Tools & things made
Beeswax, gums and resins
Nothing in the old toolkit held together without cement. The spear point was bound and then sealed, the axe head was set in its haft, the woomera peg was fixed, the crack in a trough was mended and a broken twine was joined, all with gums and resins softened by heat, and with beeswax, nyumbirr or jila, from the native bees[1][2][3]. Kuku Yalanji people had several: yikari, which the dictionary calls 'hardened beeswax, hardened with ironwood root juice' and Roth the traded resin of the Canarium muelleri tree; the gum of the brown cedar, baked and pounded between stones; kanunjul, the grass-tree resin for pitching spear bindings; kulbawurr, the poisonous cypress-pine pitch once put on spear points; and the gum of the jalnji tree, 'used for making spears'[2][1]. Gum-cements were among the things the Bloomfield people made for trade[4]. Out west the cement was spinifex resin, pounded from the grass itself on a hot stone[1].
Hann River Cape York
Possum People's country on the upper river and Thaypan (Kuku Thaypan) country downstream: stringybark and bloodwood woodland and a spring-fed sandy river that runs north-east from the Great Dividing Range, past the Peninsula Developmental Road, into Rinyirru (Lakefield) and the North Kennedy. Not Kuku Yalanji country: the Kuku Yalanji words on this page are the dictionary's, not the Hann's own languages. Place guide
On the Hann the cements came from the open woodland: the root gum of the Cooktown ironwood, the resin of the grass tree, the red gum of the bloodwood, and wax from the sugarbag bees. Kuku Thaypan Elders call sugarbag, the honey, the hive and the bee together, Arear[6]. The sugarbag tree was looked after, not robbed: the Elders' way of taking honey left the nest to heal.
Where the gums come from here
The Atlas of Living Australia holds 54 records of Cooktown ironwood (Erythrophleum, 1970–2026), 15 of grass trees (Xanthorrhoea, 1968–2024) and 24 of Tetragonula stingless bees (1993–2026) in a box of about 90 × 85 km around the middle Hann, Laura and western Rinyirru[7]. Bloodwood grows along the Hann with stringybark, Moreton Bay ash and ironbark[8].
Across the Laura sandstone country Cooktown ironwood is 'a key cultural resource'. Its hollow trunks are a favoured home for native bees, and resin 'could also be harvested from the roots for use as a mastic'[9].
When to get it here
A Kuku Warra man from Laura told the Federal Court in 2023: 'The best time to get honey is now - getting close to winter. In the middle of winter, we cut the nest, and it is loaded with honey. The bees stop working in winter and they live off what they have made in the dry season.'[10]
Kuku Thaypan Elders mark the early dry, usually April or May on this side of Cape York, as the time the sugarbag bees 'begin to increase in number and activity'[6].
How people used them here
Bloodwood and grass-tree gum (Kuku Thaypan). Elder Dr George Musgrave, recorded in 2003, described the red gum that comes out of the bloodwood, and what the old people did with it: 'if you no gum they use that thing, mix em up the grass tree gum, mix em up. Turn it hard. You can tie the spear, or you can plug the, ah the, Mess Mate Bark (Stringy Bark bowl) anything leak like that'[6]. The Elders count the use of wax in weapons and in craft among the gifts of sugarbag[6].
Grass-tree resin (Kuku Warra, Laura). 'At the bottom of the black boy tree, you get a resin right down near the root. You take the root of the tree, cut it with a tomahawk, scrape the dirt off, heat the root on hot coals, and the resin or sap comes out of the root. You can mould the sap to bind things together.'[10]
Ironwood and beefwood gum (Laura, Palmer and Princess Charlotte Bay, about 1900). Roth saw ironwood root gum in use on the Laura and Palmer rivers and along the Princess Charlotte Bay coast. The root gum of Grevillea striata, the bastard beefwood, which people held to be 'the strongest and most durable of all their cements', was used in the same country; around Princess Charlotte Bay the Koko-wara and Koko-lama-lama called it aru-in and the Koko-rarmul arau-ang. The Princess Charlotte Bay people also had a second kind of smoothing-board with straight, finely serrated ends, for combing out fibre[1].
The same Kuku Warra man said there are two kinds of bee, and 'one is our totem bee'[10]. That knowledge belongs to its custodians.
Taking sugarbag the Kuku Thaypan way
From Dr Tommy George's teaching, recorded in the field in 2010[6]:
- Cut carefully, just below the nest entrance, so the nest is disturbed as little as possible and can repair itself.
- Soak the honey out with a mop: softened sugarbag grass fastened to the end of a stick, kwern enyarl apun, pushed in through the cut.
- Close the cut again with wax and grass (kwern), so the bees build back over it and stay.
- Keep the cut small: 'If the axe mark is big and a lot taken bees will go nest somewhere else.'
That is why active hives are found in old scars. Sugarbag trees were 'owned' by particular families, 'who would return periodically and monitor the hive'[9]. At Princess Charlotte Bay, Hale and Tindale recorded in 1933 a long lawyer cane frayed into a brush at one end, twisted inside the nest to bring out the honey and comb[9].
On country today
The upper Hann is in the Possum People's native title determination and the middle and lower Hann in the Thaypan determination, both of 2 November 2023[11][12]. A Thaypan and Possum man told the Court: 'I can take things like wood for any purpose. The old people traded with neighbours. There are strict rules that you don't take too much.'[12]
Old sugarbag scars are a record of who worked the trees, and hot late fires and clearing are destroying them: 'non-cultural burning and land-clearing practices represent ongoing threats'[9]. Leave scarred trees alone.
Upper Mitchell Western Yalanji
Western Yalanji country west of the Great Dividing Range: dry open woodland cut by the sandy, paperbark-lined upper Mitchell River, around Karma Waters and Mount Carbine. Place guide
Around Karma Waters the inland cement plants grow beside the woodland ones: spinifex on the stony ridges and ironwood in the open woodland[13].
Where the gums come from here
Ironwood is recorded around the upper Mitchell, and spinifex (Triodia), the inland cement grass, on the stoniest ground near Karma Waters[13]. The smoothing-board for levelling hot gum on a spear was in use on the Palmer and Mitchell rivers[1].
On country today
On Western Yalanji country, gathering gum and wax for your own use is part of native title holders' gathering right[5][14]. On a station, ask the Traditional Owners and the lessee first.
Eastern coast Eastern Kuku Yalanji
Eastern Kuku Yalanji country: rainforest, beaches, mangroves, reef and the short steep rivers from the Daintree to the Bloomfield and the Annan.
On the Bloomfield the cements came from the rainforest as well as the woodland: brown-cedar gum, the resin Roth heard called yikari, ironwood root gum, grass-tree gum and beeswax[1][3]. Most of what this page knows comes from here.
Where the gums come from here
Brown cedar and Canarium muelleri are rainforest trees of the Bloomfield and Daintree country[1][3].
Trade
The Bloomfield people exported 'several varieties of gum-cements' and red ochre, and took in stingray spears, shell ornaments and yellow ochre[4].
On country today
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bloomfield fishing spears still had their prong bindings covered with ironwood resin, or with car-battery 'tar', Araldite or asphalt: the job was the same and the material whatever was to hand[3].
Everywhere
Names
Beeswax: nyumbirr 'wax made by bees' and jila 'beeswax' (the same word means 'smell' and 'sweat')[2]. Roth's section on cements of animal origin records beeswax prepared across the north by 'roasting it in the rough over the fire, squeezing it a few times between the hands, and then alternately warming and hammering it'[1].
yikari: the dictionary says 'hardened beeswax, hardened with ironwood root juice. The juice is extracted by heating and is used to make spears'. Roth, writing of the resin of Canarium muelleri, says it is 'known to the Bloomfield River natives as yikari, is largely traded and bartered'. The two may be describing one cement with two ingredients, or two things under one name; both are kept here[2][1].
kanunjul: 'resin of grass tree, used to make pitch to seal spear bindings'. Roth's Bloomfield names for the grass-tree gum are tun-ja and kannojo-ol, the second plainly the same word[2][1]. See grass tree.
kulbawurr: 'the resin gum of the cypress pine which is poisonous. It was used on spears in the old days, the effect lasts about two hours'. Roth recorded a cement called kalbuwur 'obtained at the head of the Daintree River, from a tree in appearance something like the "shea-oak"', known by that name at Butcher's Hill and Cooktown too, 'but on the Bloomfield it is called chakki, the term applied to any gum'[2][1].
jalnji: a poison-nut tree whose 'gum from this tree is not poisonous, used for making spears'; Roth's Bloomfield t-chaln-ji was the brown-cedar gum 'used for fixing together the haft and shaft of spears, and in the old days was employed for fixing the stone-celt into its handle'[2][1]. julnji is 'tar from a tree used to make spears'; makul-makul 'tar, or something black as tar'[2].
Verbs and qualities: janbangal 'to glue or stick something, using pitch or glue'; janbay-manil 'to stick or glue something to something'; kalkandiji 'stuck, welded or glued together'; janbar 'sticky, also used for sticky honey'; nguyal 'sticky (as honey)'[2].
The cements, one by one
Brown-cedar gum (Canarium australasicum, 'brown cedar' or 'Mackay cedar'). On the Bloomfield, Roth wrote, 'the dry lumps of gum are gathered off the tree ... and are either wrapped in leaves and baked, or just warmed before a fire, and then pounded between two stones till pliable and soft enough for use'[1]. Anderson: it fixed spear points and axe hafts; mixed with beeswax it set the stone head in its lawyer-cane handle[3]. See brown cedar.
Canarium muelleri resin, Roth's yikari: 'in large tears', brittle, bright-fractured, melting easily and mouldable between the fingers; his chemist judged it 'would make an excellent cement'; 'largely traded and bartered'[1].
Grass-tree gum (Xanthorrhoea): 'found as it is in lumps in amongst the roots, only requires heating before use'; the dictionary's kanunjul, for pitching spear bindings. Anderson's Bloomfield consultants thought it did not bond as well as the tree gums, and preferred ironwood root gum[1][2][3].
Ironwood root gum: scraped from the exposed roots of the ironwood, tested first with a firestick to see whether the sticky coating would run, and the dictionary's hardener for yikari[3][2].
Kalbuwur / kulbawurr: hard lumps, purplish-brown in the break and black outside, softening slightly in warm water and readily in the flame, where it 'runs quickly, and takes fire readily; when thus melted it can be readily moulded, and sets hard quickly'; the dictionary adds that it is poisonous and was put on spear points[1][2].
Other gums: Canarium muelleri, a forest she-oak (Casuarina), Xanthorrhoea johnsonii and Grevillea striata gums were 'widely used' at Bloomfield[3]. The candlenut's oil was used to fix ochre on painted spears[1]. And one gum 'obtained from the inside of the hollow tree is roasted on the ashes and hammered: it is only used for the handle of the woomera to prevent it slipping from the hand'[1].
Spinifex resin (Triodia), the cement of the inland: 'the plant is gathered in large quantities, broken up into small pieces with the fingers, and still further disintegrated and pounded with stones: the lump so formed is next rolled over and over, pounded upon a heated flattened stone, and so, with the sticky matter in it, rendered down into a dullish brown-black pasty mass, which, soon hardening, is put by for subsequent use. No water, wax, or other ingredients are utilised'. 'Remarkably hard and firm', it 'only requires heat to soften it again' and fixed stone flakes into their handles[1].
Beeswax: roasted, squeezed, warmed and hammered; 'employed for sticking articles on the hair, fixing it up in throms, for mending fibre-twine, cracks in water-carriers, etc.'[1]. White clay mended cracks in water-carriers in the Brisbane district and set rock-hard[1].
Telling the gums apart
- Beeswax softens in the hand and smells of honey; it is the binder, rarely used alone on a tool[1].
- Brown-cedar gum comes as dry lumps on the trunk and must be baked or warmed and pounded before it will work[1].
- Canarium muelleri resin comes in big brittle tears with a glassy break, and melts easily[1].
- Grass-tree gum is in lumps among the roots of the grass tree, reddish, and needs only heat[1].
- Kulbawurr is black outside and purplish-brown inside, hard, and poisonous: do not use it on anything that touches food[1][2].
- Spinifex resin is brown-black, hard as rock, and made from grass rather than a tree[1].
- Bloodwood kino, the dark red sap of the bloodwood, is a medicine and a dye, not a cement.
Signs
- Lumps of gum on the trunk of a brown cedar; resin tears on a Canarium muelleri; red lumps in the butt of a grass tree[1].
- A bee's nest hole in a tree, bee dung at the base; see native bees[3].
- On an old spear or axe, a smooth dark collar of cement over the binding, levelled with the smoothing-board[1].
- The smoothing-board itself: 'a flat elongate thin piece of iron-wood ... 5 or 6 inches long', used by men to level the heated gum over a spear's binding, greased with sweat from the forehead before use, and found 'on the Bloomfield and Endeavour Rivers, along Princess Charlotte Bay, on the Palmer and Mitchell Rivers'[1].
Where the gums come from
Grass trees grow on the stony ridges; ironwood is a tree of the open woodland; spinifex (Triodia) is the cement grass of the stony inland country; and beeswax is wherever the bees are[1][3]. Which of these grow in each place, and who used them there, is under the place above.
What the cements hold together
Gum and wax sit between almost every pair of materials in the toolkit: stone to cane in the axe; barb to shaft and point to shaft in the spear; peg to woomera; bark to bark in a mended trough; fibre to fibre in a mended net; feather to hair and seed to hair in adornment; and ochre to wood when a spear was painted, fixed with candlenut oil[1][3]. They depend in turn on the bees, which depend on the blossom of the woodland; on the gum trees of the rainforest; on the grass tree; and on fire, since every cement is worked hot and the firestick came first[3][1].
Seasons
Beeswax came with the sugarbag season, the dry; gum lumps were gathered off the trees when found and kept, since all of them 'only require heat to soften' again; spear and axe work followed the materials, with the cane and timber cut after the storms[3][1]. See the year on country.
Uses
- Setting the stone head in an axe haft: beeswax mixed with brown-cedar resin at Bloomfield[3].
- Sealing the binding of a spear's barb, prongs or point: grass-tree pitch (kanunjul), brown-cedar gum, or yikari[2][1][3].
- Fixing the woomera's peg; a special roasted gum to stop the handle slipping[1].
- Mending twine and cracks in water-carriers with beeswax[1].
- Poison on spear points, in the old days: kulbawurr[2].
- Adornment: beeswax held seeds and small clay balls in the hair, and a cockatoo-crest head ornament, which the dictionary notes has ceremonial use and is left there[3][2].
- Fixing paint: candlenut oil for ochre on spears[1].
Preparing and using a gum-cement
From Roth's Bloomfield notes and Anderson's[1][3]:
- Gather dry lumps of brown-cedar gum off the trunk, or grass-tree gum from among the roots, or resin tears from a Canarium muelleri.
- Soften. Brown-cedar gum: wrap it in leaves and bake it in the ashes, or warm it before the fire. Grass-tree gum: heat only.
- Pound it between two stones until pliable; at Cooktown the stones were greased with the oily nut of Calophyllum so the gum did not stick[1].
- For a harder cement, mix. Beeswax (roasted, squeezed, warmed and hammered) with brown-cedar resin for an axe haft[3]; or, by the dictionary's recipe, beeswax hardened with ironwood root juice extracted by heating[2].
- Work it hot round the binding or into the haft.
- Level it with the smoothing-board, a flat ironwood blade greased with sweat, twirling the spear in the other hand[1].
- Let it set hard. Any of these cements can be re-softened with heat to repair the tool[1].
Spinifex resin (inland method): break the grass up small with the fingers, pound it with stones, roll and pound the lump on a heated flat stone until it renders down into a brown-black paste, and put it by to harden[1].
Safety
- Kulbawurr, the cypress-pine pitch, is poisonous and was used as a spear poison; keep it off food, skin and tools that touch either[2].
- Hot gum burns like toffee and sticks; the smoothing-board was the tool for a reason[1].
- Some of the resins 'take fire readily' in the flame[1].
- The smoke of brown cedar is said at Bloomfield to cause blindness, so do not burn its wood as a cooking fire while you prepare its gum[3].
On Country today
The trees, the bees and the grass trees are still on country. Gathering gum and wax for your own use is part of the gathering right of native title holders under section 211 of the Native Title Act 1993[5]. Everyone else needs the Traditional Owners' permission.
Language
nyumbirr 'wax made by bees'; jila 'beeswax'; yikari 'hardened beeswax, hardened with ironwood root juice'; kanunjul 'resin of grass tree'; kulbawurr 'the resin gum of the cypress pine which is poisonous'; jalnji the tree whose gum is 'used for making spears'; julnji 'tar from a tree used to make spears'; makul-makul 'tar'; janbangal 'to glue or stick something, using pitch or glue'; kalkandiji 'stuck, glued together'; janbar, nguyal 'sticky'; nganjirr 'grass tree'; jujabala 'ironwood tree'; mandi-mandi 'honeycomb'; the bees dabu and kuja[2].
References
- Roth, W. E. (1904). North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 7: Domestic implements, arts, and manufactures. Brisbane: Government Printer. — Sect. 10 'Fire-tongs' archive.org/details/northqueensland00landgoog
- Hershberger, H. D. & Hershberger, R. (1982). Kuku-Yalanji Dictionary. Work Papers of SIL-AAB, Series B, Volume 7. With Toby Bloomfield, Roy Friday, Billy Roberts, Hector and Doris Sykes, Joe Walker and others. www.sil.org/resources/archives/18038
- Anderson, C. (1996). Traditional material culture of the Kuku-Yalanji of Bloomfield River, North Queensland. Records of the South Australian Museum 29(1): 63–83. Based on fieldwork at Wujal Wujal in the late 1970s and early 1980s. — Hunting (spears, spear-throwers, harpoons); fishing (stupefacients); manufacturing (gums and resins); post-contact bush component archive.org/details/RecordsSouthAus29Sout
- Roth, W. E. (1910). North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 14: Transport and Trade. Records of the Australian Museum 8(1). — Sects. 14–15, dug-out canoes from the Flinders Group to Cape Grafton archive.org/details/biostor-52863
- Australian Law Reform Commission. Review of the Native Title Act 1993 (DP 82), ch. 8: Relevant provisions in the Native Title Act (s 211). www.alrc.gov.au/publication/review-of-the-native-title-act-1993-dp-82/8-the-nature-and-content-of-native-title/relevant-provisions-in-the-native-title-act/
- Standley, P.-M. (2019). The importance of campfires to effective conservation. PhD thesis, James Cook University. Records the fire and country knowledge of Kuku Thaypan Elders Dr Tommy George and Dr George Musgrave. — Ch. 6 (Arear sugarbag; early dry season indicators; Dr Tommy George on harvesting, 2010); ch. 9 (Dr George Musgrave on bloodwood and grass-tree gum, recorded by V. Steffensen 2003) researchonline.jcu.edu.au/64274/
- Atlas of Living Australia. Occurrence records of Erythrophleum (54 records, 1970–2026), Xanthorrhoea (15 records, 1968–2024) and Tetragonula (24 records, 1993–2026) in a box of about 90 × 85 km around the middle Hann River, Laura and western Rinyirru (lat −15.6 to −14.8, long 143.5 to 144.3), queried 28 October 2026. biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?q=genus%3AErythrophleum
- Wikipedia. Hann River (Queensland) (accessed 28 October 2026). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hann_River_(Queensland)
- Wallis, L. A., Burke, H., Dardengo, M., Morgan, C., Cole, N., Marsh, S., Lee Cheu, P., Lowdown, S., Lowdown, J., Callaghan, C., Naylor, M., Naylor, M., Hart, R., Walker, P., Barker, B. & Pagels, A. (2024). A preliminary study of culturally modified sugarbag trees in the Laura Sandstone Basin, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Queensland Archaeological Research 27: 21–39. doi.org/10.25120/qar.27.2024.4093
- Ross on behalf of the Cape York United #1 Claim Group v State of Queensland (No 19) (Kuku Warra determination) [2023] FCA 1314 (Federal Court of Australia, 2 November 2023). — Evidence of Joseph Lee Cheu (honey; grass-tree resin; bees) www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2023/2023fca1314
- Ross on behalf of the Cape York United #1 Claim Group v State of Queensland (No 21) (Possum determination) [2023] FCA 1316 (Federal Court of Australia, 2 November 2023). — Determination area (upper Hann and Kennedy rivers); prescribed body corporate; affidavit evidence on hunting and fishing www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2023/2023fca1316
- Ross on behalf of the Cape York United #1 Claim Group v State of Queensland (No 20) (Thaypan determination) [2023] FCA 1315 (Federal Court of Australia, 2 November 2023). — Determination area; evidence of Bruce Clem Meldrum on taking resources www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2023/2023fca1315
- Atlas of Living Australia. Plant occurrence records within 30 km of the Karma Waters homestead (16.62°S, 144.60°E), queried 10 October 2026: 832 records of 266 species. biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?q=kingdom:Plantae&lat=-16.62&lon=144.60&radius=30
- Western Yalanji Aboriginal Corporation & CRC for Developing Northern Australia (2020). Western Yalanji Land Use and Economic Diversification Plan. CC BY 4.0. — Native Title Determinations 1–4 (pp. 13–18); ‘Fire Management and Carbon Farming’ (pp. 32–33); ‘Pastoralists’ crcna.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/westernyalanjilanduseplan_nov2020.pdf
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