12 Spencer, Whai is Nardoo. [vJ'*^''xxxv 



of the Cooper Creek tribe, Dr. Howitt says * : — " Nardoo is 

 well known. It may be called their stand-by when food is 

 scarce. In many places miles of the clay flats are thickly 

 sprinkled with the dry seeds. Seeds are generally called 

 ' Bowar,' of which Portulac, the Manyoura ' bowar,' is the 

 most prized." 



At a much later date, in " Folk Lore," Miss Mary E. B. 

 Howitt t published "Some Native Legends from Central 

 Australia." These were selected from a large number collected 

 by the Rev. Otto Siebert. In a note on one of these. Miss 

 Howitt says : — " Nardoo forms a staple article of food with 

 these tribes, and has been well known to the natives since the 

 unfortunate explorers Burke and Wills tried unsuccessfully to 

 live on it, when Wills wrote in his diary that it was ' not un- 

 pleasant starvation.' Some of the seed actually collected by 

 them, and afterwards found by Mr. A. W. Howitt's rescue 

 party, is before me now. The so-called seeds are spore-cases of 

 a species of Marsilea, a genus common to m-any parts of 

 Australia." 



It is important to note that Dr. Howitt states that " bowar " 

 is a term applied to seeds in general. The Rev. Otto Siebert, 

 in charge of the Aboriginal Mission Station at Kopperamana, 

 on the Barcoo, says that " Paua is food made from the seeds 

 of various plants. It is collected, cleansed, and stored away 

 in pits, which are closed by a cover made of rushes and smeared 

 on each side with clay to hold them together. . . Nardoo 

 is not ground, but pounded to a fine powder and made into a 

 kind of cake." 



Dr. Howitt's name " bowar " is clearly the equivalent of 

 " paua," and both of these are general terms applied to plant 

 food, of which nardoo is clearly only one kind. 



(2) What was the Nardoo of the Burke and Wills Expedition. 



There can, fortunately, be no doubt in regard to this. It is 

 made absolutely certain by reference to the original sources of 

 information previously indicated. 



The earliest reference to nardoo, though under a name spelt 

 somewhat differently, occurs in the diary of Dr. Herman 

 Beckler.J After Burke had broken up his party at Menindie, 

 and was proceeding northwards to Cooper's Creek, despatches 

 arrived for him from Melbourne. Two men — Lyons and Mac- 

 pherson — attempted, without success, owing to the dry season, 

 to follow him up. Beckler succeeded in rescuing them on their 



* "Aborigines of Victoria," Appendix, vol. ii., p. 302. 

 t " Folk Lore," vol. xiii., 1902. 



X Diary of Herman Beckler's journey to relieve Lyons and Macpherson, 

 from 2ist December, i860, to 5th January, i86i. — MS. 



