Since I chose not to sign up for any social media it came as a shock to read what the racist cretins of this country had to say about Micaela Hambrett’s article “Culturally modified trees ‘a national treasure’ in outback NSW”. Originally published online by the ABC in November last year, the article is now on my MSN (Microsoft News) feed with a whole lot of racist ill-informed and ridiculous comments. Why do people with no knowledge of a topic – in this case CMTs in outback NSW – feel the need to contribute their pig ignorant views?
More Abo rubbish from the ABO BC. This is complete BS.
“Trees played a vital role in our traditional way of life, still do today,” Ms Ashby said. So where all the Animals that lived here before you came and Ate them.So this was their Land you invaded AUNTY
Culturally modified ? OR, vandalised ?
How much will this myth cost the taxpayer.
I have been playing a game of “Whack-a-mole” with these offensive comments but keep getting my replies deleted because they don’t meet ‘community guidelines’. Apparently its OK to use the word ‘Abo’ but not acceptable to call someone a racist for using it. Stupidity – there is no cure. Do these idiots have jobs or lives away from their keyboards? Do they all ‘like’ – or whatever the thumbs up icon means – each other’s senseless comments too. Possibly they are bots that can’t spell or articulate a sensible response to any story about Australia’s cultural heritage? I suspect they haven’t read the article at all but are instantly triggered by words like Aboriginal, Indigenous or Environment. Their enlarged spleens are telling their fingers to jab the keyboard before their tiny brains have a chance to click in perhaps.
Anyway despite the revelation that ignorance & racism thrives on my MSN newsfeed, I will keep on promoting Kamilaroi, Euahlayi & Wailwan culture as it appears on trees. I was going to stop looking for TinTs once I had found & uploaded 1000 but I was reading the wrong column on my excel spreadsheet. There are now 1080 TinTs that Ive found & another 115 or so discovered by Jen Silcock, Sandra Winsor & others. I will write one more paper with Prof Judy Field, the archaeologist of Cuddie springs fame, and wind up the website in 2026. Unfortunately, the local Walgett/ Lightning ridge communities are not interested in CMTs & the Elders & Land councils are not interested in researching them. No money for trees & no mainstream appreciation of their ancestor’s culture. No one realizes how much work went into growing trees inside other trees in areas where the average rainfall is sometimes below 15“ (375 mm). Ive struggled to keep my wilga TinT alive this summer with a rainwater tank 10 meters away! How did they do it? Look at this old double dead below – unfathomable.
Did the wilga guest below kill it’s host or did the old bimblebox just give up the ghost & collapse one windy day? You can tell the wilga is a guest because the bottom of the tree is part of the root system. Trees don’t grow with exposed roots unless the soil has eroded/ washed away or they were a TinT guest & the host has collapsed. No one will ever see these marvels of the Euahlayi (Yuwaalayaay) culture because they simply couldn’t be bothered to find out where they are. This generation of Indigenous leaders are failing both their ancestors & descendants. You are the missing link between the past and the future of Indigenous culture. Many of the most important TinTs here are dying now & the world will see nothing like them again. The skill & generational nurturing that went into crafting living wooden rings & creating 2 or more trees in 1 will never be recognized unless you visit them. You can’t preserve your culture if you’ve never even seen it?
Another fire spread onto the Narran lakes nature reserve last week but it didn’t get far this time luckily. The problem with the reserve & surrounding opal bearing ridges is the lack of fire breaks & farmers. So sparsely populated is that country now that fires get out of control easily. Also the rampant spread of Hudson pear cactus has meant ordinary farmer’s fire trucks can’t operate without the cactus spines flattening the tyres. Put in some real fire trails & maintain them so the govt. won’t have to pay for firefighting aircraft & choppers every time smoke goes up. Unlike S/West W.A or the Grampians in Vic, the Narran lakes terrain is flat and so easier to construct wide protective fire breaks. Won’t happen of course … even with Indig. co management!
Ive also heard that Brook hill just to the west of here will be opened up for opal mining. Ive spent days walking through there with my mate Allan Tighe & seen much of the cultural heritage at stake. The only known ABORIGINAL STONE GRAVES in Australia for starters … who will protect them? The neighbouring property “Kigwigil” was named after ‘King Widgel’ the legendary Yuwaalaraay Elder who refused to come in to the Walgett missions ( Gingie & Namoi – now known as Villages not Missions) He died out on ‘country’ & was rumoured to hide ‘buried treasure’ – ie opals on Brookhill. I think the treasure was ‘cultural’ but opals were part of the collection of stones the Elders kept so it’s possible there are items of value in this modern world buried there as well. There are old abandoned mines on Brook hill and artefacts all over the place – see below. Also TinTs & directional trees like the one below as well. The woman with Allo at the big scarred tree is Prof. Judith Field in 2019. Hopefully we can get a paper on the Billybingbone rd TinTs published in 2025…
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“No one realizes how much work went into growing trees inside other trees in areas where the average rainfall is sometimes below 15“ (375 mm). Ive struggled to keep my wilga TinT alive this summer with a rainwater tank 10 meters away! How did they do it? Look at this old double dead below – unfathomable.”
Guest trees and ring trees in my humble opinion mark the birth of Aboriginal science. Though they found food in many native plants, there has to my knowledge been only one Australian native species that has been grown in plantations both here and elsewhere in the world, and that is the Macadamia Nut (two of the four species of the genus Macadamia: Macadamia integrifolia, and Macadamia tetraphylla.) But though the Aborigines would have harvested fruit from wild specimens, they were limited to ‘firestick farming’ which would have damaged the Macadamia trees on a wide scale, and they had ne metals out of which to make cultivation tools. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macadamia )
Playing about with guest and ring trees could have started them down the road to tissue grafting of the best-yielding scions onto the hardiest root stocks. From there to botanical science, and who knows what else.? Macadamia plantations could have led them on to studying, through observation and experiment, plant nutrition and fertilisers, and onwards into biochemistry and chemistry. But for that they needed writing and paper, not just rock art. And glass or at least pottery for bottles and jars; not just bark coolamons.
Hey Ian, good to read your comments & my apologies for the ‘communist’ tag. Im only up to chapter 9 in your biography “Never cop it sweet” & haven’t got to the “red” years. I did study modern Russian history at school & learnt the difference between ‘trotskyists’ and ‘communists’ but from my perspective its just splitting hairs (intellectually lazy) The book is very entertaining – well written Jenny – but most nights Im too tired (or lazy) for non-fiction.
Re botanical experiments – who’s to say they didnt branch out into grafts & selective breeding? You mention “..they were limited to ‘firestick’ farming ..” but thats not so as there is evidence the Qld bunya nut trees were planted & nurtured for example? Allan Tighe & I always wondered why some bumble/ wild orange trees are covered in fruit while others nearby never yield. Not only is the unknown fungus involved in some TinT creations but also appears on severely manipulated trees such as the Warrambool fork you can see now in the AXTRAX & AMAZING archive. Allan says the ancestors here didnt water the guests & there is no other cultural knowledge available. We are so willfully blind re Indig. ethnobotany that we dont know what we dont know. Our academics in this field (NSW Universities at least) are too ignorant (or lazy) to ever leave the coastal citadels of learning to ever come & have a look so we will never know now. Unfortunately, this generation of Aboriginal leaders have accepted the dumbed down version of their culture – smoking ceremonies, welcome to country crap etc and dont lobby for research either. We need a revolution in indigenous studies .. not as bloody as the Russian variety but a total mindset reset.