ON FISH POISONING AND POISONS 

 EMPLOYED AMONG THE ABORIGINES OF 

 QUEENSLAND. 



By R. Hamlyn-Harris, D.Sc, F.L.S., Etc., and Frank Smith, B.Sc.,F.I.C. 

 (Plates IV. and V. and One Text-figure.) 



The practice of employing vegetable poisons for stupefying or killing fish 

 is by no means confined to the aboriginal inhabitants of North-Eastern Australia, 

 but is in vogue almost universally and dates back to ancient tiines ; the method 

 did not even escape the notice of the wily English poacher. 



We find similar methods to those adopted here practised in other parts 

 of Australia, viz., New South Wales, Victoria, Northern Territory, and Western 

 Australia. Central and South Australia are excepted, local conditions being 

 generally unfavourable to their application ; whilst the Tasmanians never used 

 fish-poisons at all ; they never attempted to catch fish at any time, strange as it 

 may appear, and confined their attention to the taking of shellfish, crays, and 

 mussels. (Beattie.) 



As far as South and Central Australia are concerned, Professor E. C. 

 Stirling says : " I have no knowledge that fish-poisons are used in these regions. 

 I never heard of the practice during my two visits to the MacDonnell Ranges, 

 where from the localised and restricted conditions of the waters it might be 

 practicable ; and I have recently had my own opinion confirmed by the more 

 extended knowledge of an observant friend who spent many years in the 

 MacDonnells. The natives there do, however, poison with pituri the waters 

 where emus drink. In the southern parts of South Australia, where the fish are 

 got from the large lakes and River Murray, the practice would be impossible. ' ' 



With reference to Western Australia we know very little ; such mention 

 of fish-poisons as E. Clement favours us with when he says ''fish is caught either 

 with nets or are stupefied by a plant called 'Kurrurru' which is placed into the 

 pools''^ is of little more scientific value than a record, since probably by this time 

 the identity of the plant is unfortunately lost. 



Going further afield, we find that their use was known in Malaysia to a 

 considerable degree, to parts of Polynesia and Melanesia, India, South Africa, 

 South America, and amongst the North American Indians. 



Expert navigators and canoe-builders such as the Maoris never used 

 them. Fish are very plentiful all around the coast, and they probably never 



^ " Ethnological Notes on the Western Australian Aboriginals," publications of the Royal 

 Ethnographical Museum at Leyden, series 2, No. 6, reprinted from International Archiv. fiir 

 Ethnographic, vol. 16, 1903. 



