Skills & methods
Fish poisoning
Fish poisoning stuns fish in a still pool with crushed bark, leaves, seeds or fruit. The fish float up dazed and are picked out by hand. Across North Queensland it was done in small lagoons and in water-holes 'which are drying up', with a different plant in each district[1]. The dictionary names miyil, a tree whose sap is 'used to blind fish'[2]. Today using any noxious substance to take fish is an offence under Queensland's Fisheries Act 1994[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
No published record of fish poisoning on the Hann itself was found. The nearest records are Walter Roth's, from about 1900: from the Koko-rarmul and Koko-warra people of Princess Charlotte Bay and its hinterland, where the Hann's water ends up, and from the Palmer and the Laura[1]. The Hann keeps running right through the dry[8]; the still water is downstream, in Rinyirru's lagoons, some of which hold water all year[9]. The upper Hann is the Possum People's country and the middle and lower Hann are Thaypan country[10][11].
The poison plants here
The Atlas of Living Australia holds records of several of Roth's fish-poison plants in a box of about 90 × 85 km around the middle Hann, Laura and western Rinyirru[12]:
- Barringtonia: 12 records (1978–2020), most of them the freshwater mangrove, B. acutangula, 'a characteristic species along major creeks and rivers and on the margins of lagoons across northern Australia'. 'The roots and other parts of this species can be used as fish poison'[13]. It grows at the permanent waterholes of the North Kennedy in Rinyirru[9].
- Cocky apple (Planchonia careya, Roth's Careya australis): 25 records (1973–2024).
- Adenanthera abrosperma: 11 records (1972–2015).
- Tephrosia: 72 records (1976–2014); Galactia: 10 records (1975–2013).
- Cooktown ironwood, the Bloomfield poison: 50 records (1970–2026).
The Atlas holds no Pongamia in the box, though Roth recorded it as the poison of the Princess Charlotte Bay people[12][1]. A record in the Atlas says only that the plant grows here, not that people here used it.
What was recorded nearby
These are Roth's records, in his words and spellings, from the districts around the Hann[1]:
- Princess Charlotte Bay (Koko-rarmul and Koko-warra), also Cooktown and Cape Bedford: Pongamia, called jo-ara. 'After being roasted, the roots are beaten up on a stone, tied into bundles, and thrown into the water, which turns somewhat greenish: it is put in of an evening, and left there all night.'
- Musgrave River (Koko-rarmul): the bark of Galactia varians, called mornilian.
- Middle Palmer (Koko-minni): Adenanthera bark; Careya leaves; and the leaves of two eucalypts, one of them an ironbark, left in the pool for up to three days.
- Laura, Mitchell and Lynd: Barringtonia racemosa, on the word of the collector E. Palmer.
The method was known well enough at Princess Charlotte Bay to be part of a Koko-rarmul story that Roth wrote down, in which one animal poisons a waterhole 'with the necessary bark, etc. [as employed in catching fish]'[14]. The story belongs to its custodians; ask them, not this page.
On country today
The Thaypan and Possum determinations of 2023 recognise native title over the Hann[10][11], but the Fisheries Act ban on noxious substances in the general section still stands. In Rinyirru, recreational fishing is allowed at all camping areas and 'Fisheries regulations apply'[15].
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
Nothing is published on fish poisoning by Western Yalanji people on the upper Mitchell itself. By the late dry its side creeks and lagoons are shrinking pools[16].
Where and when here
The nearest records are E. Palmer's Barringtonia and Luffa on the Mitchell itself, and the Kuku Mini poisons of the middle Palmer[1]. Only about 4% of the Mitchell catchment's rain falls between May and October[16], so by the late dry the side creeks and lagoons are shrinking pools.
What it would catch here
In the Mitchell's pools the catch would be fish such as black bream, catfish and eels.
On country today
Western Yalanji native title includes rights to fish[17], but the Fisheries Act ban on noxious substances in the general section still stands.
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, fish poisoning was a late dry-season method in the inland creeks, when the smaller streams broke up into isolated waterholes. Cooktown ironwood, two kinds of Barringtonia and a native ebony were used there[4][1].
The Bloomfield poisons
- Cooktown ironwood (Erythrophleum chlorostachys; see ironwood): bark and leaves smashed together under water[4].
- Barringtonia asiatica: seeds mashed with a grass sponge[4].
- Barringtonia racemosa: the stems[4], or the bark hammered spongy, as Roth heard from R. Hislop. Roth also recorded it at Cooktown[1].
- Diospyros hebecarpa: bundles of fruit warmed over a fire and squashed in the water, at Cooktown, Cape Bedford, the Bloomfield and Cape Grafton[1].
Where and when here
At Bloomfield this was 'a common technique in the inland areas in the late dry season as some of the smaller creeks dried and became a series of isolated waterholes'[4].
How it was done here
A Bloomfield waterhole (Kuku Yalanji)[4]:
- Choose a small, isolated waterhole late in the dry season.
- Prepare one poison:
- Cooktown ironwood: take bark and leaves into the water and smash them together under water.
- Barringtonia asiatica: mash the seeds together with a grass sponge, then shake and swirl the sponge under water.
- Barringtonia racemosa: work the stems the same way.
- While working under water, keep your eyes shut tight, and don't swim through the poisoned water.
- Collect the fish as they float to the surface.
- Leave the hole. It cannot be used again until a storm and flood renew the water.
Barringtonia bark (Bloomfield and Cooktown, from R. Hislop)[1]:
- Hammer the bark between stones until it is quite spongy.
- Take it into the water and rub it with your hands.
- Wait about a quarter of an hour for the fish to be stupefied.
Native ebony fruit (Cooktown to Cape Grafton, including the Bloomfield)[1]:
- Collect plenty of Diospyros hebecarpa fruit and tie it into long bundles.
- Each person takes a bundle and warms it over a fire.
- Squash it in the water.
Everywhere
Names
Miyil is a tree 'which has poisonous sap used to blind fish'. The dictionary adds the method: 'You wrap orange seed in grass to keep the sap from touching your skin and the eyes of people, then smash under water'[2]. The same word means 'eye', and blindness words are built on it, such as miyil kari 'blind'. A mangrove, miyilabu, 'has a poisonous sap which makes people blind'[2]. The general word for poison is kuli 'anger; poison; trouble'[2].
Roth recorded the Bloomfield name of the native ebony Diospyros hebecarpa, a fish poison, as ngam-boi (his spelling)[1]. It was not found in the dictionary.
Description
The poisons 'stunned or blinded the fish and they then floated to the surface where they could be collected'[4]. With Barringtonia racemosa bark, fish were stupefied in about a quarter of an hour[1]. Unlike fish traps, nets or hooks and lines, it needs no gear at all. The plants themselves have their own page: fish-poison plants.
Recorded by district[1]:
- Middle Palmer River (Kuku Mini, Roth's 'Koko-minni'): bark of Adenanthera abrosperma; leaves of Careya australis; leaves of red stringybark (Eucalyptus resinifera); and an ironbark, which worked faster.
- Mitchell, Laura and Lynd Rivers: Barringtonia racemosa, according to the collector E. Palmer. He also said green Luffa was used on the Mitchell, Gilbert and Einasleigh.
- Cooktown (Guugu Yimithirr country): hammered and roasted stems of Derris uliginosa, and the roasted roots of Pongamia.
Where and when
Across the north Roth recorded it in small lagoons, in water-holes 'which are drying up', and in a waist-deep hole 20–30 feet across[1]. A poison needs still water. In a running river it washes away.
Seasons and timing
The late dry, when the pools were shrinking, was the time[1]. The poisons worked at different speeds[1]:
- Barringtonia racemosa bark: about a quarter of an hour.
- Red stringybark leaves: one to three days, depending on the size of the pool. The ironbark was faster.
- Pongamia roots at Cooktown: put in of an evening and left all night.
What it caught
Whatever was trapped in the pool. Roth names no fish species for most of the poisons[1]. On the lower Tully, Derris leaves were used 'especially for eels', and another plant was 'used for small fish in water-holes which are drying up'[1].
How it was done
The miyil tree (dictionary)[2]: wrap the seed in grass, so the sap cannot touch your skin or anyone's eyes, and smash it under water.
Middle Palmer River (Kuku Mini)[1]: throw Adenanthera bark into the water. Or throw in red stringybark leaves and leave them one to three days.
Safety
The plants. The dictionary's own instructions are to keep miyil sap off your skin and out of people's eyes, and miyilabu mangrove sap 'makes people blind'[2]. Bloomfield divers kept their eyes shut tight[4]. Cooktown ironwood is dangerous to stock. All parts are poisonous, especially the leaves of suckers and regrowth. Less than 100 g can kill a horse or cow, and no treatment reliably works[5]. Wash your hands after handling any of these plants, and keep them away from children, dogs and cattle.
The water. A poisoned hole was unusable until a flood renewed it[4]. Never poison water that people or stock drink.
Eating the fish. People ate fish taken this way. A Port Curtis account quoted by Roth says a Polygonum poison brought fish up 'without impairing their wholesomeness as food'[1]. None of these sources tests the other plants for safety. Gut and clean the fish promptly, and don't eat any fish that was already dead before the poison went in.
On Country today
It is an offence in Queensland. Section 81 of the Fisheries Act 1994 says a person must not unlawfully use an explosive, firearm or noxious substance to take fish, with a maximum penalty of 2,000 penalty units. A noxious substance is anything that is harmful, or produces conditions that are harmful, to fisheries resources or fish habitats[3]. Plant fish-poisons are made to do exactly that.
Aboriginal tradition and native title. The Act gives an Aboriginal person acting under Aboriginal tradition a defence, but only for fishing with prescribed gear: recreational fishing gear, plus traditional fish traps of stone or organic material[3][6]. Plant poisons are neither. Section 211 of the Native Title Act 1993 lifts licence and permit requirements for native title holders fishing for personal, domestic or non-commercial communal needs[7]. Section 81 is a ban, not a licence requirement, and no court ruling on plant fish-poisons was found. Each place above says whose native title applies. Native title holders who want to practise or teach the method should ask their prescribed body corporate for advice first.
For everyone else it is simply illegal. The knowledge can still be shared: which tree is miyil, and why the old people shut their eyes under water.
Language
Miyil 'eye'; miyil kari 'blind'; kuli 'poison'. Wuju is a 'sponge made from grass, used as a sop for eating honey or soup'; Anderson's Barringtonia method used a grass sponge, though the dictionary does not link the two[2][4]. Kuyu is 'fish'. The reverse skill, washing poison out of food, is ngabal 'soak, leach'[2]; see leaching.
References
- Roth, W. E. (1901). North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 3: Food — its search, capture, and preparation. Brisbane: Government Printer. Bloomfield River information from R. Hislop. — Sect. 15 'Fish' (c), fish-poisons 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
- Fisheries Act 1994 (Qld), current as at 27 April 2026: s 14 (defence for Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples), s 81 (use of explosives etc. prohibited) and sch 1 ('noxious substance'). www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-1994-037
- 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. — Subsistence activities: fishing ('the third method … plant stupefacients') archive.org/details/RecordsSouthAus29Sout
- FutureBeef. Poisonous trees and shrubs: Cooktown ironwood (Erythrophleum chlorostachys) (web page, accessed 6 October 2026). futurebeef.com.au/resources/poisonous-trees-and-shrubs/
- Fisheries (General) Regulation 2019 (Qld), current as at 1 July 2026: s 7 (recreational fishing apparatus) and s 21 (prescribed fishing apparatus for s 14 of the Act: fish trap). www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/sl-2019-0179
- 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/
- Bureau of Meteorology, Water Data Online. Station 105001B, Hann River at Sandy Creek: daily and monthly mean discharge 1968–2026 (recent data provisional), retrieved 28 October 2026. No day of zero mean flow in 20,711 days of record; mean flow highest in February–March, lowest in September–November. www.bom.gov.au/waterdata/
- 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
- 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 and waters; prescribed body corporate (Awu-Laya Indigenous Corporation); affidavit evidence on hunting www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2023/2023fca1315
- Atlas of Living Australia. Occurrence records of fish-poison plant genera 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: Barringtonia 12 records (1978–2020; mostly B. acutangula, freshwater mangrove); Planchonia careya (cocky apple; syn. Careya australis) 25 (1973–2024); Adenanthera abrosperma 11 (1972–2015); Tephrosia 72 (1976–2014); Galactia 10 (1975–2013); Erythrophleum chlorostachys 50 (1970–2026); Pongamia (Millettia) pinnata none. biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?q=genus%3ABarringtonia
- Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants (RFK8). Barringtonia acutangula subsp. acutangula (freshwater mangrove): distribution and ecology; uses (citing Carr 1947). apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/entities/barringtonia_acutangula_subsp._acutangula.htm
- Roth, W. E. (1903). North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5: Superstition, magic, and medicine. Brisbane: Government Printer. — Sect. 36 'How the iguanas learnt to burrow' (from the Koko-rarmul of Princess Charlotte Bay) archive.org/details/northqueensland00landgoog
- Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Things to do: Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park (CYPAL) (web page; accessed 28 October 2026). parks.qld.gov.au/parks/rinyirru-lakefield/things-to-do
- Stewart-Koster, B., O'Mara, K., et al. (2021). Critical water needs to sustain freshwater ecosystems and aquatic biodiversity in Queensland's Mitchell River. Griffith University / NESP Northern Australia Environmental Resources Hub. era.dpi.qld.gov.au/id/eprint/8432/1/Critical-water-needs-for-the-Mitchell-River-final-report.pdf
- Brady on behalf of the Western Yalanji People #4 v State of Queensland [2013] FCA 958 (Federal Court of Australia, 24 September 2013). www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2013/2013fca0958
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