106 RECORDS OF THK AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



24. Divisions of inauiiuate nature, uniniaLs, and plants, have 

 been occasionally met with, Ijut really satisfactory explanationn 

 have not been forthcoming, 'rhiis, at Gape Griafton in 1897, 

 independently of the local mission auspices, 1 came across a local, 

 account of a binary division of Kuragulu and Kurabanna 

 (banna^water), that is to say things on land generally dis- 

 tinguished from those ou water. The former, indicative of red 

 earth includes everything relating to the land, e.y., red cla}'^, 

 gra.ss, sun, wind, rock, star, tire, ar>d land animals such as 

 kangaroo, bandicoot, black iguana, yellow iguana, emu, and 

 pelican ; the latter comprises water, and white or light coloured 

 things and includes mud, cloud, rain, tliunder, fresh and salt 

 water, eels, wild duck, shark, alligatoi', watei-snake, and all white 

 timbers. 



On the TuUy River the respective grouping is more certain. 

 Thus, plants (wherein sex is not recognised) are divisible into 

 four groups, containing special timbers as follows : — 



Chalkai-gatclia . Pencil Cedar, Moreton Bay Chestnut. 

 Chalkai-dir... Contains a particular white-wood, the sap of which 



is utilised for sticking feather-down on the body. 

 Chalkai-chamara... Silky Oak. 

 Chalkai-chiri... Myrtle. 



Chalkai is the Mallanpara term foi' anything big and so old 

 (and thus comes to be also applied to an old person). Grasses 

 and small shrubs are not put into groups or divisions. Indoed, 

 very little ap[)ears to be known concerning these groups, they 

 being referred to nowadays only ou particular occasions. For 

 instance, in m^' presence, in 1902, a man on the river-bank was 

 talking to my host, Mr. Brooke, of a canoe passing down the 

 stream which had lt>een manufactured from the liark of a Myrtle- 

 tree that was portion of his real estate ; lie spoke of the vessel, 

 not by the term kukai (signifying a canoe) but expressed himself 

 by saying, *' there goes my chalkai-chiri." These same Tully 

 River Natives do not classif}'^ the animals like the plants into 

 groups, but anything extra big, large, etc., anything out of the 

 common, with each kind of animal is spoken of V>y a different 

 name"". 



I iiavt! alrciidy recorded this in Bull. 2— Sect. 2— (note). 



