Duboisia Pituri: a Natural History∗

CSIRO PUBLISHING www.publish.csiro.au/journals/hras Historical Records of Australian Science, 2011, 22, 199–214 Duboisia Pituri: A Natural History∗ Luke Keogh Queensland Historical Atlas, School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia. Email: [email protected] In the 1870s, an intense quest revealed to scientists that pituri, an important Aboriginal commodity, was sourced from the plant Duboisia hopwoodii—a shrub named after a well-known colonist. But it was Aboriginal people and white explorer-pastoralists from the Mulligan River region in far western Queensland who provided the samples and alerted scientists to the important chemical properties of pituri. Subsequently, there was a proposal to change the name of the plant to Duboisia pituri. Whom should the plant have been named after, the colonist or the Aborigine? Brisbane 1879 things in the land due credit. Whose name should On 4 September 1879, in a small room at the the plant carry, the colonist’s or the Aborigine’s? back of the newly built Queensland Museum on Pituri (pronounced pitch-ery) is a shrub that William Street in Brisbane, a tall man with a grows on sandhills in the Simpson Desert, a jour- long grey beard delivered a scientific paper to ney west from the Mulligan River. The leaves and twigs of this shrub are dried and mixed with the Queensland Philosophical Society.The paper 2 was titled ‘Pituri and Tobacco’. It was the fourth ash to create a psychoactive drug. Although the and final paper Dr Joseph Bancroft read to the shrub grows over much of the Central Australian society on the curious Aboriginal commodity arid zone, there is a small isolated population and narcotic, ‘pituri’.The paper was the culmina- of these shrubs on the upper Mulligan River, tion of 8 years’collecting of pituri from people in a series of small groves that were the source the far reaches of western Queensland. As Ban- of the plant to be made into a drug. The psy- croft neared the end of his paper he arrived at choactive components in pituri are nicotine and a critical moment as he explained to the peo- nor-nicotine, and it is four times as strong as ple in the room: ‘Duboisia Hopwoodii should common tobacco. Chemical analysis shows that be known by the aboriginal title; I propose, D. hopwoodii from Central and Western Aus- 1 tralia has a higher nor-nicotine content that therefore, to name it Duboisia Pituri’. 3 D. pituri was a name change that would makes it toxic, whereas Mulligan River pituri inscribe Aboriginal knowledge from far western was unique, having a higher, less toxic nico- Queensland into the ‘System of Nature’. Ban- tine content. It was this that was used as a croft’s proposal caused outrage among scientists narcotic and traded as a commodity. It was col- and was a serious challenge to the laws of botani- lected by the Wangka-Yutyurru, Wangkamadla, cal nomenclature.The scientific name of pituri is Wangkangurru and Yarluyandi people and had special significance in the extensive ‘landscape Duboisia hopwoodii. The plant was named after 4 the colonist Henry Hopwood who had donated of exchange’ that operated in Central Australia. to the Burke and Wills expedition fund. Whereas Leaves and small stems were harvested and D. pituri, the name proposed by Bancroft, takes cured in heated sand-pits and this drying process stopped the enzyme action that would normally its name from the Aboriginal people who pro- 5 duced pituri and alerted natural historians to its degrade the nicotine level. The prepared prod- alkaloid properties. D. pituri never took root in uct was then placed into semi-circular net bags the world of plant vernacular but it remains a crit- and distributed throughout the Lake Eyre basin. ical moment in our natural histories that would ‘Pituri’, the word, was first textually recorded have given the Aboriginal knowledge of the in the journals of explorers concerned with the Burke and Wills expeditions: Howitt, Wills 6 ∗An earlier version of this essay won the 2010 National and King. Once recorded, it became used Museum of Australia student essay prize. throughout central Australia as a name for any © Australian Academy of Science 2011 10.1071/HR11008 0727-3061/11/020199 200 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 22 Number 2 variety of native tobacco.7 Explorers had also collected 475 specimens (300 individual species) recorded the word ‘bedgery’ from the Yan- on the expedition. But there was often very little druwandah people around Cooper Creek. It time for ‘doing anything in the scientific branch’ is presumed that, long before white explorers and he spent a large amount of time as practically arrived, the word was passed down from the far a camel handler (although a bad one).13 north, derived from the word ‘bijirri’used by the William Oswald Hodgkinson, an opportunis- Wangka-Yutyurru. People located on the Mulli- tic 25-year-old explorer, of a very different gan River in the northern reaches of the pituri mould than Beckler, also travelled on the expe- country who traded the word as they traded the dition. After Beckler resigned from the Burke raw leaves and stems of the pituri bush.8 and Wills expedition, he secured a spot travel- Recent work by Mike Letnic has pointed ling with William Wright, a man he trusted and out the significance of pituri in understanding respected. Hodgkinson also travelled with them. the Channel Country in far western Queens- Beckler and Hodgkinson had very different ideas land. Earlier work by Paul Foley has showed of exploration: one for science and the other how important the discovery of pituri was in for pioneering appropriation of the land; unsur- creating Duboisia myoporoides as a significant prisingly, they had a personal disdain for each Australian medicinal drug. And recent work by other. Beckler wrote an unpleasant description Angela Ratsch, placing pituri in a medical sci- of Hodgkinson as they started new explorations ence perspective, has again turned, after the with Wright: ‘We had an insolent, malicious lad earlier work of Pamela Watson, to aspects of with us, the worst legacy Burke had left us.... pituri’s ethnobiology in a medical science per- He alone was the scorpion, the gnawing worm we spective. But how did pituri enter our knowledge carried with us....He was a talented young man, of environment?9 had been well brought up and had even enjoyed a classical education, and yet he was the most evil animal of a person that I have ever encoun- Aurumpo 1860 tered.’14 Both these men were very important to When Dr Hermann Beckler applied to be the the story of classifying pituri. medical officer on theVictorian Exploring Expe- The tags that Hermann Beckler attached to his dition (the ‘Burke and Wills’ expedition) in scientific specimens were written in pencil in a 1860, he hoped to make botanical collections.10 messy scrawl that Ferdinand von Mueller and his His letter of application concluded by nam- assistants struggled to comprehend.15 Upon con- ing botanist Ferdinand von Mueller (arguably clusion of the exploring expeditions, back at the the greatest Australian scientist of the nine- Melbourne botanical garden Mueller assessed teenth century) as a referee. His application was Beckler’scollection.Although he did not publish accepted and while travelling up the Darling widely from Beckler’scolletion, one of the plants River he made collections. Mueller identified was one of those collected From the start Beckler was annoyed with on 28 September 1860—the day at Aurumpo. Burke’s leadership. On 27 September the party It was a new Australian plant that he concluded made an unnecessarily difficult crossing from was a member of the Anthocercis genus and Cole’s waterhole to Aurumpo (Scott’s station). gave it the species name ‘hopwoodii’.16 Hop- ‘It was the “shortest route”, the straight line, wood operated the punt at Echuca and made a that once again led Mr Burke into temptation’, substantial contribution to the Victoria Expedi- wrote Beckler in his journal.11 While the party tion. Mueller honoured him with the name of a rested for 4 days at Aurumpo Beckler commit- plant—some names of plants also carry colonial ted to his collecting. After a 4-mile walk, the baggage (Figure 1). hard clay soil around Aurumpo loosened into In 1861, after Beckler had resigned, the mem- soft red sand; these changes in the land created bers of the Burke and Wills exploring expe- an array of botanical collectibles for Beckler. dition continued their journey to the Gulf and There were acacia trees and Pittosporum shrubs, in their final days at Cooper Creek were given and some of the plants appeared ‘quite strange’ the Aboriginal narcotic pituri by local Yan- to him.12 Beckler collected and tagged many druwandah people.17 In the relief explorations of these botanical curiosities. In total, Beckler searching for the missing explorers, the members Duboisia Pituri: A Natural History 201 Figure 1. Isotype of Duboisia hopwoodii (formerly Anthocercis hopwoodii), collected by Hermann Beckler at Arumpo, New South Wales, 28 September 1860 (MEL 70979). Reproduced with permission from the State Botanical Collection, National Herbarium of Victoria (MEL), Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, and with the assistance of staff at the National Herbarium of Victoria. Beckler’soriginal, hand-written collecting note appears at the bottom right, and a transcription of this at bottom left. 202 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 22 Number 2 of Alfred Howitt’s and John McKinlay’s expedi- a place known to Gilmour only as ‘Wantata’. tions (among the latter was Hodgkinson) were They slept near a waterhole and next day, after also given pituri by Aboriginal people.18 The a long search, found the remains of at least narratives of these expeditions were among the three humans.

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