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

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. They gathered the remains and first descriptions of pituri as a traded Aboriginal commenced the return journey in the belief that commodity. these were from the Leichhardt expedition. On In 1861 the plant Anthocercis Hopwoodii 27 February, when almost home, Gilmour let the appeared in volume two of Mueller’s Fragmenta old Aboriginal man from Cooper Creek go, with Phytographiæ Australiiæ.19 Then, in 1869, the trousers, a shirt and a looking glass as gifts for plant appeared in the fourth volume of George his help.21 Bentham’s Flora Australiensis as ‘Anthocercis Gilmour’s finds only created more curiosity (?) hopwoodii’, and it carried a note explain- in the capital cities across Australia and by 11 ing the question mark: ‘until the fruit shall have September 1871 he commenced a second jour- been observed it is in some measure uncertain ney to explore further west. Again he enlisted whether it should be referred to Anthocercis or the help of the old Aboriginal man from Cooper to Duboisia’.20 With this ambiguity, natural his- Creek to act as his interpreter. Gilmour followed torians had to wait for further specimens to see his old tracks and by 7 October arrived back where the plant that Beckler collected would fit at Wantata. Again he and his troopers searched into the system of nature. the area. This time Gilmour rode further west and followed an Aboriginal trading track to Eyre Creek. By 19 October, Gilmour arrived at a place Eyre Creek 1871 known to him as ‘Kulloo’ which he described Seven men with twenty-four horses rode out as 8 miles beyond Eyre Creek.22 At Kulloo of the Native Mounted Police barracks on the Gilmour saw many European artefacts and Abo- Bulloo River on 16 January 1871. In the lead riginal curios, and collected European clothes, a was sub-inspector of police James Gilmour, next tomahawk, blankets and netted bags. The Abo- to him was Constable William Wright (a man riginal people with whom the party came into who had hidden in the bush since being publicly contact spoke a language that the old man from shamed after the Burke and Wills disaster), and Cooper Creek could not understand; it was possi- trailing behind were five native troopers. They bly a Wangkamadla dialect, part of the Pitta Pitta rode west. There had been reports of a white group of languages and not part of the Diyaric man about Eyre Creek in far western Queens- group of languages that the man from Cooper land. Gilmour and his men hoped to find remains Creek spoke. Gilmour wrote of the area: from the Leichhardt expedition. Close to Kulloo, where we found the cloth- After crossing grassless stony plains, on 30 ing, &c., on the sand hills, the blacks gather January they camped on a waterhole at Cooper the stalks of a small shrub—native name, pituri. Creek with a large group of Aborigines. An This the blacks use as a stimulant, and it has the old Aboriginal man spoke both the language same effect upon them as spirituous liquors on of the troopers and the languages further west. the Europeans. The pituri is principally used by 23 Gilmour provided the Aboriginal man with a the old men. horse and he travelled with them for the rest of the He also noted the process of turning plant into journey. They travelled across the Diamantina commodity. The leaves of the pituri bush were River. On Friday 10 February they passed John dried and then mixed with the ash of an acacia McKinlay’smarked tree from 19 March 1862; at tree; they were mixed together in the mouth to this place Gilmour also inscribed his initials on form a ball; the ball was placed behind the ear; the landscape. After a few more days of riding and when pituri was wanted, it was placed in the they arrived upon good country at a waterhole mouth. An old man whom Gilmour met on the called ‘Tantiputtie’and Gilmour stopped to count pituri track refused to say or do anything until he 103 mud huts, all of which had recently been chewed some pituri; after doing this ‘he rose and abandoned. A week since passing McKinlay’s harangued in grand style, ordering the explorer tree, on 17 February, after riding 407 miles and to leave the place’.24 In Gilmour’s interpreta- a month away from the barracks, they reached tion, using pituri was part of a shamanic practice Duboisia Pituri: A Natural History 203

among the Aborigines of western Queensland. seven drops killed a puppy. He went on test- But more significantly for scientists who were to ing and killed a number of rats. Administering read Gilmour’s reports, the pituri drug appeared a smaller dose of the drug to rats, he noticed to have important psychoactive properties. great excitement and convulsive fits, but when Before leaving the waterhole at which he given to cats and dogs it induced vomiting, much camped on Eyre Creek, Gilmour made an like an overdose of nicotine in the human body. inscription on the landscape: he marked a From Bancroft’s scientific testing, pituri was tree broad arrow over SG over POLICE over legitimated as an indigenous commodity with PE × with a circle carved around the lettering.25 significant psychoactive properties. On the return journey, Gilmour and his men trav- One sarcastic correspondent read Bancroft’s elled through sandhill and flooded country and account of pituri that appeared in The Brisbane stony plains and ridges.To Gilmour, ‘the country Courier and suggested that a dose of the drug is most wretched, and but a very small portion could be given to ministers of Queensland Parlia- of it is suitable for pastoral purposes’. ment prone to ‘longwinded orations’. The letter Upon returning to the Bulloo barracks, writer concluded that ‘In case of accidents, and Gilmour prepared the things he had collected to to prevent the possibility of the sacrifice of a send to Brisbane. In this collection were Euro- valuable life, the remedy could first be tried on pean clothes, human skulls and tomahawks; but some of the occupants of the Ministerial back what captured Gilmour’s curiosity was a small benches’.29 Drugs capture the imagination of magical bag he had obtained from the Aborigi- many people and with early knowledge of pituri nal people at Kulloo. The small oval-shaped bag in Brisbane, many people wanted to know more was tightly woven from fibres from the far west about the curious plant. flooded country. The bag contained prepared Bancroft concluded his 1872 paper on pituri pituri. Gilmour gave the bag to an Aboriginal to the Queensland Philosophical Society with the woman at the barracks to wash. As she wet the hope that ‘before long seeds of the plant may bag, woven into the fibres she noticed something be collected, and exact botanical knowledge of and exclaimed: ‘Here is white fellow’s hair!’.26 it, and the localities in which it grows may be In December 1871 Gilmour packaged the bones, forthcoming’.30 To ‘know’ a plant and to place the clothes, and the bag and took them to Bris- it in the system of nature cannot be done by bane. This was the first pituri bag to be taken to merely looking at dried leaves mixed with aca- Brisbane.27 With this package he also took the cia ash, like the pituri that Gilmour had brought prepared pituri from the inside of the bag and to Bancroft in 1871. The Linnaean system of gave it to Dr Joseph Bancroft. classification is based on the characteristics of Of Gilmour’s finds, the bones were Abo- sexual reproductive organs and for most plants, riginal, the hair in the basket was most likely including pituri, these organs are found in the from a native marsupial from the far west, and flower.31 To identify what plant pituri was, Ban- the clothes were possibly from the Burke and croft needed to see raw pituri: the leaves, the Wills expedition or an exchange item from the seeds and especially the flower. From this he extensive trade network that operated in Central could possibly begin a process of pharmaceutical Australia. But the pituri was a curiosity. production. There are two important points to be made here. Pituri was a commodity prepared and Brisbane 1872 traded by Aboriginal people throughout central On 9 February 1872, Dr Joseph Bancroft Australia; and, it is a plant that has significant received the pituri that James Gilmour had col- alkaloids that late-nineteenth-century scientists lected near Eyre Creek. By 22 February he was hoped might have important pharmacological at work on the new product and had created properties. So Gilmour had collected a bag of a mixture of pituri and water and tested it on pituri from the Aboriginal people in western animals—‘thanks to the beneficent rule of this Queensland and then Bancroft tested it and found colony, where no law prevents professional men it to be an interesting drug. But a gap remained in from experimenting’.28 In one minute, a half- scientific knowledge because the plant derivative grown cat suffocated; in one and a half minutes, of the drug remained unknown. 204 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 22 Number 2

While Bancroft was testing the pituri plants, as leader, Hodgkinson would explore the far west in Melbourne botanist Ferdinand von Mueller of the colony and give the creeks and rivers remained connected with many Australian names of his own choosing. With him were four explorations. By the time Ernest Giles had men: surveyor E. A. Kayser, bushman William completed his central Australian expeditions, Carr-Boyd, native trooper Larry (these three had Mueller optimistically looked upon the Aus- travelled from Cloncurry with him) and bush- tralian continent as ‘fully mapped’.32 man and pastoralist Norman McLeod who joined On 18 September 1872, on a near-forty- them somewhere on the Diamantina. The river degree day with sand flying about in all direc- they camped upon Hodgkinson named the ‘Mul- tions, Ernest Giles passed through a thick scrub ligan’ after James Venture Mulligan, the north of ‘oaks and spinifex’ somewhere on the west- Queensland explorer. The river came from the ern side of the MacDonnell Ranges in Central north but it did not flow; this was a river on the Australia.33 Later on the same day he named eastern fringes of the desert. a big mountain in the distance Mount Liebig. They explored north along the river. On Sun- Here he collected botanical specimens for his day 23 July they camped at a place the Aborig- good supporter Mueller. One of the plants col- ines called ‘Dickerie’ and spelled for the day.38 lected near Mount Liebig was identified by Hodgkinson heard women constantly beating Mueller as Anthocercis Hopwoodii.34 In view nardoo and watched men catching pigeons and of the question-mark that Bentham had placed making nets. There were swarms of children against A. hopwoodii in 1869, before Mueller’s and all shared food evenly. He observed these tenth volume of Fragmenta Phytographiæ Aus- people as a congenial and happy group. In his traliiæ was published in 1876 he re-examined expedition journal he commenced compiling an the specimens provided by Giles. At this time Aboriginal word list. On that day, at the sec- he changed the genus and its name became ond waterhole that the North-West Expedition Duboisia hopwoodii.35 had seen, Hodgkinson sensed his isolation from Just as Mueller was making this neces- European society and believed himself to be the sary change in botanical nomenclature, William first white man among these people. He marked Hodgkinson, the scorpion described by Her- a tree H over a broad arrow. What he did not mann Beckler, was exploring the far west of know was that by this same waterhole, not fifty Queensland. yards from his camp, was another tree marked in 1871 with the sign: broad arrow over SG over POLICE over PE×.39 Pecheringa 1876 In the days following, the horizon of the Within 5 years of Gilmour’s journey to Eyre land that the exploring party moved through Creek, the western Queensland pastoral frontier was scattered with smoke signals of the Abo- expanded and the Government became curious riginal people who told their neighbours of the about rumours of another river further west than arrival of the white men. The party continued the Diamantina.36 In 1876 William O. Hodgkin- north up the Mulligan. In the early days of son led an expedition to that rumoured river the expedition Hodgkinson saw splendid pas- in the hope of finding new pastoral country; toral country—there were plains of clover and this was the last Queensland government funded at one camp the horses were full within the hour. exploration of the colony. On the morning of 26 July, as the party moved After making the difficult journey south from up the river, he engaged with some Yarluyandi Cloncurry, then briefly into South Australia for men. He fed three of them. These men sparked rations, Hodgkinson led his party west of the Hodgkinson’s curiosity because they promised Diamantina and reached a river that proceeded to show him where they procured ‘pecherie’. in waterholes one after the other. Near a fire on Hodgkinson believed this place was called the bank of that river in far western Queens- ‘Pecheringa’. land he chewed pituri ‘in default of tobacco’, On the following day, the three Yarluyandi a practice he had learnt sixteen years earlier as men accompanied the party into Wangkamadla an optimistic 26-year-old when he had travelled country. In the afternoon they made camp at on the Burke and Wills expedition.37 This time a place the Aborigines called ‘Turkinya’, that Duboisia Pituri: A Natural History 205

Hodgkinson named Brandon Creek.With the sun Hodgkinson feared that he would not find the descending over the sandhills, he watched the pituri plant. people: ‘The features of many are by no means With no native guides, the search for pituri unattractive. The nose is not unpleasantly broad. was overtaken by the search for water. The The forehead is high and broader, and the mouth horses that the expedition members travelled on not so obtrusive as usual. Their manners are were exhausted from the sandy desert country courteous.’40 On the banks of the newly-named and needed water and feed. The party contin- Mulligan River, these courteousAborigines gave ued north-west and followed the Mulligan for a Hodgkinson a gift no white man had yet received week. In the hope of finding water, they made a in the history of the colonies. ‘They brought a long, fourteen-mile northwards journey between sample of pecherie, just taken out of a trench the sandhills. Somewhere near the 23rd parallel in the sand, where it undergoes a process of and the Toko Ranges, only a few miles east of sweating before use’.41 Queensland’s western border, Hodgkinson saw On 27 July 1876, from the smoking oven, something. In waterless and ‘miserable country’ Hodgkinson was offered pituri. This is the most between red sandhills on a sandy spinifex flat, significant moment recorded in the contact his- he recognised the branches attached to a trunk. It tory of pituri, in the contact between the Abo- was the pituri that the Wangkamadla had offered riginal people who procured pituri and the white him all those nights before. He collected some people who were curious about it. For the first of the raw pituri plant to take back to Brisbane time, raw pituri was taken from the ground and and tucked it in the packsaddles.43 offered to a white man. Unlike earlier explor- After finding the pituri plant, the party trav- ers who were given the prepared commodity elled north and Hodgkinson continued to give after it had been traded from group to group, features in the landscape European names, such Hodgkinson was offered the raw product. It was as the Cairn Range. The journey became more a remarkable gift from the Aboriginal people. difficult. They desperately needed water and Recording the event in his expedition journal, their intestines were blocked from the nutrient- Hodgkinson was filled with regret at not having deficient diet of meat and damper. On the morn- brought presents for the Aboriginal people. He ing of 26 August Hodgkinson watched his horse offered them some dried meat, which they did die. They passed into Wangka-yutyurru coun- not accept. try and then into Pitta Pitta country. At the end In the days following, however, the gift was of September, with the onset of scurvy show- not enough. Hodgkinson insisted on being taken ing in his body, they finally reached Lake Mary to the pituri country. He continued to compile the and the place where Landsborough had camped vocabulary that he started when he first reached years before. The Mulligan had been traversed. the Mulligan but realised that the words were Although a difficult journey, Hodgkinson was changing. He was unfamiliar with the way lan- very optimistic. In the closing pages of his expe- guage changed throughout the country; at this dition narrative he described a pastoral country point in the expedition he was deep in Wangka- that ‘cannot be surpassed’, which was better madla country, the main group that inhabited the watered and more extensive and thus ‘superior’ Mulligan River area. On 6 August, after travel- to the Diamantina. ling north-west and being told the pituri lay still The North-West Expedition, beyond its further in that direction, Hodgkinson decided he orders, performed the critical task of observing must have pituri. He went to his saddlebag and Aboriginal culture on the Mulligan River and pulled out a stem of pituri given to him at ‘Car- used Aboriginal knowledge to collect a piece of lattuarie’(surely the Kaliduwarry waterhole) and their material culture. This was not a spear or a tried to explain his desire for some of the raw shield but the leaves and twigs of a plant. Reading plant. He showed one Aboriginal man the dried it in this way shows the expedition narrative to be pituri and tied up the other man: ‘[O]ne must not just a story of a journey through the land, but forthwith go and fetch some of the green plant, also the storied landscape of a natural resource. and the other remain as a hostage in camp’.42 Hodgkinson responded to the value placed on The free man bolted and next morning the other pituri by Aboriginal people and went on a quest Yarluyandi man did the same. At this moment to satisfy his curiosity. This particular response 206 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 22 Number 2

to the Aboriginal people in their land is what little payment, get a blackfellow to administer marks the difference between Hodgkinson’s col- small doses of that plant to.’47 Bancroft tested lection of pituri and the botanical collections of the drug on his pet dog rather than an Aborigine, Duboisia Hopwoodii by Hermann Beckler and but Mueller’s comments show that he saw the Ernest Giles. Ironically, Hodgkinson’spituri still Aborigine as test subject and not as the person found its way to the microscope of Dr Joseph who first made the chemical knowledge of pituri Bancroft, and it was Hodgkinson’s collection available to men of science. The chemical dis- of pituri that allowed botanists to classify the coveries that Bancroft made of D. myoporoides plant. were exciting: the alkaloid duboisine relaxed the eye and after Bancroft’s discovery it was instantly important in Australia and Europe for Melbourne 1877 ophthalmic surgery. The historian of medical Joseph Bancroft heard about Hodgkinson’sjour- science Paul Foley has forcefully argued that ney to the far west and visited him. In Brisbane, D. myoporoides is one of the most important the stems that Hodgkinson had collected on the native Australian drugs yet found.48 All this has Mulligan were transferred to Bancroft. As The its roots in the scientific testing of pituri. Brisbane Courier reported: ‘he [Hodgkinson] Although Hodgkinson’s raw pituri opened has given several specimens of pitcherie, plucked exciting new fields for Bancroft, there was still by himself from the living plant to scientific very little pituri available with which to conduct gentlemen in this city’.44 serious scientific experiments. Bancroft hoped to Bancroft gave some of the pituri plant to cultivate pituri and his attention shifted towards the Queensland botanist F. M. Bailey, who for- looking for seeds in the prepared pituri material. warded some to Mueller in Melbourne. Ban- He enlisted the help of his seventeen-year-old croft prepared other packages and sent them son, Thomas Lane Bancroft, to find seeds. Some to Europe, to the English physiologist Sidney of these were sown into frames by the Queens- Ringer, the Edinburgh professor Thomas Fraser landAcclimatisation Society but never produced and the Parisian chemist A. Petit. Petit found the results. Interestingly, with the discovery of the alkaloid from pituri and titled it ‘piturine’.45 And pituri plant and its unsuitability for cultivation, of course Bancroft kept a little for himself for there was a dual demand for pituri by both continued scientific testing. Most important was Aboriginal people and white collectors. the package sent to Mueller because with the There was also an early ‘chain of collec- leaves and flower he could determine the name of tors’ in place.49 The pituri plant has a small the plant used by the Mulligan River Aborigines. whitish corolla with five segments, each dom- Was pituri a new native Australian plant? inated by a descending red stripe and two lighter Mueller announced that the Aboriginal drug stripes either side of it; softly placed in the back- pituri was Duboisia hopwoodii. The plant that ground is a small green calyx, and, on top of the Beckler collected nearAurumpo in western New calyx and between the segments of the corolla, SouthWales, the plant that Ernest Giles collected are two long and two short stamens penetrat- in 1872 in the heat and sand near the MacDonnell ing the air.50 As Bancroft published an update Ranges, and the curious commodity Hodgkin- of his findings in 1878, the pastoral frontier son stumbled upon on the Mulligan River were had spread to the Mulligan River in far western all the same plant. And now that Hodgkinson Queensland and pastoralists began to send him had acquired the raw pituri growing, the intense specimens. Although no-one had sent raw seeds, search to unveil the plant that was the source of he received the first dried flower specimens. pituri seemed over. Mueller wrote to Bailey in Bancroft obtained them from a Mr Gordon, who February 1877: ‘I am glad, dear Mr. Bailey, that in turn had got them from John Ahern in Black- at last the doubts concerning the origin of the all, who had got them from a Mr McDonald; Pituri poison seem solved’.46 Solved? the last of whom was exploring for new land Mueller went on in his letter to Bailey, ‘Now on the Mulligan. After crossing a branch of the an interesting field opens to Dr Bancroft for fur- Mulligan, McDonald turned back to his ‘black ther research. Let the doctor try the foliage of boys’ when he found ‘the boys and gins break- Duboisia myoporoides, as he could easily, for a ing off the branches of a little tree’. McDonald Duboisia Pituri: A Natural History 207

reprimanded both boys and ‘was going to give and traveller he told stories from the newly set- one of them a cut of his whip, when the gins tled west of how difficult it was to come to terms cried out, “Pitchery, Pitchery.” Thus he found with such a dry and variable environment. the tree.’51 Such incidents show that the Aborig- In February 1878 Sam Greensmith, the man- ines in the pituri country, who were so helpful ager on Sylvester Brown’sSandringham Station, to Hodgkinson, had become much more fear- started out on a sixty-mile journey south-west ful of the white man. The colonists remained towards the Herbert River. When Greensmith curious about pituri, but the gift/obligation prac- had not been heard from for ten weeks, Potjostler tices that once surrounded the plant had now asked questions. ‘I didn’t slog into them [the changed. For white men, pituri became just Aborigines], as I don’t know whether they killed another commodity to know and exploit. As him or not ... I think they have been up to pastoral stations expanded further west, tradi- something, because whenever they see a fel- tionalAboriginal practices were challenged even low they take a good mile of a gallop out of further. your horse before you can round them up.’58 In June, Potjostler was still on Eyre Creek looking for Sam Greensmith. No clues appeared, and no remains were found. He wrote in the capital city Mulligan River 1878 newspapers: ‘The niggers have been playing up Following the explorations of the Mulligan by here, and war is declared.’59 Hodgkinson, in 1877 the pastoralist Sylvester The call for ‘war’ by Potjostler was a divi- Brown took up Wangkamadla country and set sive moment for pastoralists in the west. What up Sandringham Station on the Mulligan River heightened the conflict was that the summer of in the heart of the pituri country. Brown was 1877–8 was a disastrous one for the ‘pioneers’. aware of pituri in the area. He sent a small Early in the summer a number of stockmen had sample to Joseph Bancroft and even proposed a perished on the Lower Barcoo near a retreat sta- ‘pituri reserve’in what he saw as the open spaces tion. Then there was the well-known case of the of the desert.52 In the following year Angus Prout brothers who died on a ride west from Fraser took up the Kaliduwarry run further south, the Herbert toward the Mulligan.60 Then three which was wedged between Wangkamadla and unidentified dead bodies were found outside Yarluyandicountry.53 William Carr-Boyd, one of Whitula after their horses bolted in the evening Hodgkinson’s men from the expedition, used his from where they had camped without water. experience to help other pastoralists settle the Many other people had not been heard from. far west. Carr-Boyd was aware of the signifi- And then there was the most recent disappear- cance of the pituri area between Brown’s station ance of Sam Greensmith. That summer was the and Fraser’s station when he wrote in The Bris- first year since Hodgkinson had explored the far bane Courier: ‘It is right on the boundary of the west and the expansion of pastoral properties had pitcherie, as I have seen pitcherie growing only increased dramatically.With so many people per- five miles to the west. There are a devil of a lot ishing and an already confrontational process of of niggers about there, and I fear they will be colonization occurring, some popular attitudes, playing up before long.’54 Although he feared such as Potjostler’s, translated their unease with the Aboriginal presence, it can be observed that the harsh environment into more intense frontier there were a large number of Aboriginal people violence. living in the desert country as pastoralists began The pastoralist Sylvester Brown from San- to take up the land.55 dringham Station began his correspondence on When Carr-Boyd returned to the far west the disastrous losses over the summer by notic- after he had travelled on the North-West Expedi- ing the ‘very hot climate’.61 Brown thanked tion with Hodgkinson he reinvented himself as the ‘vigorous and war breathing’ correspondent ‘Potjostler’, a polemical correspondent for The ‘Potjostler’ for the concern he had shown over Queenslander and The Brisbane Courier.56 As Greensmith’s death. He wrote: ‘I suspect the early as December 1877, Potjostler had heard blacks but doubt being able to bring the crime that much of western Queensland was taken up home to them. Of course, if we do, “border law” and stocked.57 Through the eyes of a bushman will have to be enforced.’ What is border law? 208 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 22 Number 2

In Brown’scorrespondence he accepted the con- grew: ‘[I]t is well known that they [the Aborig- flict between Aborigines and pastoralists as part ines] are far more numerous than further inside. of the process of ‘opening up’ the west. Also, inside blacks go out there in large numbers Potjostler went on another ‘potjostling trip’. to trade with the natives of the soil for the much- With two others, he left Amaroo Station, crossed prized plant, the effects of which are maddening the Mulligan and rode west. In the desert, they on those not used to it.’64 The Mulligan, because stopped on a very high sandhill and looked of the pituri areas to the west, seemed like a towards the horizon: just waterless sandhill place to establish control over the native pop- country for at least thirty miles. On the sandhill, ulation by having a native police barracks close in the ‘howling desert’, they found pituri growing by. In just under a decade a lot had changed: the of which they collected a large amount and sent curious pituri plant that sub-inspector Gilmour it to Ferdinand von Mueller.62 Even Potjostler found when he rode to Eyre Creek had become a was collecting for the colonial botanists. way to gain control over the native population.65 Returning, they rode east to the Mulligan. Eglinton would become the Police Magistrate at On the way they stumbled upon a waterhole Boulia and later at Birdsville, but no barracks where a large group of Aborigines was gathered. were set up on the Mulligan. Potjostler searched the group and interrogated Potjostler’sstories are important because they the people. In the camp he found a rug that came from the Mulligan River and Eyre Creek, he believed had belonged to Sam Greensmith. in the heart of the pituri country, just as a Potjostler took possession of this and upon his dramatic collision occurred between Aboriginal return to Herbert Downs left it for the sub- traditional practices and pastoral ownership. The inspector of native police, Ernest Eglinton, to story of Sam Greensmith’s death is important gather on his monthly rounds of the district. He to remember. Greensmith drowned crossing the concluded the story of his potjostling trip by not- river and while his body was taking its time wash- ing that the first lot of fat cattle had left the ing down to the banks near Glengyle Station, far west for market. Life and death; pituri and most people thought the Aborigines had mur- cattle. dered him. Leading the campaign was Potjostler, How did Sam Greensmith die? It was later whose key evidence was a rug he found in an found that he had made it across the difficult Aboriginal camp after a day surveying the coun- 45-mile crossing of waterless country to the try and collecting pituri—pituri that was sent to Herbert River, but as he and the two horses the colonial botanists. tried to cross the Herbert they got caught and all drowned. With such an extensive coverage of Greensmith’s disappearance, instigated by Potjostler, news of the finding of his drowned The Ivory Tower 1882 body caused a large debate in The Brisbane In 1879 Joseph Bancroft delivered his paper Courier.63 Through the Greensmith controversy ‘Pituri and Tobacco’ to the Queensland Philo- there were a number of different views of race sophical Society. The paper, with the scientific relations in the far west. What complicated mat- name of pituri proposed as Duboisia pituri,was ters further was that these relations were played printed by the government printer in Brisbane. In out in a harsh and variable environment. 1880 the small booklet with botanical drawings In the late 1870s, to ease the minds of many and sketches of the Aboriginal bags for carry- western pastoralists, a patrol conducted by the ing pituri were sent to station owners in the far native police in the charge of sub-inspector west of the colony.66 In the foreword, the colony’s Ernest Eglinton was sent regularly from the Surveyor-General, the famous explorer A. C. Burke River. The area that Eglinton had to patrol Gregory, introduced the paper to the public: ‘It is was enormous and extended from the Cloncurry hoped that you or your friends may be able to for- River down to the southern boundary of Queens- ward to this Society ripe seeds of some of these land.A lonely letter writer from the west wrote to plants; also, small quantities of the dried herb— The Brisbane Courier, arguing that a police bar- one ounce, more or less, by post’. By 1879 the racks needed to be set up on the Mulligan River natural history of pituri was known, and when because it was the only place where the pituri the Queensland Philosophical Society sent out Duboisia Pituri: A Natural History 209

copies of Bancroft’s paper, the name Duboisia Anthocercis Viscosa from his Central Australian pituri began to take root. expeditions in 1876, Mueller movedAnthocercis In 1882, William Guilfoyle the curator of hopwoodii to Duboisia when he saw that the flo- the Melbourne botanic garden, published ‘Some ral structure of the plants were different.71 But Curious Plants’in The Southern Science Record. to Bancroft, the correct genus (Duboisia)was The paper made specific mention of Duboisia only discovered after Bancroft’s interest in pituri pituri (Bancroft).67 Scandalous: not just the use was sparked by the Aboriginal people using it of the name D. pituri but listing ‘Bancroft’ after as a narcotic in western Queensland, so that a the binomial designation as first describer of change of genus would necessitate a complete the plant! The well-known Queensland natural- name change. Bancroft understood that Aborig- ist Benedetto Scortechini, who in 1882 had three inal people had an ecological knowledge of the plants named after him,68 was outraged by this plants in their landscape and his insistence on breach of the laws of botanical nomenclature and D. pituri was acknowledgment of this. There is wrote to the journal: much upheaval when there is a challenge to the traditional way of doing things, particularly in Such appellation must by all means be depre- cated ...There was no warrant for this change, the world of natural history and taxonomy. even if many new therapeutic qualities inher- The title D. pituri was a challenge to Mueller’s ent to this plant had been discovered by the authority as the first describer of the plant and, Doctor....As the error now again creeps into in a broader context, had the ability to challenge a scientific journal, and, if perpetrated, might his authority within the community of Aus- lead to confusion, it is well to raise the voice tralian natural historians. It was most likely not against arbitrary changing of scientific names, an accident that William Guilfoyle resurrected in the interest of Science, whose progress would this nomenclatural debate in early 1882 with his 69 by it be greatly impeded. paper ‘Some Curious Plants’. The two men had Scortechini was correct that confusion would a history. After Mueller was dismissed from the be created in natural history if two names for Melbourne botanic garden in 1873, Guilfoyle the same plant were used. But he was wrong in was his replacement.72 Guilfoyle’s vision for his assumption that Bancroft proposed the name the gardens was in complete contrast to Mueller’s change out of self-interest. scientific pursuits. Upon taking over he ‘made In a letter dated 13 July 1882, Bancroft the Garden into a place of wondrous beauty replied to The Southern Science Record by in the style of the great English country gar- stating that his interest in pituri was sparked dens’, often composing these aesthetic designs when Gilmour had brought to him the ‘broken- using the vast range of plants that Mueller had up’ pituri of the Queensland Aborigines. After acquired from around the world.73 Not only were this Bancroft had obtained the raw plant from their landscapes different but also, due to the Hodgkinson in 1876—who had found pituri only circumstances surrounding Mueller’s dismissal, after the Aboriginal guides had alerted him to there was serious political tension between the it—and this specimen was delivered to Mueller: two men and their supporters. Mueller wrote to Joseph Hooker about Guilfoyle on 24 July the Baron [Mueller] discovered that he had the 1882: ‘He seems to have a morbid vanity to same plant, gathered by Burke and Wills, named doubtfully Anthocercis Hopwoodii ...It is now pass as a scientific man; thus lately publish- found, by specimens forwarded to me by resi- ing an article on Duboisia, of which he knows dents in the west country, that Duboisia is the nothing – copying what Dr Bancroft and myself proper genus, and, such being the case, the title rendered known of course under suppression of “Duboisia Pituri” meets the difficulty much my name’.74 In this way, it would appear Guil- better than Anthocercis Hopwoodii (F.Muell.) foyle used the ambiguity in the name of pituri Our much respected botanists will admit this to gain political traction on Mueller. Guilfoyle’s and waive their privileges, allowing the most biographer interpreted the whole debate from interesting plant in Australia to have attached to the opposite perspective: ‘One cannot help but it the name it must always carry.70 feel that somewhere in this episode was a feeling Bancroft’s claims were unfounded, because of resentment again expressed by a disgruntled after Ernest Giles had also brought back with him Mueller supporter’.75 Such politicking explains 210 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 22 Number 2

why the world of plant taxonomy does not allow Australia that was sourced from sites west of the ambiguity in its nomenclature. In the end, the Mulligan River. petty politics of Mueller and Guilfoyle under- Joseph Bancroft, a medical doctor and mined Bancroft’s cross-cultural attempt to see chemist, saw some of the gulf between how Aboriginal usage of pituri given serious recogni- nature was classified and how the Aborigine tion by science. As if to set the record straight, in was seen, inciting not only natural historians brackets and small font below Bancroft’s 1882 but also ethnologists of the day when he said to letter was a short discussion by the editor of The the group gathered in Brisbane on 4 September Southern Science Record: 1879: ‘This discovery [pituri] of the Australian Not only would it be against all rules of scientific aboriginals should tell somewhat in their favour nomenclature to discard a correctly established as clever men, against the oft-repeated assertion name, upsetting all recognised principles in this of ethnologists as to their low position among respect, but it would in this instance be par- the human races’.79 Natural historians drew on ticularly unjust to our late fellow-colonist, Mr. local knowledge as an intellectual resource to H. Hopwood, to deprive him of the honor of inform metropolitan demand for pituri, in the having his name identified with this plant, espe- first instance to discover what it actually was and cially as it was discovered in the expedition, then to use it as a commercial resource. What towards the fund of which he made so large a contribution. has been shown throughout is that Bancroft’s proposed name D. pituri was a radical choice Who should the plant be named after, the influenced by the people in the landscape col- colonist or the Aborigine? The 1882 letter from lecting it for him and engaging with Aboriginal Bancroft is possibly the last mention of D. pituri people. in the historical record and D. hopwoodii has D. pituri is a lost fragment in the history of certainly taken root as the recognised scien- Australian science and it can only be recovered tific name of the plant. Indeed, D. hopwoodii by looking ethnographically at natural histories is the first scientific name mentioned by Alice and telling stories from an animated world and Duncan-Kemp in her classic Our Sandhill Coun- not a cabinet.80 Such an ethnographic natural try (1934), a book that attempted to describe the history demands inclusion of both the way the fauna and flora of far western Queensland ‘by landscape was changing and the race relations purely local names’.76 By 1883, with the scien- upon that land, but it also requires specificity tific name D. hopwoodii firmly established, pituri to show the way nature is classified and the began its life as an ethnological collectible in people who provide those samples. The name Queensland when the first pituri bags were sent D. pituri captures so much more than the name to the Queensland Museum.77 D. hopwoodii. And yet D. pituri remains only a name lost in the historical record—a natural history specimen that is often placed in a different Animated Worlds cabinet. Within this story of D. pituri there is a clear entanglement of natural and cultural histories where the trickery of nature on culture and the References mastery of culture over nature can be observed. 1. Joseph Bancroft, Pituri and Tobacco (Brisbane, Between the common word ‘pituri’ and the sci- 1879), p. 12. entific name Duboisia hopwoodii is a substantial 2. Pamela Watson, This Precious Foliage: A Study gulf between the cultural understanding of a of the Aboriginal Psycho-Active Drug Pituri plant (among these the Aboriginal name of a (Sydney, 1983), pp. 48–50. plant and the scientific system that a plant fits 3. Ibid., p. 45. 4. Isabel McBryde, ‘Goods From Another Country: into) and the wide area of central Australia that Exchange Networks and the People of the Lake a plant can grow over. By saying ‘Duboisia Eyre Basin’, in Australians to 1788, eds. D. J. hopwoodii’ one refers to a plant that grows Mulvaney and J. Peter White (Broadway, NSW, 78 across most of arid Australia, but by saying 1987), pp. 252–273. ‘pituri’ one is referring to a significant com- 5. Process described in: W. O. Hodgkinson, ‘North- modity of trade for Aboriginal people in central West explorations by W.O. Hodgkinson, Esq’, Duboisia Pituri: A Natural History 211

Queensland Votes and Proceedings, Vol. 3 Beckler’s expedition narrative which is covered (Brisbane, 1877), pp. 203–227; Samuel Gason in full in the English edition: Hermann Beckler, to A.W. Howitt, undated letter quoted in “Trade Entdeckungen in Australien: Briefe und Aufzeich- Expeditions,” MS 69, box 6, A.W. Howitt Papers, nungen eines Deutschen 1855–1862 (Stuttgart, AIATSIS Library, Canberra; George Aiston, “The 2000), pp. 302–305. Aboriginal Narcotic Pituri,” Oceania 7 (1937), 12. Beckler, A Journey to Cooper’s Creek,p.36. 372–377. As well as a stimulant, pituri is also an 13. ‘Beckler’s letter of resignation to Burke’, 16 analgesic and can produce a ‘dreamy state’; see October 1860; in Beckler, A Journey to Cooper’s Joseph Bancroft, Pituri and Tobacco,p.7. Creek, p. 199. See also Tim Bonyhady, Burke and 6. As well as the commodity, Howitt also mentions Wills: From Melbourne to Myth (Balmain, 1991), pituri as a name given to some of the Aboriginal p. 110. men he met along the road who belonged to the 14. Beckler, A Journey to Cooper’s Creek,p.91. ‘pituri moora’; see ‘Burke’s Expedition: Howitt’s 15. J. H. Willis, ‘The Botany of the Victoria Explor- Journal’, The Brisbane Courier, 21 November ing Expedition (September 1860–June 1861) and 1861, and, on the pituri moora, Aiston, ‘The of Relief Contingents from Victoria (July 1861– Aboriginal Narcotic Pituri’, p. 374. November 1862)’, Proceedings of the Royal Soci- 7. Today ingulpa in Arernte country is most com- ety of Victoria, 72 (1962), 247–268, p. 253; monly called pituri but it is actually a broad leaved Stephen Jeffries, introduction to A Journey to Nicotiana. On ingulpa see Strehlow’s comments Cooper’s Creek, p. xxxvii. where it was also mixed with yellow ochre, quoted 16. In 1962 J.H. Willis studied the botanical colin T. H. Johnston and J. B. Cleland, ‘The His- lections of the Victoria Exploring Expedition tory of the Aboriginal Narcotic, Pituri’, Oceania, and in an updated nomenclature lists one of the 4 (1933–4), 270. The discussion by Johnston and plants collected on 28 September 1860 by Beckler Cleland of the spread of the word is also relevant as Duboisia hopwoodii (originally identified by here, see p. 281. Mueller as Anthocercis hopwoodii); see Willis, 8. R. M. W. Dixon, Bruce Moore, W. S. Ram- ‘The Botany of the Victoria Exploring Expedi- son, and Mandy Thomas, Australian Aboriginal tion’, p. 265. See also Joseph Bancroft, ‘Duboisia Words in English: Their Origin and Meaning Pituri’, The Southern Science Record, 2 (1882), (South Melbourne, 2006), pp. 124–125. See also 221–222. Phillip A. Clarke, Aboriginal Plant Collectors: 17. Wills records pituri in his diary from 7 May 1861, Botanists and Australian Aboriginal People in the William J. Wills, ‘The Diary of William John Nineteenth Century (Dural, NSW, 2008), p. 55. Wills, 23 April–28 June 1861’, National Library 9. Mike Letnic, ‘Pituri Country Stories’, in Desert of Australia, http://www.nla.gov.au/epubs/wills/ Channels: The Impulse to Conserve, eds. Libby pages/transcript26.html; Joseph Bancroft, ‘“Pituri” Robin, Mandy Martin and Chris Dickman (Can- of Sub-Inspector Gilmour’,The Brisbane Courier, berra, 2010), pp. 61–70; Paul Foley, ‘Duboisia 4 April 1872. The pituri collected by King is Myoporoides: The Medical Career of a Native discussed in: Proceedings of the Royal Soci- Australian Plant’, Historical Records of Aus- ety of Van Diemen’s Land, April 1863, p. 1. tralian Science, 17 (2006), 31–69; Angela Ratsch, Before these three, in 1847, Edmund Kennedy Kathryn J. Steadman and Fiona Bogossian, ‘The on Cooper Creek in Queensland noticed ‘A curi- Pituri Story: A Review of the Historical Litera- ous fact I here observed is that the men chew ture Surrounding Traditional Australian Aborigi- tobacco’. Kennedy records it to be strong and nal Use of Nicotine in Central Australia’, Journal hot, which are both attributes of pituri, see of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 6(26) (2010), Edgar Beale, Kennedy, the Barcoo and Beyond 1–13. 1847: The Journals of Edmund Besley Court 10. Hermann Beckler, letter of application, 15 June Kennedy and Alfred Allatson Turner with New 1860, “Burke and Wills: Terra Incognita,” State Information on Kennedy’s Life (Hobart, 1983), Library of Victoria, http://victoria.slv.vic.gov. p. 137. au/print/burkeandwills/archives/eagerexplorers/ 18. Howitt, ‘Burke’s Expedition: Howitt’s Journal’; explorerersapplications/beckler.html. Hodgkinson to Bancroft, 15 February 1877, in 11. Hermann Beckler, A Journey to Cooper’s Creek, Joseph Bancroft, Pituri and Duboisia (Brisbane, trans. Stephen Jeffries and Michael Kertesz 1877), p. 10. (Carlton, 1993), p. 34. Beckler’s time in Australia 19. Ferdinand von Mueller, Fragmenta Phytographiæ has been discussed in a recent collection of his let- Australiiæ, vol. II (Melbourne, 1861), pp. 138– ters, however, there were few letters written in the 139. See also ‘A Valuable Therapeutic Agent’, five months he was travelling on theVictoria Expe- Western Australia Times, 29 January 1878, and dition. The collection only includes extracts from Mueller, ‘Letter to the Editor of the Australian 212 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 22 Number 2

Medical Journal’, 15 February 1877, in Bancroft, 32. Ferdinand von Mueller, foreword in Geographic Pituri and Duboisia, pp. 11–12. Travels in Central Australia from 1872 to 1874,by 20. George Bentham, Flora Australiensis: A Descrip- Ernest Giles (Melbourne, 1875). tion of the Plants of the Australian Territory, 33. Giles, ibid., pp. 25–26. vol. IV (London, 1869), pp. 480–481. 34. Mueller, ‘Plants collected by Mr. Giles’, in ibid. 21. James Gilmour, ‘Journal of Expedition of the Bul- p. 221. loo Native Mounted Police in Search of White 35. Ferdinand von Mueller, Fragmenta Phytographiæ Man, supposed to be One of Leichardt’s Party, Australiiæ, vol. X (Melbourne, 1876), p. 20. The among the Blacks’, in A Collection of Papers genus ‘Duboisia’ was first described in 1810 on the History of and other Subjects Relating to by Robert Brown when he named Duboisia Cunamulla and District, ed. Warrego and South Myoporoides in his report on the botany of New WestQueensland Historical Society (Cunnamulla, Holland as part of Flinders’ circumnavigation of 1969), pp. 96–104. Gilmour’sfirst report appeared the continent. It is named after either the French in The Brisbane Courier, 5 April 1871. botanist François Nöel Alexandre Dubois (1752– 22. Bancroft, ‘”Pituri” of Sub-Inspector Gilmour’. 1824), or the treasurer of the East India Com- James Gilbertson, a correspondent to The Bris- pany Charles Du Bois (1656–1740). See Foley, bane Courier, claimed that Gilmour could not ‘Duboisia Myoporoides’, pp. 33–34. have got as far west as Eyre Creek and must 36. H. E. King, ‘Instructions to the Leader of the have been mistaken, but Bancroft refuted the North-Western Exploring Expedition’, letter dated claims: Gilbertson, ‘The Supposed Leichhardt 29 September 1875, in Queensland Votes and Remains’, The Brisbane Courier, 12 March 1872, Proceedings (Brisbane, 1876), p. 359. and Bancroft’sreply ‘Inspector Gilmour’sDiscov- 37. Hodgkinson to Bancroft, 15 February 1877, in eries’, The Brisbane Courier, 13 May 1872. Evi- Bancroft, Pituri and Duboisia,p.10. dence (below) presented by ‘Potjostler’ supports 38. Hodgkinson, ‘North-West explorations’, pp. Bancroft. 203–227. 23. James Gilmour, ‘Another Search for the White 39. Potjostler, ‘Out in the Never-Never Country: Man reported to be about Cooper’s Creek’, The No. II’. Brisbane Courier, 13 December 1871. 40. Hodgkinson, ‘North-West explorations’, p. 218. 24. Bancroft, ‘”Pituri” of Sub-Inspector Gilmour’. 41. Ibid. 25. Potjostler, ‘Out in the Never-Never Country: 42. Ibid., p. 219. No. II,’The Brisbane Courier, 16 February 1878. 43. Hodgkinson, letter to Joseph Bancroft. 26. Gilmour, ‘Another Search for the White Man 44. ‘Hodgkinson’, The Brisbane Courier, 9 April reported to be about Cooper’s Creek’. 1877. 27. If it was given to Bancroft it would surely have 45. A. Petit, ‘L’alcaloide du Pituri’, Journal de Phar- been part of the Queensland Philosophical Soci- macie et de Chimie, 29 (1879), 338–341. ety’s collection that was the early makings of 46. Mueller to Bailey, 13 February 1877, quoted in the Queensland Museum’s collection. However, Bancroft, Pituri and Duboisia, 3–4. Gilmour’s pituri bag is not part of the Queens- 47. Ibid. land Museum Collection: Luke Keogh, ‘Report on 48. Foley, ‘Duboisia Myoporoides’. the Historical Background of the Pituri Material 49. Adapting John Mulvaney’s famous phrase, ‘the Culture Held at the Queensland Museum’ (report, chain of connection’; see D. J. Mulvaney, ‘“The Cultures and Histories, Queensland Museum, Chain of Connection”: The Material Evidence’, 2009). in Tribes and Boundaries in Australia, ed. Nicolas 28. Bancroft, Pituri and Duboisia. Bancroft’s origi- Peterson (Canberra: 1976), pp. 72–94. nal handwritten version of this paper exists but 50. Joseph Bancroft, ‘Further Remarks on the Pituri it reveals no more detail than the published ver- Group of Plants (Extract)’, The Brisbane Courier, sion, ‘Pituri: Paper Read Before the Queensland 12 October 1878. Philosophical Society, October 25, 1877’, Ban- 51. Ahern to Gordon, 28 April 1878, in Bancroft, croft Papers, box 1, History of Medicine Library, ‘Further Remarks on the Pituri Group of Plants’. RoyalAustralasian College of Physicians, Sydney. 52. Sylvester Brown, ‘Pituria’, The Brisbane Courier, 29. ‘Correspondence’, The Brisbane Courier, 6 April 26 February 1879. 1872. 53. Fraser to R. H. Mathews, 6 December 1898; MS 30. Bancroft, ‘”Pituri” of Sub-Inspector Gilmour’. 8006, Papers of Robert Hamilton Mathews (1841– 31. Ian Clarke and Helen Lee, Name That Flower: 1918), National Library of Australia, Canberra. The Identification of Flowering Plants (Carlton, 54. Potjostler, ‘Eyre’s Creek’, The Brisbane Courier, 2006), p. 3. 8 June 1878. Duboisia Pituri: A Natural History 213

55. This continued into the 1880s when the surveyor 68. The three plants were Mezoneuron Scortechinii, W. H. Cornish made a similar observation of the Agonis Scortechiniana and Brachyloma Scorte- region; quoted in Carolyn Nolan, Sand Hills and chini, all collected by Scortechini in south-eastern Channel Country (Bedourie, 2003), pp. 50–51. Queensland (Coomera, Stradbroke Island and 56. His name came from a comment that Kayser made Tamborine Mountain, respectively) and named by to Hodgkinson about Carr-Boyd when they were Ferdinand von Mueller; see Henry Tryon, ‘Rev. all on the North-West Expedition. Kayser says, Benedict Scortechini – Obituary Notice’, Pro- ‘What with your potjostling here and potjostling ceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, there, you’ve given me the scurvy’. See Mary 4 (1887), 13–20. Durack, ‘Carr-Boyd,William Henry James (1852– 69. B. Scortechini, ‘A Correction’, The Southern Sci- 1925)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 3 ence Record, 2 (1882), 91–92. (Carlton, 1969), pp. 357–358. 70. Bancroft, ‘Duboisia Pituri’. 57. Potjostler, ‘Out in the Never-Never Country’. 71. Ferdinand von Mueller, Fragmenta Phytographiæ 58. Potjostler, ‘Eyre’s Creek’. Australiiæ, vol. X, p. 20. 59. Potjostler, ‘Potjostler on “Old Tablelander”’, The 72. See Helen Cohn and Sara Maroske, ‘Relief from Brisbane Courier, 26 August 1878. Duties of Minor Importance: The Removal of 60. See Outsider, ‘From the Lower Thomson to the Baron von Mueller from the Directorship of the S. A. Border’, The Brisbane Courier, 14 January Melbourne Botanic Garden’, Victorian Historical 1878; Mr Scarr, ‘The Perils of Queensland Explo- Journal, 67(1) (1996), 103–127. ration: The Fate of the Prout Brothers and Baker’, 73. R. W. Home, A. M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D. M. The Brisbane Courier, 3 October 1878; ‘The Fate Sinkora, J. H. Voigt,and Monika Wells, “Introduc- of Brothers Prout’, The Mercury, 19 April 1879. tion,” in Regardfully Yours, Vol. 2, p. 20. The death of the Prouts was even reported by 74. Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 24 July 1882, in Henry Lamond nearly a century later: ‘Pituri’, Regardfully Yours, Vol. 3, p. 278. North Australian Monthly, July 1960, pp. 44, 75. R. T. M. Prescott, W. R. Guilfoyle, 1840–1912: 46; ‘Western Stories: Pituri’, North Queensland The Master of Landscaping (Melbourne, 1974), Register, 1 September 1962. p. 121. See also Paul Fox’s discussion of Guil- 61. Sylvester Browne, ‘How Lives are Lost in the Far foyle’slandscape and particularly the appointment West’, The Brisbane Courier, 24 July 1878. of Guilfoyle to the botanic gardens: Clearings: 62. Potjostler, ‘Notes from the FarWest’,The Brisbane Six Colonial Gardeners and Their Landscapes Courier, 11 September 1878. (Carlton, 2004), pp. 99–142, especially pp. 122–3. 63. ‘The Outsider’ was very critical of Potjostler, see 76. Although pituri is mentioned throughout the book, Outsider, ‘Notes From the Far West’,The Brisbane D. hopwoodii is mentioned on p. 53. The reference Courier, 7 December 1878; and another corre- is taken from the foreword. Alice Duncan-Kemp, spondent was also critical in ‘A Little Exploring Our Sandhill Country: Nature and Man in South Trip’,The Brisbane Courier, 15 January 1879. But West Queensland (Sydney, 1934). ‘The Dingo’ was very supportive, see ‘Fassifern 77. The first pituri raw material and bags held in the Scrub’, The Brisbane Courier, 22 February 1879. Queensland Museum’s collection were acquired 64. ‘Sylvester Creek, Gregory District’, The Brisbane in 1882–3. Some of the first raw material was Courier, 19 July 1880. donated by sub-inspector Eglinton, the man for 65. Controlling the Aboriginal population with pituri, whom Potjostler left the rug that he presumed particularly in the early twentieth century, is dealt was Sam Greensmith’s. Significantly, the first bag with in Mike Letnic, ‘Pituri Country Stories’. that was donated by policeman Frederick Mur- 66. Elizabeth N. Marks, ‘A History of the Queensland ray is accompanied by the attached note ‘Bag of Philosophical Society and the Royal Society of Pituri, (Duboisia hopwoodii)’; Murray to Charles Queensland from 1859 to 1911’, Proceedings of de Vis, 22 January and 13 August 1883, Inwards the Royal Society of Queensland, 71 (1959), 23. Correspondence, Queensland Museum Archives. 67. William Guilfoyle, ‘Some Curious Plants’, The 78. See the maps of D. hopwoodii distribution Southern Science Record, 2 (1882), 58–59. Joseph provided in Colin Barnard, ‘The Duboisias of Bancroft inscribed a copy of Pituri and Duboisia Australia’, Economic Botany, 6 (1952), 3–17; to Guilfoyle that is still held at the Royal L. A. Craven, B. J. Lepschi and L. A. R. Haegi, Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, see Regardfully ‘A New Australian Species of Duboisia R.Br. Yours: Selected Correspondence of Ferdinand Von (Solanaceae)’, Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Mueller, eds. R. W. Home, A. M. Lucas, Sara Gardens, 16 (1995), 27–31. Interestingly, the sec- Maroske, D. M. Sinkora, J. H. Voigt and Monika ond paper discusses the discovery of a new plant Wells, Vol. 3, (Bern, 1998), p. 278, fn. 16. in the Duboisia genus: Duboisia arenitensis. 214 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 22 Number 2

79. Bancroft, Pituri and Tobacco,p.10. a ‘natural history’ review symposium, collected 80. On ethnographic natural history approaches, see: in the May 2005 issue of Antipode (vol. 37, Hugh Raffles, In Amazonia: A Natural His- no. 2, pp. 348–378); see in particular Hugh tory (Princeton, NJ, 2002); Michael Taussig, Raffles, ‘Towards a critical natural history’, on My Cocaine Museum (Chicago, 2004); Stuart pp. 374–378, where he envisages such an approach McLean, ‘Ceide Fields: Natural Histories of coming from a ‘naturalcultural’ world that is not a Buried Landscape’, in Landscape, Memory separated into dichotomous parts but ‘animated and History: Anthropological Perspectives, eds. by difference, power, and history, a world that will P. J. Stewart and A. Strathern (London, 2003), always exceed our languages and imaginings, a pp. 47–70. Raffles’ book was the centrepiece of world without beginning, end, or outside’(p. 378).

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