Quantifying the Mulligan River Pituri Trade of Central Australia

Bibliographic Data

ID3035681
AuthorsJenny Lesley Silcock, Jenny Silcock (The University of Queensland), Max Tischler (Bush Heritage Australia), Mike Smith (0000-0002-6177-8217, National Museum of Australia)
Year2012
Volume10
Pages037
Publication date2012-03-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnobotany Research and Applications (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1547-3465 • E-ISSN: 1547-3465
PublisherIlia State University (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.17348/era.10.0.037-044
OpenAlexW1749965747
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited9

Pituri (Duboisia hopwoodii (F. Muell.) F. Muell.) (Solanaceae) is a narcotic shrub which grows in the parallel dune fields of the Simpson Desert of far south-western Queensland, Australia. The ethnographic literature points to an impressive scale of trade of pituri between Aboriginal groups across inland eastern Australia, and suggests total annual production of 2500-3000 kg of dried plant material. However, there has been no attempt to assess the feasibility of these figures, or investigate the number of pituri plants required to sustain such a scale of trade. We mapped the distribution and density of D. hopwoodii along four one km wide transects, totally 130 km in length. Our results suggest that the population of pituri west of the Mulligan River could number around 36,000 mature plants. Ninety randomly selected plants were measured, and the foliage of six of these was harvested and dried. Plants yielded between 0.15 and 6.68 kg of dry matter. Our 90 measured plants would have yielded around 155 kg of dried pituri. Therefore, between 1450 and 1740 plants would be required to sustain the purported level of trade and use. With knowledge of the location of dense pituri groves and highly efficient expeditions, harvesting this number of plants is feasible. However, numerous questions remain surrounding the ecological and ethnographic aspects of the pituri trade

Computer security · Geography · Mulligan · Australian Indigenous Culture and History · Computer Science · Environmental Science · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

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