Tools & things made
Digging sticks (juwal)
The juwal is the yam stick, and the dictionary gives it the same word as the yam: a staff of strong, heavy wood, two to five feet long, flattened to a spade at one end and hardened in the fire, that a woman carried everywhere and would not lend[1][2][3]. Roth, who recorded it at the Bloomfield as tchu-al, called the digging stick 'essentially women's implements, carried about by them, and employed for digging up "yams," roots, etc.', and noted that its 'almost universal pattern' made it 'admirably suited for the purpose': the thin spade end 'easily finds its way down when stuck into the ground, and not only offers increased leverage in loosening the soil, but also assists in shovelling it to the surface'[2]. Ion Idriess, who lived at Bloomfield before the First World War, saw it do much more: 'as a digging stick for uprooting vegetable foods, as a prodder and lever for forcing small animals (snakes, lizards, birds) from log or burrow or tunnel in river bank ... Primarily, though, it is a digger of yams ... About five feet long, a heavy, well-seasoned staff of hardwood, it tapers at one end to a point, and this makes a very efficient tool'[3]. By 1873 an iron rod was doing the job at Bloomfield, and in the 1970s 'a shortened and sharpened crowbar'[3].
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 yam stick's work is in the sandy woodland. Thaypan people's foods include 'bally yams that grow on a long stem, bush carrot and bush potato'[9], and the Kuku Thaypan Elders' sandy mixed-tree country has 'a diverse understory of brachychiton and yams', with Ku morteal, the Cooktown ironwood, growing over them[10]. The oldest written record of yams being dug and prepared in this country is Roth's, from the Morehead and Musgrave rivers about 1900[11].
Yams and timber here
The Elders' mixed-tree country, 'on slightly elevated light sandy soil', has bloodwood and Ku morteal (Erythrophleum chlorostachys, Cooktown ironwood) over 'a diverse understory of brachychiton and yams'; its trees and plants have uses 'in arts, crafts, weaponry, food, hunting and ceremony'[10]. Ironwood is the timber Roth names first for digging sticks, 'where generally available'[2], and here it is: the Atlas of Living Australia holds 50 Cooktown ironwood records, 1970–2026, in a box of about 90 × 85 km around the middle Hann, Laura and western Rinyirru. It holds only one record each of a yam (Dioscorea bulbifera) and of arrowroot (Tacca leontopetaloides) in the same box, both from 2012[12]; the Atlas records where collectors have been, not how many yams there are.
When to dig here
In the Elders' fire calendar, 'Yam finished growth' is one of the signs, with the gum trees flowering and 'lillies and orchids growing', that the time for early burning has come[10]. Their fires are lit to spare the yams: one photograph shows 'a cool fire that has burnt the dead grass around the yams, enabling them room to spread'[10].
Yams and arrowroot on the Morehead and Musgrave (Roth, about 1900)
These rivers run, like the Hann, to Princess Charlotte Bay. What Roth saw there[11]:
Round yam (Dioscorea sativa var. rotunda, Morehead River):
- Cut the rootstocks 'into halves or quarters' and wash them in a bark trough.
- Bake them 'in a hot ant-bed covered with tea-tree bark and earth' for about twenty minutes, until soft.
- Put them in a grass dilly bag and squeeze it under water in a trough; the meal passes through, and the bag and what is left in it are thrown aside.
- Let it settle, pour the water off, add more, and repeat 'some four or five times'.
- Pour the watery meal down a piece of bark into a basin hollowed in the sand, so the water drains away. 'As soon as fairly dry it is eaten.'
Arrowroot (Tacca, Morehead and Musgrave rivers): the tubers were 'rubbed up against a rough stick' like a nutmeg-grater into a bark trough of water, squeezed through an infolded dilly-bag into fresh water, settled and washed, and the sediment 'cooked in hot ashes like a "damper"'.
See leaching and yams. These are what Roth saw about 1900, not tested recipes: ask the Traditional Owners which yams are safe and how.
On country today
The upper Hann is the Possum People's country and the middle and lower Hann are Thaypan country, under the Federal Court determinations of 2 November 2023[13][9]; downstream, Rinyirru is jointly managed by the Rinyirru Aboriginal Corporation and the Queensland Government[14]. Native title holders may gather for personal, domestic and non-commercial communal needs without the licences others need[15]. Anyone else digging or cutting timber needs the Traditional Owners' permission.
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
On the open sandy woodland of Karma Waters, where the long yam Dioscorea transversa is recorded, it is the first tool to make[16][3].
Yam country here
Anderson's yam country, sandy-soiled open forest by swamps, rivers and creeks, is the Karma Waters sand country exactly[3][17].
Timber here
At Karma Waters that means the ironwood, jujabala, which is recorded within 60 km of the homestead, and the hard eucalypts of the woodland: the ironbarks and bloodwoods[18][17][1].
What it digs here
The Australian Museum has freshwater mussels from the Mitchell near Karma Waters, the kind that live in the sand of the pools[19].
Permission here
Cutting a limb on the station is a matter for the lessee's permission[20].
On country today
The yam country the juwal was made for is the sand of the Mitchell. Gathering is recognised in the Western Yalanji determinations[21].
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.
The juwal is the Bloomfield's yam stick, and most of what is written about it above comes from the Bloomfield[2][3].
On country today
In the late 1970s at Bloomfield 'bush vegetables were dug using mainly steel digging sticks, often a shortened and sharpened crowbar', and the yams were still processed[3].
Everywhere
Names
juwal is 'yam or digging stick', one word for the food and the tool; Roth's Bloomfield name for the digging stick, tchu-al, is the same word in his spelling[1][2]. bakal is 'dig', and also 'stab, prick'[1]. Roth found that 'the local names for digging-sticks are apparently independent of the timbers employed', and set the Bloomfield tchu-al beside the Cape Bedford dirm-ba and gana, the Pennefather kirtru, and the Princess Charlotte Bay kallara, which 'is the name of a "yam"' there too[2]. The things it digs: kawu 'yam'; wukay the hairy yam that 'must be cooked, ground and leached before eating'; biyangkal, roasted, ground and leached 'before it can be safely eaten'; wawukuna 'long wild yam'; bambayal 'a long thin variety of yam'; banjay, 'small and round ... roasted in the fire, ground up and eaten. Given to the child to make it talk'; kalkurr, warrabuka and wubali, species of wild yam; and ngakun, a yam that is also the flame tree whose flowering 'signals the time when the scrub hen eggs are in season'[1]. See yams.
The tool
Roth's description, from across North Queensland with the Bloomfield name attached[2]: 'Made of some strong and heavy timber, between 2 and 4 feet long, the attenuated spatulate extremity easily finds its way down when stuck into the ground, and not only offers increased leverage in loosening the soil, but also assists in shovelling it to the surface, when the operator exercises the usual to-and-fro movement. To harden the extremity it is often charred with fire. In the neighbourhood of civilisation the spatulate extremity has come to be replaced by a length of rounded scrap-iron, sometimes even a table-knife blade, firmly cemented into a handle.' A broken spear-tip might serve as a digging stick. 'The timber out of which digging-sticks are made comes from the harder species of mangrove, and eucalypt, and from "iron-wood" where generally available'; on the Endeavour River it was the mangrove Scyphiphora hydrophyllacea. 'The handle of the weapon is often to be seen decorated with red and white paint in bands, or one colour alone may just be smeared on indiscriminately'; Pennefather women fixed the paint with beeswax, and used honey as the medium for the pigment[2].
Idriess's Bloomfield stick was longer and pointed rather than spade-ended: 'About five feet long, a heavy, well-seasoned staff of hardwood, it tapers at one end to a point, and this makes a very efficient tool'[3]. Anderson calls it 'one of the most important subsistence tools at Bloomfield' and records that 'the palm fibre dilly-bags and yam sticks for women and the net-bags, spear throwers and spears for men, were all considered personal items and would not normally be lent to others'[3]. In the settled fights of the camp, 'men used fighting sticks and women used their yam sticks. ... There are several eyewitness accounts of women fighting using yam sticks'[3]. Iron came early: in 1873 William Hann 'found in a camp at Bloomfield "pieces of iron, and amongst them a rod of the same metal, about three feet in length, evidently used as a yam stick"'; by 1904 iron or a table knife was being cemented into the end of a digging stick; and Cape Bedford was exporting iron digging-sticks along the coast[3][2][4].
Digging stick, fighting stick, crowbar
- The yam stick is a woman's: heavy, spade- or point-ended, fire-hardened, carried from camp to camp[2][3].
- The man's fighting stick is a different thing, used in the same settled fights; a Bloomfield one is in the Australian Museum[3][5].
- A broken spear will dig in a pinch[2].
- The pointed Wellesley Islands stick, 'acicular', is the exception to the spade pattern[2].
- The iron rod of 1873, the knife-bladed stick of 1904, and the sharpened crowbar of the 1970s are the same tool in a new material; a crowbar is heavier than it needs to be and does not float[3][2].
- The adze hollows; the digging stick levers.
Signs
- Yam country: Anderson's yams 'grew in the sandy-soiled, open forest country, on the edges of swamps and on the river and creek banks'[3].
- The vine: the long yam's climbing stem on a sapling, dying back in the dry, marks where to dig; see yams[6].
- Dug ground: narrow deep holes beside a dead vine, and heaps of roots gathered 'ready for preparation' at a camp[2].
- A log or bank being worked: the prodder's job for lizards, snakes and birds[3].
- The stick itself: polished handle, charred blackened tip, red and white bands[2].
Timber
'The harder species of mangrove, and eucalypt, and ... "iron-wood" where generally available'[2]. Roth's Endeavour River stick was a mangrove, and on the Pennefather an Acacia; any straight limb of a dense, heavy wood that will take and hold a fire-hardened edge is the right one[2].
What the stick gets at
Underground is a store that only the stick opens. Yams and the other tubers 'through to November' on the sandy flats; the zamia and the big roots that go to the leaching pits; witchetty grubs in the roots of the trees; goannas in their burrows, lizards and snakes in logs, birds in tunnels in the river bank, which Idriess saw it lever out; freshwater mussels in the sand of the pools; and water itself, dug for in a dry sand bed[3][1].
Seasons
The yam stick's year is the dry: tubers and yams from the end of the wet through to November, the long yam dug when its vine has died back and marks the spot, the zamia from July[3][6]. New sticks are cut with the other timber work after the first storms, and seasoned; Idriess's stick was 'well-seasoned'[3]. See the year on country.
Uses
- Digging yams, roots and tubers: 'primarily ... a digger of yams'[3][2].
- Levering small animals from logs, burrows and bank tunnels[3].
- Getting at water in sand[3].
- A woman's weapon in the settled fights of the camp[3].
- A walking staff and a carrying pole; the one tool that went everywhere with its owner[3][2].
Making and using a juwal
From Roth, Idriess and Anderson[2][3]:
- Cut a straight limb of ironwood or a hard eucalypt, as thick as a wrist, between two and five feet long[2][3].
- Season it: a green stick is light and bruises; Idriess's was 'a heavy, well-seasoned staff'[3].
- Shape the working end to a flat spade (Roth's 'attenuated spatulate extremity') or a point, with shell, stone or a knife[2][3].
- Harden the end by charring it in the fire, and scrape the char back to hard wood[2].
- Paint the handle in red and white bands if you like; the Pennefather women fixed the paint with beeswax[2].
- Dig by stabbing the spade end down beside the yam, levering with 'the usual to-and-fro movement' to loosen the soil, and shovelling it up with the flat; follow the tuber down rather than pulling it[2].
- An iron end: a length of rounded iron or an old knife blade cemented into a wooden handle was the 1904 version, and a cut-down sharpened crowbar the 1970s one[2][3].
Then the yams go to the earth oven, and the bitter and hairy ones through roasting, grinding and leaching[1][3].
Safety
- Snakes are among the things the stick levers out of logs and burrows; keep the stick between you and the hole, and know snakes[3].
- Wukay and biyangkal are poisonous until processed; the digging is the easy part of the yam[1].
- Do not dig at scarred trees, stone arrangements or any place that looks made; cultural heritage carries a duty of care under the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003[7].
- Cutting a limb on someone's land is a matter for the Traditional Owners and the landholder; see each place below.
On Country today
The wooden juwal is a quick thing to make. Gathering on native title country is a right protected by section 211 of the Native Title Act 1993[8]; how each determination words it is under each place below.
Language
juwal 'yam or digging stick'; bakal 'dig; stab, prick'; kawu 'yam'; wukay 'hairy yam'; biyangkal a yam to be roasted, ground and leached; wawukuna 'long wild yam'; bambayal 'a long thin variety of yam'; banjay a small round yam; kalkurr, warrabuka, wubali wild yams; ngakun a yam, also the flame tree; jujabala 'ironwood tree'[1].
References
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Khan, K. (1993). Catalogue of the Roth Collection of Aboriginal artefacts from north Queensland. Volume 1: Items collected from Archer River, Atherton, Bathurst Head, Bloomfield River and Butcher's Hill, 1897–1901. Technical Reports of the Australian Museum 10: 1–205. — Bloomfield River: 'Woven bag' E.14833; 'Non-folding oval frame fishing net' E.14959 doi.org/10.3853/j.1031-8062.10.1993.69
- Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants (RFK8), Dioscorea transversa. CSIRO / Lucidcentral. apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/entities/Dioscorea_transversa.htm
- Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 (Qld), sections 23–25 (cultural heritage duty of care; harming, excavating, relocating or taking away Aboriginal cultural heritage). www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2003-079
- 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/
- 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 and waters; prescribed body corporate (Awu-Laya Indigenous Corporation); affidavit evidence on hunting www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2023/2023fca1315
- 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. — Cool burns around yams (pp. 318, 323); fire-calendar indicators (p. 383); mixed-tree country with Ku morteal Cooktown ironwood and yams (pp. 414–416) researchonline.jcu.edu.au/64274/
- Roth, W. E. (1901). North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 3: Food — its search, capture, and preparation. Brisbane: Government Printer. — Plant list, 'Dioscorea sativa var. rotunda' (Morehead River preparation) and 'Tacca pinnatifida' (Morehead and Musgrave rivers) archive.org/details/northqueensland00landgoog
- Atlas of Living Australia. Occurrence records 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: Erythrophleum chlorostachys 50 records (1970–2026); Dioscorea bulbifera 1 (2012); Tacca leontopetaloides 1 (2012). biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?q=genus%3AErythrophleum
- 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
- Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Nature, culture and history: Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park (CYPAL) (web page, last updated 1 July 2024; accessed 28 October 2026). parks.qld.gov.au/parks/rinyirru-lakefield/about/culture
- Native Title Act 1993 (Cth), section 211: preservation of certain native title rights and interests (hunting, fishing and gathering for personal, domestic or non-commercial communal needs). www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A04665/latest/text
- Australian Tropical Herbarium specimen QRS 59883.1, Dioscorea transversa, collected 1979, State Forest Reserve 144 (Mount Windsor Tableland), about 16.28°S 145.08°E. Atlas of Living Australia. biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/f1c7a1e4-9c85-471c-9e40-77cc7431ed84
- Queensland Herbarium, Regional Ecosystem 9.11.26 (Einasleigh Uplands): Eucalyptus leptophleba and/or E. cullenii and/or Corymbia clarksoniana +/- E. platyphylla woodland on undulating terrain to rolling hills. Fire management guidelines. Queensland Government Regional Ecosystem Description Database. apps.des.qld.gov.au/regional-ecosystems/details/?re=9.11.26
- Atlas of Living Australia. Occurrence records of Erythrophleum within 30 km and 60 km of the Karma Waters homestead (16.618° S, 144.605° E), queried 6 October 2026 (none within 30 km; 42 within 60 km, 39 of them E. chlorostachys). biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?q=genus%3AErythrophleum&lat=-16.6179&lon=144.6047&radius=60
- Australian Museum specimen, Velesunio angasi, Mitchell River at about 16.65° S, 144.68° E, collected 1916. Atlas of Living Australia. biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/5f751ec4-88f1-4b7f-be38-9d915a49c5ff
- Karma Waters Station. About: location, native title (web page, accessed 5 October 2026). www.karmawatersstation.com/about.html
- 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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