Kombumerri Traditional Custodian Contributor: Max Dillon

This resource is related to the following Learning Area –

And responds to the following Enquiry Question –

Q40.Were there any specific medicinal remedies that the Kombumerri People used?

Resource transcript –

Touching on the wudjuru, the Leptospermum, we have 83 species here in Australia. In New Zealand they have one. They call it Manuka and they make honey from it. We tend to call ours jelly bush. So, we have jelly bush honey, same-same. But we have 83 different varieties of Leptospermum. The inner bark of the wudjuru has a soft-as-silk inner bark, which is used to line the coolamons that would hold the babies to stop baby rash. Another medicine, this one is fairly exciting… when it come up on my radar, I’d heard it from three different resources and we grow it at our indigenous protected area and it’s the native grape and it’s the known cure for the Death Adder venom. And, so, I’ve seen that on the Sunshine Coast when I was up there on a bush trail, bush tucker trail and with their signage they indicated it. I’ve seen it in a bush tucker man’s book which I picked up from an op shop and then we had our signage at our indigenous protected area and showed that the native grape is, you know, in fact the cure for the Death Adder bite. An old lore man told me, he said, “You wanna know what the medicine is if you’re stung or bitten by something out in the bush?” he said, “You wanna learn? Watch the goanna.” He said, “If the goanna is attacked by a snake or something venomous… that goanna you watch him, where he goes. He’ll go find that medicine.”