IN THE DESERT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 37, 13 February 1930, Page 28

IN THE DESERT

WATER-BEARING TREES POINTS WORTH KNOWING There are many large areas of timbered country i,n Australia which have proved deathtraps to white prospectors and explorers who did not know that a supply of precious water lay hidden in the roots or trunks of certain trees, especially the gmutree of the Mallee (writes Daisy M. Bates, iv the "Argus"). A native "mob" can sit down for days and weeks in a mallee patch and satisfy their daily thirst from the roots of these trees. There is one such area oi mallee, called by the natives yaggala gabbi, or nabbari gabbi, from the two main species of eucalyptus growing there. This area is directly in the track of the wild natives coming down to Ooldea Water from their Centra] Australian waters. Though they have been coming down steadily into civilisation since the first white explorer showed them the southern road out of their own country, the root waters of yaggala and nabbari are not yet exhausted, for a new wild mob is camping in that area to;day on its way down to Ooldea from North Central Australia. WATER-BEARING ROOTS. Yaggala is the red mallee, nabbari a white species. The roots run laterally for about 30ft or 40ft, and they are an inch or an inch and a half in diameter. ■ The • nativo chips at the lateral root, close to the trunk, with his flint set in the handle-end of his spear-thrower, and pulling up the root along its length he cuts it into pieces a foot long, puts these end up, into a wooden scoop,-and drinks "direct from the wood." I have obtained nearly two quarts of water from one of these lateral roots. All water-bearing roots are porous, with one or two exceptions. Of the water-bearing mallees or gumtrees there are the yaggala and nabbari, the most plentiful of all; the mindire, called nabbari 's mate by civilised Central Australians;.the yuldu-gur and 11-baia, also "like nabbari"; the mijjing, "like red yaggala"; the wal-u-gurra, "like nabbari';; the ba;ra, which has gabbi boolga, much of the "big lot" of water, and which is "like bung-gal"— a species of mallee from which the bung-gal spear is made. Yarrain is a "hill" tree, probably a water-bearing mallee, and ngalda> or kurrajong, yields both water from its trunk and food from its seed-pods. The hollowed trunks arc called nari-dabiri. \Kooli, the sheoak,. the name of which comes from as far west as Geraldton and goes east toward Oodnadatta, has also a good supply of water stored in its roots. The tall, slender kooli yields the most water. . Central Australian natives had no axes with handles, or neolithic ground implements, but with . their chipped flints stuck in the handle-end of their meero, or spear-thrower, they made certain directed ~ cuts on the ngalda trunk, so that when the water was "struck" it should fall over the meero handle, which was left in the cut until the water had all been collected in the weerra, or wooden scoop, held in readiness. A marda (something like a bamboo stem) was then inserted, and the remaining water was sucked up with its aid. . . ' , BLESSING TOR TRAVELLERS. , Most of these water-bearing trees are scattered over the dry centra! areas; all the names are Central Australian. In the Eucla area.there were tw^o species of mallee called ugalla and kosn-u. The ngalla had not only water-bearing roots, but there were times when water oozed in full raindrops from, its leaves. I gathered half a. bucketful from a ngalla growing beside my tent near Eucla in 1913. The fall of water, came suddenly and unexpectedly from one branch only. I had not known ■ bofore that water would force itself through tree leaves, and when I called old Nalja to explain the matter he said that Boong-gala, who had just died, had sent me the little downpour from his totem tree, the ngalla being, both Boung-gala's and Nalja's totem. During- the remaindor of my stay at the Euela camp—about a year-y-no other downpour came frmn the ngalla leaves. Nalja war the last ngalla water malice totem man, of the Yirgilia area. The bark of the ko'ngu was sweet-tasting, and it formed one of the vegetable foods of the JSucla group. Its roots did not contain water. The importance of these water-bear-ing trees in otherwise arid areas is shown among the native groups by their adoption as the totems of the group. In the Eucla area specially, where the ngalla trees were plentiful, the ngalla totem group during long droughts bartered their ngalla root water with the kong-u and ngoora totem groups. Ngoora is a species of wild currant, very plentiful on the flats between the sea and the cliffs.near Eucla. When fruit and bark were exhausted and the drought ■ continued, a human victim from one or other of the food totem groups was given in exchange for the precious water.