Trees
Red cedar
marrakanToona ciliata
Marrakan is the red cedar tree (Toona ciliata), and the same word means a 'dugout canoe made of red cedar wood'[1]. Its soft, light, durable timber made it, with candlenut and cotton tree, a favourite for the hulls of the Bloomfield outrigger canoes, which were up to seven metres long and could carry six or seven people, or two men and two large turtles[2]. The same timber brought the cedar-getters: Daintree village was first settled in the late 1870s and early 1880s by timber workers after red cedar[3]. Red cedar is deciduous, standing bare from June to August[4].
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
Red cedar is not a Hann River tree. It grows in well-developed rainforest[4], and the Hann runs through open woodland of 'stringybark, bloodwood, Moreton Bay ash and ironbark trees with a ground cover of coarse grasses such as speargrass'[8]. The Atlas of Living Australia holds no red cedar records in a box of about 90 × 85 km around the middle Hann, Laura and western Rinyirru[9]. No use of red cedar is published for the Possum, Thaypan or Kuku Warra peoples; the general sections cover the tree.
What grows here instead
Along the Hann the river's own trees are a fringe of paperbark (Melaleuca fluviatilis, M. leucadendra), with river red gum in places, and on the sandstone the Darwin stringybark woodland[10]. These regional ecosystem types match the Hann country; they are not confirmed maps of the river.
The canoe tree here
For Kuku Thaypan people the big hollowing timber was the messmate (Darwin stringybark), not cedar. Elder Dr George Musgrave told Victor Steffensen in 2003: 'Make a humpy, and you can make canoe out of him and you see old bush tucker man, he make out of this tree, he cannot get any other tree. Get this one Messmate, I call em Ku Aldkalemba.' The bark comes off only at 'certain time after wet'. Messmate hollowed by termites also gave the fish traps: 'Rungol (hollow logs) that were cut from the Ku akulumbah Messmate woodland and used as fish traps'[11]. See canoes and rafts.
On country today
The upper Hann is the Possum People's country and the middle and lower Hann are Thaypan country, both determined in November 2023[12][13].
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 red cedar belongs to the rainforest on the ranges, not to the open woodland of the Mitchell River[4].
Where it grows here
Herbarium specimens come from the rainforest of the Mount Windsor Tableland, north of Mount Carbine[14].
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 red cedar grew in the rainforest of the Daintree valley, where there were sizeable stands[3], and along the Bloomfield coast, where people cut it for canoes[2]. Anderson confirms that red cedar, which he calls by its older botanical name Toona australis, was one of the most favoured canoe timbers on the Bloomfield coast[2].
How people used it here
Canoes. The Bloomfield people used outrigger canoes with a single outrigger on the starboard side. Candlenut, red cedar and a cotton tree 'seem to have been most favoured on the Bloomfield coast' for the dug-out hull[2]. The canoes were up to seven metres long and could carry six or seven people, or two men and two large turtles[2]. Roth describes the Bloomfield dug-outs as differing from the Cape Bedford and Flinders Island type only in having no wash-boards along the gunwale[15]. Phillip Parker King saw several of these canoes at Bloomfield in 1819 and 1821, and a 1904 photograph shows Kuku Yalanji people in outrigger canoes on the Bloomfield River near Thompson Creek[2].
Sails. Beyond the dictionary's palm-leaf sail, mararr, Anderson found no other evidence of sails, apart from police-issue blankets that Roth saw being used as canoe sails at Bloomfield in 1898[2].
After contact. Iron soon entered canoe-making: Roth found Bloomfield adzes with an iron blade wedged into a wooden handle, used for scraping out canoes[2]. A traditional canoe was still seen at Bloomfield in the early 1960s, but by the Second World War wooden dinghies had mostly replaced the outrigger canoe[2].
Timber-getting. Red cedar was the timber that opened the Daintree to Europeans. Daintree village was first settled in the late 1870s and early 1880s by timber workers after red cedar, and they moved the logs down the river to the coast on lashed rafts[3].
How a dug-out canoe was made
Pieced together from Anderson's Bloomfield account[2] and Roth's description of the Cape Bedford canoe, which he says the Bloomfield canoe matched except for the wash-boards[15]:
- Fell the tree with stone axes[2].
- Shape the ends into bow and stern. The wider butt end of the trunk becomes the bow[15].
- Hollow the trunk: burn out the inside and scrape it clean with adzes[2]. Roth describes the same work done with fire and 'native gouges'[15].
- Make the float for the outrigger from a lighter, more buoyant wood than the hull. At Cape Bedford, light driftwood cast up on the beach was saved for floats[15].
- Fit the booms. On the Bloomfield the outrigger booms pass straight through the gunwale. They go in pairs, four to eight pairs depending on the size of the canoe, and each pair is lashed — one above, one below — to the angle of two crossed pegs set into a single mortice in the float[15]. The outrigger sits on the starboard (right) side and was lashed on with lawyer vine[2].
- Make the paddles (birungubay) from the wood of the mangrove Xylocarpus granatum, and carry a bailer shell to keep the water out[2][1].
- Launch and travel. Pole the canoe through shallow water and paddle in deep water[2]. At Cape Bedford Roth saw three people drag a canoe down to the water and pole it out, one pole at the bow and one at the stern, until it was deep enough to paddle[15].
On country today
The Daintree's cedar stands were cut over by timber-getters from the late 1870s[3]; much of the rainforest where cedar grows is now national park.
Much of Eastern Kuku Yalanji country is now Aboriginal land. On 29 September 2021 more than 160,000 ha, taking in the Daintree, Ngalba-bulal, Kalkajaka and Hope Islands national parks between Mossman and Cooktown, was handed back to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people, to be jointly managed with the Queensland Government through the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service[16].
Everywhere
Names
The dictionary gives marrakan for the 'red cedar tree', and the same word for a 'dugout canoe made of red cedar wood'[1]. Other 'cedars' have their own names: pencil cedar is milbanku or mirrbangku[1]. Cedar Bay is Mangkalba[1]. Roth's food and implement lists do not record a word for red cedar.
Description
A big rainforest tree with compound leaves. Freshly broken twigs smell of incense, and a cut in the bark (the blaze) and the wood have 'a faint but rather pleasant aroma (cigar box or incense)'[4]. The leaflets are about 9–13 cm long and 2.5–5 cm wide; new leaves come out pink-red[4]. Small flowers hang in long sprays, often 30–40 cm long. The fruit is a small capsule, 15–20 mm long, that splits to release seeds with a wing at each end[4]. The timber is soft, durable and easy to work, and the logs float[4].
Where it grows
Red cedar grows in well-developed rainforest, especially upland forest on basalt soils, from near sea level to 1000 m, from Cape York Peninsula down to south-eastern New South Wales[4]. It is not a tree of the open woodland; where it grows in each place is set out under that place.
Seasons
Red cedar is deciduous: it stands leafless between June and August, in the cool dry season, then puts out a flush of pink-red new leaves[4].
Uses
Canoes. The dictionary's marrakan is both the tree and a 'dugout canoe made of red cedar wood'[1]: a soft, durable timber, easy to work, whose logs float[4]. How the canoes were made and used is under the Bloomfield, where the record is.
Sails. The dictionary says mararr, now 'cloth', was 'originally a sail made of plaited palm leaves'[1].
Timber. Red cedar was the timber the colonial cedar-getters came for; the Daintree story is under that place[3].
Safety
The botanical sources consulted record no poison in red cedar itself[4]. Be careful with other 'cedars', though. Kuku Yalanji people say the smoke of brown cedar (Canarium australasicum) causes blindness, as does the smoke of the mangrove Excoecaria agallocha, so neither should be burnt as firewood[2]. Roth notes that brown cedar was also called 'Mackay cedar' on the Bloomfield[5] — not the same tree as marrakan. Canoe-making itself meant felling big trees and burning them out, heavy and dangerous work best learnt from people who have done it.
On Country today
Red cedar is not listed as threatened; as a native plant it is 'least concern' wildlife under Queensland's Nature Conservation Act[6]. Under section 211 of the Native Title Act 1993, native title holders do not need a licence or permit to hunt, fish or gather for their personal, domestic or non-commercial communal needs[7]. Everyone else needs the Traditional Owners' permission to take anything from country, and park rules apply.
Language
Words for canoes and their gear: kaljan 'outrigger canoe'; birungubay 'paddle, oar'; warkal 'bailer shell used in the old time for a billy'; mararr 'cloth', originally a palm-leaf sail; kulbanmuku 'axe, originally a stone axe'; and wawuburra 'cottontree', the other canoe tree[1].
Images
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
- 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. — Watercraft; firewood; post-contact material culture change hdl.handle.net/2440/13994
- Wikipedia. Daintree, Queensland (history). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daintree,_Queensland
- Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants (RFK8), Toona ciliata. CSIRO / Lucidcentral. apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/entities/toona_ciliata.htm
- Roth, W. E. (1904). North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 7: Domestic implements, arts, and manufactures. Brisbane: Government Printer. Bloomfield River information from R. Hislop. — Sect. 13, gums, resins and cements, 'Canarium australasicum' archive.org/details/northqueensland00landgoog
- Nature Conservation (Plants) Regulation 2020 (Qld), current as at 22 May 2026. — Sch. 1 pt 2 div 7 s 25 (least concern wildlife); sch. 2 (special least concern plants) www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/pdf/inforce/current/sl-2020-0137
- 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/
- Wikipedia. Hann River (Queensland) (accessed 28 October 2026). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hann_River_(Queensland)
- Atlas of Living Australia. Occurrence records of Toona (none) 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%3AToona
- Queensland Herbarium. Regional ecosystem descriptions, Cape York Peninsula bioregion: 3.3.10a (Melaleuca fluviatilis fringing woodland), 3.3.24 (Eucalyptus leptophleba woodland on riverine levees, Laura area), 3.10.6 and 3.10.10 (Darwin stringybark woodland on sandstone), 3.3.66 (lakes and lagoons). apps.des.qld.gov.au/regional-ecosystems/
- 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 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
- Queensland Herbarium (BRI) specimen AQ0763689, Toona ciliata, collected 2003, 'SF 144 Mt Windsor Tableland'. Atlas of Living Australia. biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/6bfda614-3e4f-4811-b834-a51657ddacdb
- Roth, W. E. (1910). North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 14: Transport and trade. Records of the Australian Museum 8(1). — Sects. 11–17, dug-out canoes archive.org/details/biostor-52863
- Australian Geographic (September 2021). Daintree handed back to Traditional Owners. www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2021/09/daintree-handed-back-to-traditional-owners/
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