Foods & cooking
Earth oven
kurrma · bangkal · dukul-dukul · jidu · dindal · wayjul · waju-l · nyamal · muyu wayjul
The kurrma is the earth oven: a pit of hot stones, lined and covered with leaves, then sealed with earth[1]. On the Bloomfield River and at Cape Bedford, Roth recorded that the stones were heated in a fire and pulled out with the ashes. A hole was dug where the fire had been and lined with ginger leaves, and the food was packed in among the hot stones. It was then covered with more leaves or tea-tree bark and finally with earth and stones[2]. The hot stones were handled with bangkal, tongs of bent cane[1][3]. The oven baked meat, yams and the poisonous nuts that had to be cooked before leaching. On the Bloomfield, yams took about four hours[2].
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
The earth oven belongs to the Hann country too. In Kuku Thaypan country termite mounds 'were also used to make earth ovens', and charcoal (Ku nari) from old earth ovens still lies on country[8]. On the Morehead River, north of the Hann in Thaypan country and Rinyirru, Roth recorded yams 'baked in a hot ant-bed covered with tea-tree bark and earth'[2][9].
Stones, ant-bed and wood here
- Ant-bed. This is termite-mound country. The open grassy plains of Kuku Thaypan country 'often contain large termite mounds, both magnetic and rounded'[8], and the mound itself made the oven: 'Termite mounds were also used to make earth ovens'[8].
- Cooking wood. Of the boxwood (Ku ronga, Molloy red box), which grows on the floodplains of the Hann, the Kuku Thaypan Elders' record says: 'This timber burns hot and makes good coals for fire and cooking'[8].
- Cover. Tea-tree (paperbark) bark and earth, as in Roth's Morehead record[2].
How it was done here
Yams in an ant-bed oven (Morehead River, about 1900), as Roth recorded it[2]:
- Cut the yam 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'.
- Leave them about twenty minutes, until soft.
- Put them into a grass dilly-bag and squeeze it under water in a trough; 'the mealy substance' passes through the bag into the water.
That is far quicker than the four hours a Bloomfield stone oven took for yams[2]. See yam for the plant.
On country today
Where the Thaypan and Possum native title is non-exclusive, the native title holders' rights include to 'light fires on the area for cultural, spiritual or domestic purposes including cooking, but not for the purpose of hunting or clearing vegetation'[9][10].
Old ovens are records of people. The Kuku Thaypan Elders' research counts old earth ovens among the signs of people living on country, signs that 'are culturally significant to Indigenous people as they are records of their people and their practice'[8]. Leave old oven sites, charcoal and stones as they are: harming Aboriginal cultural heritage is an offence in Queensland[11]. In Rinyirru, the Traditional Owners give the direction on how cultural sites and places are managed[12].
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 Western Yalanji country the inland woodland is ant-bed country, where chunks of termite mound could take the place of stones[2].
The oven here
This is a method for open termite-mound country like the inland woodland of Western Yalanji country. Roth recorded chunks of ant-bed heated instead of stones where stones were scarce[2].
On country today
On Western Yalanji country the 2026 determination recognised rights to access Country, camp, hunt, fish and gather over most of the area[13].
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 Eastern Kuku Yalanji country the kurrma is the Bloomfield oven described above: stones heated in the fire, a pit lined with ginger leaves, and the food sealed in under leaves, bark and earth[2][1].
On country today
Much of Eastern Kuku Yalanji country between Mossman and Cooktown is now national park handed back to Traditional Owners in 2021 and jointly managed with QPWS[14]. Digging ovens and lighting fires there is a matter for Traditional Owners and the joint managers, not for visitors.
Everywhere
Names
Kurrma is the earth oven[1]. Roth's Bloomfield record, in his English-based 1901 spelling, gives kurma for the stones heated for it[2]. The dictionary also names the things used with it. Bangkal are tongs 'made from voya vine, used in cooking in a kurrma'. Dukul-dukul is a broad-leafed bush used as the oven's cover. Jidu is a scrub plant whose long leaves line the oven[1].
The cooking verbs are wayjul or waju-l 'to cook, burn', dindal 'to roast on coals', nyamal 'to boil' and muyu wayjul 'singeing the hair of the pig before cooking'[1]. Food that is jani is 'well cooked, done', and food that is jirra is burnt[1].
Description
An earth oven bakes and steams food with stored heat. Stones heated in an open fire are buried with the food in a leaf-lined pit and sealed in with earth. Roth found the method 'varies slightly in the different districts'. Where there were no stones, chunks of ant-bed (termite mound) were heated instead[2]. Seeds of the waterlily were likewise baked in their pods in 'ovens' of stones or pieces of ant-bed, covered with strips of tea-tree bark, ashes and sand[2]. Kuku Yalanji names both a small ant bed, kabay, and a large one, jawurraji[1].
Roth says the Bloomfield ovens were lined with 'various species of ginger'[2]. In his Bloomfield plant list the wild ginger Elettaria scottiana is called jeddo (Roth's spelling)[2]. That plant is now Hornstedtia scottiana, Scott's ginger, still known in English as jiddo. It is a large ginger 2–4 m tall with lance-shaped leaves 40–70 cm long, growing in lowland rainforest[4]. This fits the dictionary's description of jidu as a bushy scrub plant with long leaves used to line a kurrma[1].
Where the materials come from
- Stones: any stones that will take heat. In the Endeavour River district, around the Annan, people used the stone heads of old discarded axes to line their ground-ovens, which Roth thought explained why so few such axe heads were left there[2].
- Ant-bed (termite mound): used instead of stones where these were scarce[2].
- Lining leaves: jidu and other gingers on the Bloomfield; banana leaves and tea-tree bark on the Tully[1][2].
- Cover: dukul-dukul leaves, tea-tree (paperbark) bark, then earth[1][2].
- Tongs: lawyer cane. Yibuy is 'loya cane', and the dictionary's 'voya vine' for bangkal is most likely the same lawyer cane[1].
Seasons
The oven was busiest when the starchy foods were in. On the Bloomfield the round yam (Dioscorea sativa var. rotunda) was ready from about the middle of February to the middle of May, roughly the wet season, and was then the main food. It was baked in a stone oven[2]. Black bean, which Roth called 'nearly always obtainable' on the Bloomfield, was baked in the same way before being pounded and leached[2].
Uses
The oven cooked meat and also the plant foods that had to be baked before they could be leached or eaten. On the Bloomfield, black bean nuts were 'baked in a stone oven, then pounded and sifted', and then washed in a bark trough[2]. Yams were baked about four hours, then mashed and strained through a dilly-bag into a bark trough[2].
The kurrma was one of several ways of cooking. Roasting in the hot ashes was the simplest, and is the dictionary's dindal[2][1]. Roth was told by the Hislops, early settlers, that the Bloomfield people also boiled food, in a bark trough or a large baler shell, before any permanent European settlement. That is unusual: Cook saw no boiling at the Endeavour River, only 60 miles away, and Roth knew of none on the Tully[2]. The dictionary's nyamal 'to boil' fits that record, and kunjarri is a palm whose bark 'can be used to make containers for cooking'[1].
How an earth oven was made
The Bloomfield and Cape Bedford oven (Roth[2], with Kuku Yalanji terms from the dictionary[1]):
- Gather the stones. Collect a number of good-sized stones, the kurma in Roth's spelling.
- Heat them. Build a fire and heat the stones well in it.
- Pull out the stones and ashes together. Use the cane tongs, bangkal. On the Bloomfield, fire-tongs were a split length of lawyer cane bent double, and were used to pick up both hot ashes and baking stones[3].
- Dig the pit at once, in the spot the fire has just occupied.
- Line the bottom with leaves of wild ginger (jidu).
- Load the food. Put in the meat in pieces, or the yams or nuts, and pack the hot stones and ashes in among them.
- Cover it. Put on more leaves, such as broad dukul-dukul leaves, or tea-tree bark.
- Seal it with a layer of earth and stones to hold the heat in.
- Wait. Yams took about four hours on the Bloomfield[2]. At Atherton, black bean kernels went in about sunrise under leaves and earth and were uncovered about midday[2].
- Open it. Roth does not describe this step. Scrape off the earth, lift the leaves, take out the stones with the tongs, and lift the food out.
Other districts (Roth[2]):
- Lower Tully River: a second fire was lit on top of the covered oven. Ovens in sandy places were used over and over again, lined with banana leaves and tea-tree bark.
- Pennefather River (west coast of Cape York): a kangaroo was baked whole. The tail tendons were removed, the limb joints dislocated so the legs could be folded, and the guts replaced with hot stones. The animal was wrapped and tied in bark and buried in the hot ashes. Large turtles were stuffed with hot stones through a cut in the neck.
- Mornington Island: Roth found old ovens lined with tea-tree bark, the charred stones still in place.
Safety
Hot stones, ash and steam burn badly. Always use tongs, and keep children back while the oven is opened. Stones taken wet from a creek can crack or burst in a fire, so use dry stones. Fill the pit in afterwards and make sure no coals are left smouldering underground.
Meat must be cooked right through. The oven is also the first step in preparing poisonous plant foods such as black bean and zamia, which stay poisonous until properly sliced and leached after baking (see those entries)[2]. Do not roast jinjay, the poison nut, near people, as the dictionary warns its smoke is poisonous[1].
In Queensland, a fire smaller than 2 metres in every dimension may be lit without a permit if adequate precautions are taken. A larger fire needs a Permit to Light Fire from the local Fire Warden, and no fire may be lit during a fire ban[5]. In national parks, camp fires are allowed only in QPWS fireplaces or existing fire sites, and firewood must not be collected[6].
On Country today
Native title holders' rights differ from place to place: see each place above. Section 211 of the Native Title Act 1993 protects native title holders' hunting, fishing and gathering for personal, domestic or non-commercial communal needs from licence and permit requirements[7]. Anyone else needs the Traditional Owners' permission, and the landholder's on station country, to camp and cook with fire.
Language
Jani 'well cooked, done'; jirra 'burnt, as food'; jirra-bungal 'to overcook, to burn the food'; jakalambal 'start a fire, start to cook food'; binju also means 'poorly made or cooked'[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. (1901). North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 3: Food — its search, capture, and preparation. Brisbane: Government Printer. Bloomfield River information from the Hislops. — Sect. 6 'Cooking'; plant list ('Castanospermum australe', 'Dioscorea sativa', 'Elettaria Scottiana', 'Nymphaea') archive.org/details/northqueensland00landgoog
- 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
- Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants (RFK8), Hornstedtia scottiana. CSIRO / Lucidcentral. apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/entities/hornstedtia_scottiana.htm
- Queensland Fire Department. Fire permits: lighting fires in Queensland. fire.qld.gov.au/safety-education/using-fire-outdoors/lighting-fires-in-queensland
- Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Camping: legal requirements. parks.qld.gov.au/camping/legal-requirements
- 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. researchonline.jcu.edu.au/64274/
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (2013). Rinyirru (Lakefield) Aggregation Management Statement 2013. parks.desi.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/165771/rinyirru.pdf
- National Indigenous Times (13 August 2026). Western Yalanji determination brings Cape York native title 'to the finish line'. nit.com.au/13-08-2026/25941/western-yalanji-determination-brings-cape-york-native-title-to-the-finish-line
- National Indigenous Times (1 October 2021). Daintree Rainforest handed back to Eastern Kuku Yalanji people. nit.com.au/01-10-2021/2393/daintree-rainforest-handed-back-to-eastern-kuku-yalanji-people
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