4 MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 



unidentified specimen as a stimulating or perhaps sedative medicine. Asclepias 

 curassavica is regarded as possessing virtue as a love-charm in the Pennefather 

 district. Medicinal property was also attributed to the leaves of Careya 

 australis. The recognition of the superior efficacy of portions of certain plants 

 for the purpose designed is evident. The bark alone of Cupania pseudorhus is 

 utilised by the Cardwell and Hull River natives, and the experiments of the 

 authors demonstrate the leaves to be non-toxic and saponin-free. 



Similarly, the stem of Derris uliginosa, widely employed, is toxic, the 

 leaves ineffective. The frequent preference for barks as fish-poisons may be 

 surmised to be due to experience of their higher efficiency, as would be expected 

 from the storage therein of excretory products of a toxic nature. The use of the 

 roots of Tcphrosia rosea in the Mapoon locality to the exclusion of the aerial 

 parts cannot, however, be accounted for on similar grounds, as both root and 

 stem are, according to the authors' trials, equally efficacious. 



The recorded differential use of certain plants or parts of plants in fresh 

 or salt water is not readily explicable. There is no reason, in the nature of 

 the toxic principle involved, for the restriction of the employment of Derris 

 idiginosa — which is elsewhere used indiscriminately — by the Cardwell natives 

 to fresh waterholes; nor is it apparent why, as stated by James Murrell,^ the 

 bark of the stem of the "broad-leafed apple-tree" ("Barkabah") was used in 

 fresh water and the bark of the root in salt. The repeated statements of corres- 

 pondents that a material was utilised either in fresh or salt water, or only in 

 one or tlie other, would indicate that such a differentiation was clearly drawTi, 

 and the statement "No good in salt wata, he grow there, earn kill fish!" though 

 obviously logically at fault, furnishes, nevertheless, an instructive example of 

 aboriginal reasoning. E. J. Banfield, however, informs us that the poisons Derris 

 tdiginosa, Faradaya splendida, and Careya australis were used at Dunk Island 

 almost solely in salt water, for, except for the eel, the fish in freshwater pools are 

 too insignificant even for the blacks. Neither is the reason of the special method 

 of preparation recorded for Cupania pseudorhus (baking in the native oven), or 

 of such procedure as rubbing the bark of Faradaya splendida on heated stones, 

 obvious. The nature of the active principle does not permit of elaboration by 

 such means, which had originally perhaps only ceremonial import. The method 

 of application is universally in Queensland by infusion in the habitat, the poison 

 hecoming active through subsequent absorption through the respiratory organs. 

 The method consequently restricts the practice of the art to water of small 

 dimensions; elsewhere it is not an infrequent custom to throw fragments of the 

 more poisonous portions of the plant into the water, thereby inducing the fish 

 to swallow them with fatal result. One such instance is to be found in the 

 methods of the Bismarck Archipelago Islanders.* The seeds of Barringtonia 

 speciosa are ground and thrown into water, when fish snap at them and become 

 stupefied. 



In the Gazelle Peninsula^ (Matupi) poisoning is effected by means of 

 small fish whose stomachs are filled with vine-roots pounded; the larger sea-fish 

 then take them and become intoxicated. Sometimes, as is the case in Samoa.'' 



^ * Edmimd Gregory, Narrative of James Mvurrell's Seventeen Years' Exile, &c., Brisbane, 

 1896 (1863). 



J* Biro Lajos. Daten zur Schiffahrt und Fisherei der Bismarck-insulaner. Anzeiger der 

 Ethnographischen Abteilimg der Ungarischen National -Museums. Biida Pest 1905, p. 57. 

 •'^ R. Parkinson, Dreissig Jahre in der Siidsee, 1907, p. 101. 

 •> « George Brown, D.D., Melanesians and Polynesians, 1910. 



