived with and learnt from Aboriginal people on the Australian pastoral frontier and recorded detailed accounts of domestic economy and ethnobotany. They include Mary Gilmore (b.1865) and Katie Langloh Parker (b.1856) in New South Wales and Daisy Bates (b.1863) and Ethel Hassell (b.1857) in Western Australia (Bates 1938; Hassell 1975; Gilmore 1934; Langloh-Parker 1905). Some scholars have argued that the place of women on the margins of colonial society meant that they were more able to identify with displaced indigenous groups, while also being less beholden to conventional colonial narrative tropes (McKellar 2004; Mills 1991; Steinhauer 2001). Women were also more likely to be interested and immersed in the day-to-day lives of other women and privy to knowledge that was held and practiced solely by women including reproductive health and paediatric ethnomedicine, as well as the gathering and preparation of plant foods (Howard 2003; Levitt 1987; Thompson et al. 2019).

Alice Duncan-Kemp (1901–1988; Fig. 1) was cared for and taught by Aboriginal people on the Queensland pastoral frontier in the early 1900s (Duncan-Kemp 2009; Griffiths 2010; Steinhauer 2001). Between 1933 and 1968, she published four books and penned unpublished correspondence and manuscripts relating to the first 20 years of her life in the Channel Country (see “Methods”). Her record is unique and extensive, yet her observations rarely appear in ethnobotanical studies or reference books (e.g. Clarke 2007; Lassack and McCarthy 2011; Turpin et al. 2022). She is regarded as a consistent and authoritative source on Aboriginal life by the Mithaka people whose ancestors she wrote about and archaeologists, historians, and the Mithaka have used her writings to locate several important sites (Griffiths 2022; Westaway et al. 2021). Her record has been drawn upon by scholars (Griffiths 2010; Kerkhove 2021; Memmott 2007; Sutton 2010; Watson 1998) and was considered during Native Title proceedings for Mithaka country (Griffiths 2022; Jefferies 2012).

Fig. 1
figure 1

a Alice Duncan as a young woman (source: Duncan-Kemp 2009). b On horse Farrylad, probably in the 1920s (from family album). c ‘Boiling the billy—lunch in the sandhills’, Mooraberrie, undated (from family album)

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However, her writings are often meandering and difficult to place in space and time and in some sections are plagued by unacknowledged ‘borrowing’ from other sources both within and beyond Australia (Nash 2023; in press). Because Alice Duncan-Kemp’s record is so singular—there are no similar contemporaneous accounts from this region—it is difficult to corroborate or verify her observations. Assessing her botanical record can inform appraisals of her work (Jefferies 2012) and complement a recent assessment of her linguistic contribution (Nash, in press). As words recorded by Alice Duncan-Kemp can be compared with independent records of other languages, her ethnobotany can similarly be examined with reference to other ethnobotanical sources as well as the flora of the areas she wrote about.

This essay explores the ethnobotany of Alice Duncan-Kemp through collation and attempted identification of all botanical references contained in her writings including individual species references, references to groups of species, and descriptions of botanically important places. Her record is cross-referenced with ethnobotanical literature and observations from neighbouring areas and the broader Australian arid zone and investigated through extensive field work. This allows an assessment of the value of Alice Duncan-Kemp’s writings for reconstructing ethnobotany in south-west Queensland and the consistency and veracity of her writings more broadly.

Methods

Study Area: Mooraberrie and the Channel Country

Mooraberrie lies in the heart of the Channel Country of south-western Queensland, on the eastern margin of the Australian arid zone. The extensive channels of the Georgina and Diamantina Rivers and Cooper Creek, and their associated watercourses, bisect the region (Fig. 2). Rainfall in the Channel Country is low (120–400 mm per annum, decreasing on a south-westerly gradient) and river systems are reliant upon periodic monsoon rains, which fall over the upper catchments mostly between December and March. This rainfall and thus stream flows are driven by the El Niño Southern Oscillation and are characterised by extremely high variability (McMahon et al. 2008; Puckridge et al. 2000). For much of the time, the channels are dry with waterholes of varying permanence dotted along them (Silcock 2009). During floods, the channels and floodplains are inundated, creating sheets of water up to 70 km wide. As floodwaters recede, the country is covered with fresh, fertile alluvial sediments and thousands of square kilometres of annual grasses and herbage briefly thrive. The term ‘boom and bust’ cycles has been coined to describe the unpredictable and extreme nature of the environment (Kingsford et al. 1999; Morton et al. 2011).

Fig. 2
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South-western Queensland Channel Country, showing Mithaka Native Title (Consent Determined) Area, property boundaries, main rivers, towns, land systems (Wilson et al. 1990), permanent (not dry between c.1860s–present) and semi-permanent (contain water for > 70% of the time on average) waterholes (Silcock 2009) and places mentioned in the text

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The channels are vegetated with coolibah trees (Eucalyptus coolabah Blakely & Jacobs) and a variety of smaller tree and shrub species, while the clay floodplains fluctuate from bare ground to vast expanses of mostly short-lived grasses, sedges, and herbs. Away from the channels, the region is dominated by undulating stony clay plains, sand dunes and sandplains supporting shrublands and woodlands and low sandstone ranges (Fig. 2).

The Channel Country has been home to Aboriginal people for millennia including the Boonthamurra, Goa, Maiawali, Mithaka, Kullilli, Karuwali, Pitta Pitta, Wangkamahdla, Wangkangurru, and Wongkumara Peoples. Oral histories, ethnohistorical sources and archaeological research document sophisticated adaptations to the variable climate, complex ceremonial life, and large-scale trade and exchange networks (Franklin et al. 2021; Kerkhove et al. 2024; Westaway et al. 2021). European colonization from the 1860s brought major upheaval to the lives of the Aboriginal people (Watson 1998). There was little more than a decade between the first European explorers travelling through the area (Sturt 1844–1845, in Davis 2002) and widespread pastoral settlement. The 1870s and 1880s saw most of the Channel Country claimed, subdivided, and settled by pastoralists (Durack 1959; Watson 1998). By the early 1900s, Aboriginal populations had been devastated by violence, disease, and forced removals and survivors were mostly living in and around towns, missions, and stations (Watson 1998). In 1910, 310 Aboriginal people were living at Mooraberrie homestead (Duncan-Kemp 1934). An influenza epidemic in 1918 followed by severe drought in the 1920s severely affected the remaining population, although some Aboriginal people remained in the Channel Country, mostly working on pastoral stations and as drovers. In 2015, Mithaka Native Title was declared over 33,750 km2 including Mooraberrie and all or part of seven adjacent stations, roughly corresponding to the area written about by Alice Duncan-Kemp.

Alice Duncan-Kemp’s Life and Writings

William Duncan, Alice’s Scottish father, arrived at Mooraberrie (derived from the Aboriginal ‘Moora-pi-eer-ree’, meaning ‘our sandhills’) in 1891 and was managing the station by 1894. He married Laura Davis in 1896 and in 1906 they bought Mooraberrie. Alice Duncan-Kemp’s life and writings have been examined by Yvette Steinhauer, Tom Griffiths, Pamela Lukin Watson, and Alice’s daughter-in-law Dawn Duncan-Kemp (Duncan-Kemp 2009; Griffiths 2010, 2022; Steinhauer 2001; Watson 1998); these sources as well as Alice’s own words are summarised below with emphasis on her ethnobotany and natural history education.

Alice Duncan was born in 1901. Aged two years she survived an accident when the cart driven by her father collided with a bauhinia (Lysiphyllum gilvum (F.M.Bailey) Pedley) branch while crossing the flooded Bulloo River near Adavale, east of Windorah. The bauhinia is a sacred tree across south-western Queensland, and this incident was regarded as evidence of Alice being a reincarnation of a powerful spirit. As a young girl Alice was taken to Kulkia, a flat-topped hill on Mooraberrie, where her Aboriginal teachers touched her with the heated stone tip of a naming spear and gave her the name Pinningarra (‘the Leaf Spirit’). This small, thin Acacia spear remains in the Duncan-Kemp family and for the rest of her life Alice bore a faint burn scar on her left breast (Griffiths 2022).

Alice was cared for by Aboriginal women on Mooraberrie, especially following the death of her father in 1907. In 1908, Alice and her two younger sisters (their only brother had died in 1903) were sent to live with Laura’s parents in Sydney, returning to Mooraberrie in December 1910. She was homeschooled at Mooraberrie from then until late 1913 and then attended boarding school in Brisbane and Toowoomba from 1914 to 1918, returning home for school holidays and after school for a couple of years prior to her marriage (Duncan-Kemp 2020). She accompanied the Aboriginal women gathering food and developed ‘a consciousness of the wild life that abounded, and the flowers, plants, and creatures of the flat and waterside…’ (Duncan-Kemp 1961:v). Her closest carer and teacher was Mary Ann Coomindah, a skilled Gadanja or herbalist. Her other teachers and companions included Moses Yoolpee, Mary Ann’s brother and a fully initiated Elder educated at a private school in Victoria; Bogie, Mary Ann’s husband; Maggie, Moses’ wife; George Chookie (Wooragai), Judy Woody (Mahlbibi); and Wooran and Wanjiro (of the ‘Little Eagle tribe’). Many of the white station managers, boundary riders, stockmen, and drovers had direct experience of Aboriginal life, and Alice also garnered knowledge from these men. For example, Mooraberrie’s head stockman Charlie Gasher was an ‘initiated member of the Mulligan River tribes’ (Duncan-Kemp 1964:189). William Duncan was a keen amateur ethnologist and took a strong and sympathetic interest in the lives and customs of the people he referred to as ‘the landlords’. Following her father’s death, Alice had access to his old Day Book and Journal.

Alice also travelled and worked beyond Mooraberrie. Her family travelled by horse-drawn cart and later motor car from the railhead at Charleville west to Mooraberrie. They were delayed on multiple occasions due to flooding or car problems, and Alice spent time at Jack in the Rocks, a roadside hotel, with Judy Woody (Mahlbibi), who had moved to nearby Bulgroo station. When Alice was older, apparently between about 1912 and 1918, she went on horseback mustering trips with Aboriginal and white stockmen in the Georgina-Diamantina area, as far south-west as Kalidgiwarra Station on the fringes of the Simpson Desert, north-west to Bedourie, and east to Currawilla Station (Fig. 2). In those days, people from neighbouring stations would gather to muster remote country, and Alice wrote of mustering with Aboriginal and white stockmen from Morney Plains, Monkira, Mount Leonard, Cluny, and Glengyle stations (Fig. 2).

Alice reported that she ‘followed with accuracy and great interest everything to do with’ Mooraberrie and the Aborigines from the age of four or five (1968:12). In an unpublished manuscript written during the 1940s, she recalled her father’s last spoken wish to her: ‘Go out among them and learn all you can while the tribes are still intact’ (Orion Is Rising, unpublished manuscript, pp.1–2). In 1948–1949, then residing at Jondaryan in south-eastern Queensland, she corresponded with anthropologist Dr Lindsey Winterbotham. She wrote, apparently in response to one of his questions: ‘Had I any collaborators? Yes, plenty, Mary Ann and all the [Aboriginal women]…and friendly black visitors about the…camp and the…children. Also our horseboys, Bogie, Tommy, Jimmy and especially Moses, Mary Ann’s brother…a full blooded aborigine – a tribal black fully initiated, and a great gentleman. I also had my eyes and my senses, my love of the aborigines and Nature. Quite a lot, don’t you think?’ (letter dated 20/6/1949, p.4). She was also a keen reader of anthropological and historical works from across Australia and the world.

Alice Duncan married Frederick Kemp in November 1922. They had five children and the family moved around rural Queensland. In 1933, Alice Duncan-Kemp’s first book Our Sandhill Country was published. It contained recollections of Mooraberrie and the surrounding Channel Country dating from 1906 to 1923. In the Foreword, she wrote: ‘First and last, outdoor interests absorbed most of our time…The seed of my knowledge of that corner of sandhills, was implanted within me as a mere babe straddling Mary Ann’s hip, or toddling with little black mates after the billy-cart. In later youth the seed grew and fruited’ (1934, viii). Alice Duncan-Kemp did not visit Mooraberrie after the 1930s, although correspondence held in the Duncan-Kemp family archive records her intentions to do so. Her children and grandchildren spent time there and maintain a strong connection to the property. Mooraberrie remained in the Duncan family until 1998. Alice Duncan-Kemp died in Oakey, Queensland, in 1988.

Sources Examined

Alice Duncan-Kemp published four books in her lifetime: Our Sandhill Country (1933, republished in 1934) is considered the most grounded in place and specific to the Mooraberrie area (Tom Griffiths, pers.comm. August 2022). Her later books, published decades after leaving Mooraberrie but drawing on her formative childhood experiences, also include second-hand information on Aboriginal life from other areas of Australia. This is not attributed, so in places it is difficult to discern the source of the information and its provenance. Nevertheless, these books—Where Strange Paths Go Down (published in 1952 and republished in 1964 with additional material and chapters from Our Sandhill Country interwoven), Our Channel Country (1961), and Where Strange Gods Call (1968)—contain much novel and detailed information. Alice Duncan-Kemp’s fifth book People of the Grey Wind: Life with a Stone Age People was compiled and published by her daughter-in-law Dawn Duncan-Kemp in 2005; most of the manuscript had been unsuccessfully submitted for publication in 1972.

I also consulted Alice Duncan-Kemp’s 1940s–1950s correspondence with Dr Lindsey Winterbotham (held at the John Oxley Library, Brisbane) and with her publishers Angus & Robertson (held at the Mitchell Library, Sydney). The latter included a 1933 ‘Glossary of Scientific Names in Our Sandhill Country’ prepared by Keith C. McKeown at the Australian Museum, in which he attempted to identify plants and animals mentioned in the book. Angus & Robertson sent Alice a copy for perusal, with the suggestion that it would be included in the forthcoming second edition of the book; her response contains annotations and corrections.

Various unpublished letters, notes, drafts, and unpublished manuscripts (including Orion Is Rising: How the Aborigines Lived, apparently written during the 1940s; a semi-autobiographical novel Wide Walls that was rejected by Angus & Robertson in 1939; and a Glossary of Aboriginal words compiled by Alice and edited by Dawn Duncan-Kemp) are held by the Duncan-Kemp family at Toowoomba and Maleny in south-east Queensland. The family archive was searched for additional botanical references that do not appear in published or library sources. Other writings were collected and edited by Dawn Duncan-Kemp in the privately published book Pinningara: a tribute to A.M. Duncan-Kemp: Author.

Compilation of Alice Duncan-Kemp’s Ethnobotany

All ethnobotanical references were entered into an Excel spreadsheet recording the plant name or description provided, its use by Aboriginal people, Alice Duncan-Kemp’s exact quote, date and location of the observation (where possible to discern), and the reference including page number. Botanical references without Aboriginal use recorded were collated in a separate spreadsheet, as these provided local names used by Alice Duncan-Kemp and clues to the identity of plants. Where information was repeated verbatim, or nearly so, in different sources, only the first mention was recorded.

Alice Duncan-Kemp had an idiosyncratic and unscientific way of describing plants. For example, she described numerous small shrubs as ‘trees’, ‘vine’ could refer to any low-growing forb, and the relatively few scientific names she provided are not always reliable. For example, ‘Minnareech-ee’ is clearly described as Acacia cyperophylla F.Muell. ex Benth but Alice gave its name as Acacia stenophylla A.Cunn. ex Benth., while ‘yelka roots’ were given the name Cyperus rotundus L. in the Appendix of Where Strange Paths Go Down (1964:290) but described clearly as Trachymene glaucifolia (F.Muell.) Benth in a 1933 letter to Angus & Robertson. It was also difficult in many cases to work out where and when observations were made, due to the lack of chronological narrative structure. In her four later books, it was not always clear whether information was based on Alice’s direct observation from the Channel Country or something she had read or heard about from elsewhere. These instances were noted in the spreadsheet.

To aid with identification of species, a spreadsheet of vascular plant taxa occurring in and around Mithaka country (Fig. 2) was generated from the Australasian Virtual Herbarium (2024; n = 656). Each taxon was assigned habitat/s, growth habit, flower colour, and fruit characteristics, to assist in matching plants with Alice Duncan-Kemp’s descriptions. This was informed by my 20 years of experience conducting field-based ecological and botanical research in the Channel Country. Nomenclature follows the World Flora Online (2024). Where the ethnobotanical information could be assigned to a species or group of species, it was entered into this spreadsheet. Numerous locations mentioned by Alice Duncan-Kemp, including areas where she noted certain plants growing, were visited between September 2020 and June 2023 to inform the identity of some plants. Voucher specimens of these plants (n = 97) were collected, identified, and lodged at the Queensland Herbarium (BRI). Confidence levels in assigning species names to plants mentioned by Alice Duncan-Kemp were recorded as follows: high (clear from descriptions given and on-ground botanical observations and knowledge which plant was being referred to and there were no other likely candidate species); moderate (species identity considered likely but I was not able to rule out other potential candidate species); or tentative (insufficient information provided in Alice Duncan-Kemp’s writings to confidently assign species, but candidate species seems most likely from description and on-ground observations).

Compilation of Other Sources

Other ethnobotanical sources were recorded in the plant list spreadsheet, to cross-reference and inform Alice Duncan-Kemp’s record. Sources from within Mithaka country included conversations with Mithaka Elders, explorer and early settler journals, accounts of travellers accessed through the National Library of Australia’s (2024) Trove database, and Queensland Herbarium (BRI) specimen labels (examined for pre-1930s collections of plants recorded as occurring in and around Mithaka country).

Ethnobotanical information including plant names from neighbouring regions (Maiawali to the north-east; Pitta Pitta and Wangkamahdla to the north-west; Wangkangurru and Dieri to the west and south-west, and Wongkumura and Boonthamurra to the east), those situated on trade routes within the Lake Eyre Basin (McBryde 2000; Westaway et al. 2021), and from Australian semi-arid or arid lands further afield was also recorded. Sources included writings of Aboriginal people (Anpanuwa Crombie and Aulpunda Barr-Crombie 2018; Barker 1977; McKellar 1984), firsthand ethnographic sources preceding or contemporaneous with Alice Duncan-Kemp (Gason 1874; Howitt 1891, 1904; Horne and Aiston 1924; Koch 1898; Palmer 1883; Roth 1897; Reuther 1981; Wells 1893, as summarised in Table 1), explorer journals from inland eastern Australia (Silcock et al. 2013), and ethnobotanical papers, books and databases (Cane 1987; Clarke 2003, 2007; Gott and Mason 2000; Johnston and Cleland 1943; Lassack and McCarthy 2011; Latz 1995; Lazarides and Hince 1993; Tunbridge and Clarke 2020; Turpin et al. 2022; Walsh 1990, 2008). All scientific names of plants occurring in the region were searched in the Web of Science database and the Google search engine to detect other uses. Aboriginal people consider some closely related plants as groups, with individual species not being distinguished (Latz 1995); in these cases, the genus was considered as a ‘plant group’ (e.g. Heliotropium, Lepidium, and Sida species and numerous genera in the Asteraceae and Chenopodiaceae families).

Table 1 Total number of plant taxa recorded firsthand by ethnographic sources for inland eastern Australia. Only those who recorded names and/or ethnobotanical information for > 20 species are shown. Roth’s entire observations for northern Australia are shown, as well as his Pitta Pitta ethnobotany, which is the main area to fall within inland eastern Australia. ‘Food’ includes food procurement (e.g. grubs, truffles, hollows). QLD Queensland, NSW New South Wales, SA South Australia
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Results

Overview of Alice Duncan-Kemp’s Ethnobotany

Alice Duncan-Kemp was a detailed and prolific observer of plant life. She described processes such as germination, opening times of flowers, and insect pollination, which could only be observed through close attention over long periods of time. A total of 885 references to Aboriginal use and/or names of plants were found in her writings: 649 in her five published books (between 93 and 157 per book), 88 in her correspondence with Dr Winterbotham, and 178 in unpublished papers. These pertained to 219 taxa (Table 1, about one-third of the total flora of the region) that could be assigned to species or genus level (145 with a high degree of confidence, 32 with moderate confidence and 42 tentatively assigned; see ESM 1). For 18 taxa, even tentative identification to genus or family level was not possible (ESM 2). An additional 140 references to plants contained natural history observations but no ethnobotanical information.

This ethnobotanical record places Alice Duncan-Kemp among the most prolific firsthand recorders of Aboriginal plant use in inland eastern Australia. Only physician and anthropologist Walter Roth, who lived with Aboriginal people across northern Queensland from 1894 to 1907, recorded ethnobotanical information for more taxa: some 300 taxa across c.19 language groups including relatively limited ethnobotany from the Pitta Pitta people north-west of Mithaka country (Table 1). Pastoralist and anthropologist Edward Palmer recorded ethnobotanical information for 97 taxa across north Queensland in the 1870s–1880s. Numerous writers recorded ethnobotanical information, although often only language names for plants, in north-eastern South Australia between the 1860s and 1930s, with the most prolific containing information on 83 (Koch 1898), 62 (Johnston and Cleland 1943), and 47 taxa (Howitt 1891, 1904; Howitt and Siebert 1903). Other observers recorded information pertaining to < 40 taxa. With the exception of Roth (n = 42), very few medicinal plants were recorded in the region, highlighting the novelty of Alice Duncan-Kemp’s record of 64 medicinal or narcotic plant groups and taxa (Table 1). Similarly, few other sources noted ceremonial or mythological aspects of plant use or their roles as markers or indicators, except missionary Johann Reuther who recorded Dieri ‘toas’ (small wooden and gypsum sculptures) including those containing plant material between 1888 and 1906 (Reuther 1981).

Alice Duncan-Kemp’s writings contained novel ethnobotanical information for over 100 taxa and groups, including 38 not previously recorded in Australian ethnobotanical sources (Appendices 1 and 3). Plant uses that she recorded were similar to those recorded in other areas of Australia for 70 taxa and groups, while her recorded uses or significance were relatively limited compared to other areas for 20 (ESM 1). One-hundred-and-nineteen taxa that occur in the area are recorded as being used in other arid areas of Australia but had no use recorded by Alice Duncan-Kemp. Most of Alice Duncan-Kemp’s novel ethnobotanical information related to ceremonial and mythological significance of plants (n = 38), their use as indicators or signs (n = 26) and medicinal plants (n = 21), while only eight and 10 taxa recorded as food sources and used for materials, respectively, had not been previously recorded in other areas of Australia.

Alice Duncan-Kemp’s ethnobotanical observations are considered below by type of use and discussed in the context of other records from the broader region. Where available, the Aboriginal name given by Alice Duncan-Kemp is provided prior to the scientific name. Almost every plant had some use to Aboriginal people, ‘as food, medicine, narcotic, pick-me-up, laxative etc. – and magic’ (letter to Dr Winterbotham, 14/10/1949). Some plants were particularly important and had many uses (Table 2). Chief among these were the common and conspicuous trees bauhinia (Lysiphyllum gilvum), coolibah (Eucalyptus coolabah), and gidgee (Acacia cambagei R.T.Barker), which are each mentioned over 35 times and were valued for food, materials, and medicine, as well as featuring in ceremonies and spiritual life.

Table 2 Plant species or groups mentioned by Alice Duncan-Kemp (ADK) > 10 times in her writings, ordered by number of mentions (n)
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Plant Names

Alice Duncan-Kemp recorded 189 Aboriginal plant names, encompassing 159 identifiable taxa (she recorded multiple names for some species, e.g. names of different parts of the plant, or women’s or ceremonial names) and 11 names for plants that were not able to be identified (ESM 2). She wrote that ‘The aboriginal words given [for fauna and flora] are those used on our many walkabouts with the [Aboriginal women] and are given as we children pronounced them’ (1934:vii), and that the terms belonged to thirteen ‘dialects’ that she was familiar with from Mooraberrie and surrounds (1968:152).

There are two published vocabularies from the Mithaka area, totalling 188 items (including duplicates) and containing 12 plant terms encompassing 10 species and two generic terms for grass (Nash, in press). There are very few Aboriginal plant names documented from south-western Queensland more broadly, with most having been recorded from north-eastern South Australia and north Queensland (Table 1). Alice Duncan-Kemp recorded more plant names than any other firsthand observer in inland eastern Australia, including Roth whose ethnography spanned at least 19 language groups across northern Australia (Table 1).

A small proportion of Alice Duncan-Kemp’s plant names (n = 23, 12%) are identical or very similar to earlier sources, including Roth (n = 13) and Palmer (n = 1) from the north-west Queensland Pitta Pitta and Mitakoodi languages, respectively. One plant name apparently comes from Finlayson (1935), another from Gason (1874), one from Spencer & Gillen (‘irriakurua’), and another (‘yarrawoori’) is close to a word for a narcotic plant from Western Australia (Nash, in press). Five plant names are similar to Arandic language names, but only in one case (Hakea chordophylla F.Muell./H. lorea R.Br.) does the name refer to a similar or related species (Jennifer Green pers.comm. November 2023). In some instances, it is plausible that Alice Duncan-Kemp knew these words independently (her teachers would have spoken Karnic languages related to Pitta Pitta) but decided to adopt Roth’s or other author’s spellings after reading their papers, as discussed by Nash (in press). One Duncan-Kemp name, Mootchery, is corroborated by Breen (1969, cited in Nash, in press) in his Mithaka vocabulary. However, the majority (> 85%) have no similar words located in language lists searched for Australia: they have not been identified as copies nor can they be corroborated in local languages. Nash (in press:50) considers that ‘they may well be a valuable record of Channel Country vocabulary that no-one else wrote down’. A list of plant names and uses recorded by Alice Duncan-Kemp is provided in ESM 1.

Food Plants

Alice Duncan-Kemp made 201 references to plant foods in her writings, encompassing 73 identified species or groups of species including underground storage organs (roots, tubers, yams) of 21 taxa/groups, fruit of 20, seeds of 16, leaves and stems of 12, gum/sap from five, and flowers from at least four taxa. By the early 1900s, Aboriginal people were eating European staple foods especially flour, but seed food (termed Munta; 1934:117) including from various grasses, nardoo (Marsilea species), Portulaca species, and coolibah remained an important part of their diet especially in areas away from the homestead. Alice Duncan-Kemp described the processes of collecting various seeds then their winnowing, grinding, sifting, cooking, and storage (e.g. 1934:261; 1964:xxiii, 151).

Underground storage organs were important including Mootchery (Vigna and possibly Ipomoea species), Yalka (Trachymene glaucifolia), and Witooka (Boerhavia species), as well as the roots of various lilies (Calostema, Crinum, and Bulbine species) and sedges including Mungaroo (Cyperus bulbosus Vahl, C. victoriensis C.B.Clarke), and Eleocharis species. These were harvested by the women using digging or yam sticks. The knowledge and techniques required to locate and harvest the deeper yams were substantial. Aboriginal women could ‘tell by the feel of their bare feet the nature of the soil below…if yams are blighted even though the tops show green above the surface…’ (1934:80), while shrivelled leaves could tell of ‘tender roots below’ (1968:241). One species of yam, Nahlyoora (probably an Ipomoea species), required extensive soaking in water with another root, Ookaru possibly Trianthema pilosa F.Muell. before it was edible (1964:xxiii). Below-ground fugus or truffles (Wiididna) were also much-relished and women ‘would trudge miles’ in search of them (1934:259).

Leafy green vegetables figured prominently in Alice Duncan-Kemp’s writings, including the gathering of large quantities of Kira Blennodia canescens R.Br., Bogil-a-ri Tetragonia moorei M.Gray, Parakeelya Calandrinia balonensis Lindl., Arabidella nasturtium (F.Muell.) E.A. Shaw, Kooni Portulaca oleracea L., Curda Portulaca intraterranea J.M.Black, and Woolitcha Cuphonotus humistratus (F.Muell.) O.E.Schulz. Particular delicacies were a ‘rare plant with the centre the shape and size of a green sweet corncob…full of syrup, sweet as honey’ (1961:151), likely to be Marsdenia australis (R.Br.) Druce; Nulloochia Cynanchum floribundum R.Br., whose pear-shaped fruit was much-relished; and the curled young leaves of Atriplex nummularia Lindl. A variety of fruits were eaten including Wybenia Santalum lanceolatum R.Br., Alunqua Cucumis melo L., Woombun-ye Capparis mitchellii Lindl., and Elboranji and Jilleroo (Solanum species). Smaller fruits provided variety and nutrition and were regarded as treats. Some fruit, e.g. Nooga Psydrax latifolius (F.Muell. ex Benth.) S.T.Reynolds & R.J.F.Hend., required drying and grinding to render them palatable (1961:119).

Certain habitats and areas contained relatively high concentrations of food plants. Chief among these were the sandhills: this portion of Mooraberrie was described by Alice Duncan-Kemp as the ‘food bowl’ of the Channel Country. The sandhills and swamps south-west of the Mooraberrie house were known as Nikik-kil-li (‘the green place’) and were the focus of harvesting particularly before large gatherings (2005:19). In Bogie’s words: ‘…there is not a tree or plant that grows in the sandhills that is not of some use…for food, domestic economy or as a medicine’ (1964:58). A particular plain on Mooraberrie was named Umburra-Wyarri, meaning ‘place of fine yams’ (1968:319). Roots growing on salt pans, salty leaves and salt harvested directly were important dietary components (1934:52, 73–74; 1968:180); the harvesting of salt as a dietary component was not noted in any other sources examined here and may have been a local practice.

Aboriginal diets and food-related activities varied seasonally. After good rains and floods, much effort would be devoted to harvesting, processing, and preserving foods. People would forage from early morning until late afternoon, and during foraging roots and fruits would be eaten raw. The harvest would be carried to camp in bags woven from plant material or bark containers known as coolamons. Grass seeds, often gathered from around ant nests, were baked into ‘patties’ and cached and could last for many months, while the fruits of Santalum lanceolatum were dried into ‘fruit cakes’ for storage. During droughts, these stores and ‘famine foods’, primarily seeds and fruits of perennial species, were relied upon. Coolibah seeds were not favoured due to the tedious process of gathering them and the ‘strong eucalyptus taste’ of the flour (1934:261) but were an important drought staple.

Numerous plants hosted edible insects including grubs in the roots of Senna artemisioides (Gaudich. ex DC.) Randell (known as Parootra boonti) and trunks of bauhinia and Acacia bushes, lerps (crystallised honeydew produced by the larvae of psyllid bugs as a protective cover) on Eucalyptus leaves and galls (growths on the trunk caused by wasp larvae) on mulga trees. Honey was also a favoured food, gathered from inside tree trunks. Water was procured from plants including Pinta-murra Hakea leucoptera R.Br. roots, within hollow bloodwood Kula/Re-chin-de Corymbia terminalis (F.Muell.) K.D.Hill & L.A.S.Johnson trees, from the base and hollows of coolibah trees, and from lily roots (chiefly Trunga Thysanotus tuberosus R.Br.).

Plant Materials

The 219 references to plant materials in Alice Duncan-Kemp’s writings were assigned to 46 taxa or groups. Long-lived, hard-wooded Acacia species including mulga Acacia aneura, gidgee Acacia cambagei, and minnaritchie Acacia cyperophylla were favoured for making tools such as spears, spear-throwers, boomerangs, waddies or nulla-nullas (clubs or hunting sticks), throwing sticks, and yam sticks (‘kalori’). Alice described the creation and use of all of these in detail. Particular trees and branches were required, especially for boomerangs, which the men sometimes walked many miles to find. The crooked gidgee trees of the Diamantina area were famed for their boomerangs and local groups had established a thriving trade in wood and boomerangs. Coolibah was used for a variety of purposes including coolamons, message sticks, throwing sticks, and windbreaks. Standing coolibahs bore the oval scars where bark had been removed, and ‘perpendicular gashes’ where long hunting spears had been cut out (1934:144).

Certain species were favoured for ceremonial uses. For example, Acacia cyperophylla was typically used for carved message sticks, ‘rain sticks’ (known as kooroomundo, used in ceremonies to bring rain), ‘tjuringas’ (sacred wooden objects used in ceremony, which Alice called ‘god sticks’), and ceremonial boomerangs. Bauhinia was used for numerous purposes including coolamons, shields, and cradles but never for spears or spear throwers. Beefwood Grevillea striata R.Br. was used for ceremonial implements including ‘tjuringas’, ‘rain sticks’, and ceremonial torches. Spears for stunning fish were made from lignum Duma florulenta (Meisn.) T.M.Schust stems; these were called warrum, and Alice described their use in shallow water (1968:266–7).

Large fish and emu nets, bags, ropes, mats, and wraps were made from plant twine; stem bark from Kalo Malva preissiana, Palanja Crotalaria eremaea F.Muell., and Poolknar Cullen australasicum (Schltdl.) J.W. Grimes were particularly important. Taller grasses such as ‘river grass’ Setaria jubiflora (Trin.) R.D. Webster (syn. Paspalidium jubiflorum (Trin.) Hughes) were also woven into baskets. A woman’s ‘most treasured possession’ was a ‘dilly bag made of woven grass or reeds and usually carried on their back…Into this mung-kora go all the odds and ends, foods and the accumulated treasures of a lifetime’ (1934: 258). Alice Duncan-Kemp described in detail the process of harvesting and working plant material into fishing nets. Material from certain areas was highly prized, for example the Kalo and river grass from around Wantata Waterhole and the Kalo from the Fifteen-Mile Channel. Women could take two or three years to complete a big fishing net (1934:122), and Bogie spent three years making a ‘beautiful fish-net, complete with drawstring…thirty feet long and fifteen feet in width, it was made entirely of flax-plant string chosen and worked by himself…For years it hung against the wall of our laundry, a showpiece for visitors’ (1961:231).

Plants including sandhill canegrass Zygochloa paradoxa (R.Br.) S.T. Blake, coolibah, gidgee, and bauhinia branches and a variety of saplings, bark, and grasses were used to make shelters and traps, yards, and hides for trapping birds and animals. Plants were also employed in the process of making stone tools, including the ‘palna’, a ‘shock-absorber of folded bark…usually bauhinia’ used when flaking stone (1961:223–224) and to make musical instruments including didjeridus and mer-pul-li mungi (‘bull roarers’) (1934:149, 224–225), while seeds were sometimes worn on necklaces. Numerous plant materials also figured in ceremonial and spiritual life, as discussed below.

Leaves, particularly aromatic ones including various Eremophila species, had a wide variety of uses including wrapping bodies, purifying water, poisoning waterholes for fishing, insecticides, and curing kangaroo hides, as well as medicinal uses described below. Leaves and bark of some species were used for cooking meat and fish—green bauhinia bark was highly regarded, as were Moomi Owenia acidula F.Muell. leaves. Fruits and roots of some species were used as dyes, including O. acidula. Alice Duncan-Kemp also wrote of spinifex wax or Kunta being used widely; the resinous species from which this wax was procured (Powell et al. 2013) do not grow in Mithaka country but may have been traded from the north, as was documented in South Australia by Horne and Aiston (1924).

Medicinal Plants

Medicinal plants were still widely used during Alice’s childhood on Mooraberrie and she recorded 115 instances of medicinal plant use encompassing 59 identified species or groups. Medicinal plants and their harvesting, preparation, and use were closely intertwined with the spirit world and some knowledge was secret. Even Alice, in her privileged position as ‘Pinnigarra’, was not shown all plant lore: ‘…though [Mary Ann and others] were quite ready to show [us] ordinary plants that had to do with their everyday life, [they] would [never] dream of showing…any sacred mud or rare medicinal plant’ (1964:180). Alice noted in a letter to Dr Winterbotham that ‘There must be many other plants and roots which have food and medicinal (healing) value, of which we have never heard – or even seen’ (27/4/1952). Medicinal plants were governed by strict protocols and processes for harvesting, preparation, and administration; such knowledge was the provenance of the Mudgeera ‘medicine men’ and Gadanja women herbalists.

As in other regions, strong-smelling plants including various herbs in the Asteraceae family and the floodplain herb Basilicum polystachyon (L.) Moench were crushed and sniffed or made into decoctions to be inhaled for headaches and respiratory sickness—Alice Duncan-Kemp described the former as the ‘Aspro’ of Aboriginal women; ‘a remedy for all ills’ (1934:291). Plants with white sap (Cynanchum viminale (L.) L., Euphorbia species) were used to treat skin complaints and stem bleeding. The fruits, leaves, and sap of numerous plants were used to treat snakebites; others were used as disinfectants and to cure headaches, fevers, sandy blight, stomach problems, and dysentery. Sick people were smoked in Eucalyptus leaves and warmed, mashed leaves were applied to wounds. Chief among medicinal plants were Eremophila species, with at least five species on Mooraberrie being important. In particular, the thick green sap from crushed leaves and twigs of Thoon-gana (Eremophila bignoniiflora (Benth.) F.Muell.) was an effective ‘snake medicine’ and ‘formed a base for most medicines concocted by the medicine men, and for many remedies – tonics and purgatives…’ (1961:147). Various fungi were also important medicinally.

Some habitats were home to relatively high concentrations of medicinal plants, particularly the sandhills. The ‘red swamp sandhill’ in the Mooraberrie horse paddock, known as ‘Koorgara-mar-tuk’ by men (meaning crooked nose) and ‘Minyerri’ (‘the little mother of us all’) by women, ‘teemed with legend and curative power of leaf, plant, berry and bush…’ (2005:159). ‘Ringhama’ was the name for areas where medical plants grew (1968:318). Some medicinal plants were rare, habitat-specific, and difficult to find: ‘medicine men and herbalists spend many hours tracking these medicinal plants… (1964:xxv). Some lived underground and could only be traced by fine leaves or threads above the surface (1968:60–61). The white sap of ‘baljai’ [probably Vincetoxicum lineare (Decne.) Meve & Liede], ‘the shyest and most fascinating of medicinal plants, as well as one of the rarest and most…important’ (2005:49) was valued for internal complaints and fevers but was ‘…difficult to find since it runs flush with the ground and is often hidden by grass roots. In drought it dries to a few brown twigs…only an aborigine can track it down’ (1964:xxiv). Some plants had to be harvested at particular times or from certain places to be effective medicine.

Some plants were used solely by women for menstrual problems, during childbirth, post-partum, and breastfeeding, and for birth control. Alice Duncan-Kemp’s descriptions of these are often detailed, for example the woody, fleshy-rooted form of Trichodesma zeylanicum (Burm.f.) R.Br. that grows on rocky hills: ‘…growing only in inaccessible stony spots, [it] was rare medicine indeed and was used only by women. Aboriginal midwives used the root in childbirth. A sliver was given to the patient and she soon sank into a semi-doze. The root possessed as antiseptic and soothing ingredient which aided the birth process. Soaked in water, it made an antiseptic fluid which proved of great benefit in the treatment of breast abscesses and in cases of milk fever’ (1961:57–58). In 2022, this plant was located growing in the precise habitat and area described by Alice Duncan-Kemp south of Toorajumpa Crossing north of Betoota. Important medicine plants were closely guarded by Mary Ann, who would ‘contrive to slope off alone, though sometimes we had the privilege of accompanying her, to gather medicinal roots used solely by women’ (1961:210). The seeds of gidgee were eaten only by old men and were believed to have rejuvenating properties.

Aboriginal medicinal knowledge was of immense value to early European settlers in remote Queensland: ‘Should a white man fall sick of some ordinary complaint, the blackfellow will take in the situation at a glance, rush to a certain flat or sandhill top, and return with a weed or plant root which, eaten raw, decocted, or infused, or applied externally, would effect a speedy cure’ (1934:256). Alice Duncan-Kemp described an Aboriginal woman caring for a mineral prospector with a broken arm and dysentery in the north-western portion of Mooraberrie: ‘For his dysentery she had brewed some syrup of the wild strawberry vine [probably Hibiscus brachysiphonius F.Muell.; ESM 1], and had tramped some miles to tap a wild pear tree [Corymbia terminalis] for its red sap, which was a sure cure for gastric disorders’ (1934:270).

Narcotic Plants

Pituri Duboisia hopwoodii was the chief narcotic used by Aboriginal people in the Channel Country. It ‘occupied the place of honour among sacred plants’ (1934:109–109) and a plug of pituri leaf was ‘the most cherished possession of all’ (1934:40). Sixteen of Alice Ducan-Kemp’s 25 records of narcotic plant use relate to this species. The dried leaves were mixed with various Acacia species or Grevillea stenobotrya F.Muell. ash. It was ‘…much sought after by all tribes who used it in their harsher tribal initiations to deaden pain and fear; and to chew on long marches, for, when taken in small quantities, pituri has a decidedly stimulating effect’ (1934:53). In Queensland, D. hopwoodii is only known from sandhills west of the Mulligan River (Silcock et al. 2012), but Alice Duncan-Kemp recorded it growing ‘upon the banks of various Georgina Creeks’ (1934:53) and ‘in scattered patches on some of the Farrar’s creek channels’ (1934:220) including Allegroo (1964:222–3) and Pitchuricoppa waterholes (unpublished glossary). These locations have not yet been surveyed, but it is clear from elsewhere in Duncan-Kemp’s writings that people obtained pituri through trading and visits to the west (1934:155, 220–222) and it is likely that the exact locations where the plants grew were a closely guarded secret.

Other plants used as narcotics included the leaves of Yarrawoori (Goodenia species, probably G. angustifolia Carolin and G. lunata J.M.Black) and the powdered bark of Yarrie bush (possibly Acacia oswaldii F.Muell.), which were used during initiation. Il-gurda, a small bitter cucumber-like fruit (probably Austrobryonia micrantha (F.Muell.) I.Telford) was used to induce trances and learn ‘rain magic’ (1968:194). According to Alice Duncan-Kemp, local Nicotiana species, including the widespread N. velutina H.-M.Wheeler, were used as tobacco (1964:xxv); the three species that occur in the Mooraberrie area have low nicotine content and are rarely if ever used in central Australia (Latz 1995). Duncan-Kemp writes of a semi-intoxicating, presumably alcoholic, drink being made from bauhinia flowers; although such practices are documented using other plants elsewhere in Australia, this appears to be the first record of this practice from Queensland.

Indicator, Signal, and Marker Plants

Alice Duncan-Kemp recorded 51 instances of plants being indicators or markers, involving 30 taxa or groups. Flowering of certain species told people that important events (e.g. birds, lizards or frogs laying eggs, fish breeding, termites gathering, or yams ripening) were taking place, indicated the correct time of day or year for hunting or gathering, or foretold of good or bad seasons to come. Other plants indicated the presence of certain resources, for example honey ants or underground truffles. Alice Duncan-Kemp wrote that ‘Every flowering plant or shrub was a date in a vast calendar from which Mary Ann, and her friends, read the rhythm of nature’ (1961:210). This ‘Flower Calendar’ was known as ‘Moor-roo-bee…it never lied to those who took the trouble to read, and to heed its message of joy or warning’ (2005:183–184). Individual plants or groves marked important landscape features including hidden rock holes, paths, and ceremonial sites.

Ceremonial and Mythological Associations

The young Alice lived in a world inhabited by spirits and magic where each plant, animal, rock, and tree was alive and storied. She wrote extensively of ceremonial, mythological, and spiritual associations of plants: there are over 300 such examples in her writings, encompassing over 80 plant groups or taxa. Plants featured throughout the human lifecycle: leaves of Kunjai Eremophila longifolia (R.Br.) F.Muell. were used in purification and smoking ceremonies following childbirth; the Yonei tree Pittosporum angustifolium was a symbol of childhood; various plants were used in initiation and other ceremonies; and bodies were smoked, wrapped, and buried in leaves and below tree limbs of Eremophila and coolibah. Four species were recorded, in some instances at least, as having ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ magic (Achyranthes aspera L., Acacia oswaldii, Duma florulenta, and Stemodia glabella W.R.Barker), and Alice Duncan-Kemp wrote to Dr Winterbotham that some ‘kadaitcha’ trees harboured evil or bad spirits, particularly at night (1949:3, 14; 1952,3–4; 1955). However, most plants were heralded and celebrated, often through elaborate observances, ceremonies, and song-cycles.

Alice Duncan-Kemp wrote of the ‘Kon-do-bee [tribal history in dance and song], which lasted many weeks and included 24 ‘flowering-plant and maturing-root dances’ (1964:209) and the spring ‘Nari-munt-tas’ or harvest festivals (2005:16). The Nangurak-kura plant ceremonies were held at Imparelli, meaning ‘tangled gullies’, eight hours horse ride south-west of west of Mooraberrie homestead. This area was marked by ‘billions’ of sacred stone heaps, up to four feet high and six feet wide (1968:40–41). In some cases, seeds were scattered and watered during ‘increase’ ceremonies (1934:146–7). Festivals such as the Quandong Santalum acuminatum A.DC. festival were held in other areas and were attended by people from the Channel Country. Many species were used in ceremonies and rituals, as musical instruments, decorations or ceremonial shields, message sticks, or boomerangs, and as narcotics or hallucinogens.

Alice Duncan-Kemp also recorded smaller acts of observance and appreciation, which were part of daily life. Green leaf fires were lit as offerings and observance, and small white ‘prayer stones’ were placed in the forks of trees. Plants, particularly yams, were harvested carefully and harvesters communicated with spirit beings who were associated with those foods and left offerings. While walking through country, ‘Mary Ann…encouraged us to join her in the many simple chants which she interpreted to us, all in praise of the trees and shrubs’ (1968:139).

Trees were especially revered: most of the 36 tree species occurring in the region had spiritual associations. Trees were believed to receive a person’s ‘spirit form’ as it passed from the earth and were looked on as friends: ‘Often when riding or walking through the channel country, we were often tactfully piloted past, and away from, certain ingwiri, spirit-inhabited trees. In this country it is the trees that attracted and held the attention, for despite the arid conditions, life seemed to surge within their trunks and branches’ (1968:139). The bauhinia tree was held especially sacred, as a women’s tree and symbol of fruitfulness. Other striking trees including ghost gums Corymbia aparrerinja K.D.Hill & L.A.S.Johnson, needlewood Hakea leucoptera, Psydrax latifolius, and old, twisted gidgee and coolibah trees had similarly strong mythological and spiritual associations.

Individual trees and shrubs were assigned names and meanings: ‘Almost every plant or old tree had a legend or some incident connected with its germination or growth, and its place in the history of the tribe…’ (1964:38). There was Maka-ma-kardum, an ancient coolibah at Majoobi (possibly Toonka Waterhole; 1961:117–118) and the ‘spirit tree’ on Neuragully Waterhole, Monkira (1961:137). The significance of some trees was due to their location at or near important sites or travel routes, regardless of their species. Some trees became incorporated into pastoral history, for example Duncan’s Tree, an old bauhinia at Pitchuricoppa Waterhole (1964:51). An old coolibah growing on the Georgina River was called Boul-joo-ya. Alice Duncan-Kemp, who first saw the tree as a ten-year-old, wrote that: ‘From the base of this tree, clumps of white stones represented paths or directions taken on various migrations…William Duncan and George Debney…had the tree and its immediate surroundings declared a forbidden zone to all except the aboriginals, who were given ownership of the area known as Mundaru-warilla…As pastoralism disrupted traditional lifeways] The Boul-joo-ya tree was chosen as the conference circle, and here tribal representatives gathered to discuss vital matters…’ (1968:229–230). Other ‘common grounds’ were similarly marked by trees, including groves of distinctive ‘feathery’ Acacias, the Mootjawarie trees (possibly Acacia paraneura Randell; 1968:230, 241).

Vegetation Management and Pastoral Knowledge

Alice Duncan-Kemp did not write extensively about Aboriginal land management. People would fire riparian vegetation periodically before rains, to encourage game and renew the soil. All harvesting was governed by strict protocols and observances. No matter how scarce plant foods become some were left to set seed. Bans were placed on certain plants if they showed signs of becoming scarce (1934:99–100). There were kalek kalek (‘taboo’) areas wherein specific plants or groves were ‘left to seed’ or had their seed ‘reserved for future use’ (1933: 100; 1999:184, 190).

Women left behind some seeds and tubers whenever they harvested plants and made food offerings to spirits (1952:286–7; 1999:160–2; 2005:184). People would dance to ask for plants or roots which were showing signs of becoming scarce (1964:214). Sometimes they ceremonially sprinkled seeds and watered them (1968:147; 1952:286–7 plates; 2005:183–184), but Alice Duncan-Kemp was clear that these were ‘increase ceremonies’ rather than being aimed at propagation or cultivation (1968:208). However, the impacts of yam harvesting would have been to aerate the soil and leave some tubers behind, maintaining an abundance of these important plant foods (Clarke 2007). The only instance of translocation mentioned by Duncan-Kemp was accidental: unusual populations of food plants struggling for life among the lignum near Appamilla Waterhole, ‘reminders of many a feast’ (1964:175).

Aboriginal people quickly picked up knowledge of plants as they related to pastoralism, including which were good cattle feed and those that were poisonous such as Dhughala Senecio gregorii F.Muell. (1961:116–117) and a small sandhill herb that caused abortion in horses (1964:100–1). Alice Duncan-Kemp wrote that Aboriginal people knew of the existence of such plants in certain paddocks long before it was apparent to white pastoralists. Aboriginal knowledge was also invaluable for making wise management decisions around climate: ‘[We]…relied on them…for information on the plant life, the waters, the temper of the land, and the cycle of the seasons’ (1968:290).

Discussion

Alice Duncan-Kemp’s writings contain by far the most detailed ethnobotanical record for inland eastern Australia and represent one of Australia’s richest historical ethnobotany sources. The uses of many plants are similar to those in other parts of inland Australia but the names, numerous medicinal plants and uses, and mythological/ceremonial elements recorded by Duncan-Kemp are unique and previously undocumented. This is particularly so for plants that have restricted distributions, including numerous taxa endemic to Queensland, and those that were used as women’s medicine. While many plant species are likely to have been used in similar ways by groups who had regular contact through trade and travel, there can be large variations in chemical composition between plants and regions (Lassack and McCarthy 2011; Watson 1983), and this may explain some of the novel and apparently local uses recorded.

Food plants documented by Alice Duncan-Kemp, comprising at least 73 taxa/groups, show a varied and seasonal diet that was similar in composition and methods of preparation to neighbouring areas. However, with the notable exceptions of Palmer and Roth, other inland eastern Australian observers typically mention < 30 food plants (Table 1) and Alice Duncan-Kemp’s record substantially expands the known diet of the area. The total number of plants documented by Duncan-Kemp as food is somewhat lower than numbers documented in Australia’s central and western deserts (e.g. Cane 1987, n = 126; Latz 1995, n = c.200), possibly reflecting that not all plants remained in use by the time of her observations. Some of the food plants recorded by Alice Duncan-Kemp are extremely poorly known, particularly tubers (Clarke 2007) and fungi. She provided names for at least 10 tubers, including ones that almost certainly represent populations and potentially taxa that have not been recorded scientifically. Some plants that were valued food sources are rare in the region today, e.g. Marsdenia australis and Vincetoxicum lineare (Silcock et al. 2014), while numerous important long-lived trees and shrubs have limited recruitment (J. Silcock, unpublished data), possibly due to grazing impacts. Other aspects of plant use are not well-documented by Duncan-Kemp, for example she only recorded seeds of 16 taxa/groups as being ground and eaten, although seed foods would have been a staple in pre-pastoral times (Tindale 1977). Many grass and Acacia species that were staple seed foods across Central Australia (Cane 1987; Latz 1995; Walsh 2008) are not mentioned, despite being common in the Channel Country. By the early 1900s, people would have been eating flour from stations, and labour-intensive seed harvesting, processing, and grinding were not so necessary to survival.

Alice Duncan-Kemp’s contributions to knowledge of medicinal plants, particularly those used by women, and ceremonial and spiritual aspects of human-plant relations are unique. Ethnobotanical medicine is among the first aspects of traditional culture to be lost, due to the secrecy and ritual that surround use of native remedies and ease of misinterpretation of observed practices (Farnsworth 1966), while Australian ethnographers have rarely recorded spiritual or ceremonial aspects of ethnobotany (Clarke 2014). Duncan-Kemp’s record contains the first documentation of mythological associations of many taxa and groups. While there is broad similarity with other areas, both in terms of species regarded as sacred and concepts such as trees as people and spirit-beings (Ellis 2014; Tunbridge 1988; Young 1992) and large trees in general being major dreaming features in arid areas (Clarke 2007), the local context is novel and provides a window into this ethnobotanical landscape. Interestingly, species that were almost certainly introduced post-1788 such as Merren-Merren Achyranthes aspesa and Bunbindi Citrullus colocynthis (L.) Schrad. (Fensham and Laffineur 2019) had become incorporated in Aboriginal mythology and medicine by the early 1900s, and Duncan-Kemp provided detailed and novel information on their ethnobotany. This echoes the findings of Clarke (2007) that introduced plants quickly became incorporated into Aboriginal life and lore. People had also adapted to the arrival of feral pests such as pigs; Duncan-Kemp wrote of Wooran placing pulped leaves of a strong-smelling shrub ‘whose smell pigs loathed’ (likely Udilba Eremophila bowmanii F.Muell.) around the soil around a ripening truffle (Duncan-Kemp 1968:265–6).

Alice Duncan-Kemp was aware of the uniqueness of her viewpoint and writings. In an unpublished draft she wrote: ‘…on several occasions throughout the last sixty [or] seventy years scientist[s] had come among the upper Diamantina Georgina tribes… to reconstruct aboriginal lore and grammar from the scattered tribes along the rivers & creeks and at the isolated station homesteads. These men succeeded in gathering together the threads of remembrance, already adrift and breaking, and weave them into some coherent design of aboriginal past history. But what was known was a fragmentary and, to me, pitiful residue which made my childhood contact with the fast fading survivors all the more important & meaningful, since it gave me the actual feeling of the…texture and quality of the…people.’ However, she was also clear that ‘I saw a great deal, but not everything. I learned a great deal, but my knowledge was as nothing compared with the knowledge possessed by even the simplest Aborigines’ (2005:205).

As Alice Duncan-Kemp grew older, and the Aboriginal mentors and lifeways of her childhood passed, her writing became infused with nostalgia and sadness. Her later prose tended towards the florid, particularly in recounting spiritual and ceremonial aspects of Aboriginal plant relations. Almost one-quarter of references to ceremonial or mythological aspects of ethnobotany—most of them novel and pertaining to species with scant ethnobotanical information in other sources—appear in the last book she published in her lifetime, Where Strange Gods Call (1968). This, combined with the inclusion of information from other areas of Australia, makes some aspects of Duncan-Kemp’s ethnobotany difficult to interpret or evaluate. A couple of plants mentioned as occurring on Mooraberrie, and indeed written about in detail, do not occur in or near the Channel Country (e.g. native figs Ficus spp., ‘wild grapes’ Cassytha or Cissus spp. species) or are extremely rare and are unlikely to have figured prominently in the local diet (Santalum acuminatum and Carissa spinarum L.). Some names and passages are almost certainly borrowed from other sources, primarily Roth. Numerous plant references in her later books, particularly Where Strange Paths Go Down and its Appendix, relate to other areas of Australia and some of the information provided is incorrect. However, her ‘borrowing’ seems less for botanical terms and uses than documented by Nash (in press) for language in general.

Alice Duncan-Kemp was keenly aware that ‘…the lore of edible root and berry, leaf and twig, bud and flower, is passing quietly and surely from man’s knowledge’ (1961:10). In November 1933, she informed her publisher Angus & Robertson of her intention ‘to go out to [Mooraberrie] next year…to gather some good samples of fruits and plants; the only difficulty being that now we have no [Aboriginal women] to “nose” these things out it is rather difficult to find them’. She never made this trip, and numerous aspects of her ethnobotany remain mysterious (ESM 2). Duncan-Kemp described in detail the mythology surrounding the searching for and preparation of Nahlyoora, a ‘bitey yam’ that was regarded as excellent food after careful preparation; the soaking water was used medicinally (1964:xxiii; 2005:45–46). The milky sap and size of the tuber suggest this plant is likely to be an Ipomoea, but no Ipomoea species with large tubers (such as I. polpha R.W.Johnson or I. costata F.Muell. ex Benth., although neither require extensive soaking; Latz 1995) are known from the sandhills of south-western Queensland. Any occurrence would represent a highly disjunct occurrence or possibly a novel taxon. The identities of other geophytic plants also remain uncertain, particularly the important medicinal Boulkra root and the water-holding Jubali/Wahl-pa and Kwatje Mura/Yallah roots (ESM 2). There are no obvious candidates for these roots known from inland Australia, and the lengthy passage on Jubali/Wahl-pa is in large parts almost certainly plagiarised from South African author Laurens van der Post (Tom Griffiths, pers.comm., May 2023), although the latter name is apparently novel (the former is close to the Warlpiri yuparli for Marsdenia australis, as documented by Meggitt and discussed by Nash, in press).

Conclusion

Overall, this evaluation of Alice Duncan-Kemp’s ethnobotanical record suggests that the call by Nash (in press) for caution in interpreting her writings is to an extent warranted. However, in the great majority of cases, her ethnobotany appears to be unique to the Channel Country and contains names, uses, and a level of detail rarely recorded in the ethnohistorical record for Australia. Plants were among Alice Duncan-Kemp’s foremost interests and fundamental to her relationship to country. Her capacity to observe, learn, and remember ethnobotanical detail from a young age is clear and may have been greater than her understandings and interpretation of some other anthropological and religious elements of traditional life, reducing her need to enhance and further her firsthand observations with other sources.

Alice Duncan-Kemp’s writings, containing ethnobotanical observations of over 200 plant taxa including 150 previously unrecorded plant names and much novel information on medicinal, indicator and ceremonial aspects, contribute greatly to Mithaka ethnobotanical reconstructions and Australian ethnobotany more broadly. Ongoing work with Mithaka custodians will further inform Alice Duncan-Kemp’s ethnobotanical record and underpin research and education on Mithaka country. The writings of other women who lived on the Australian frontier may also be rich repositories of ethnohistorical information and should be investigated using the methods described here.