History

Ethabuka Reserve

Ethabuka Reserve is situated on the country of the Pitta Pitta, Wangkangurru, Wangkamana and Wanka-yutjurru people and lies on what was once a trade route linking the Gulf of Carpenteria and north Queensland with the Simpson Desert and as far as Pandie Pandie in northern South Australia. Pituri was the main item traded in this region in return for stone knives, seashells and even dugong-tusk daggers.

Pituri (Duboisia hopwoodii) leaves are dried and ground then mixed with the ashes of certain plants (particularly wattles) to form a “quid” which when chewed produces a narcotic affect and can stave off thirst and hunger. Growing on the ridges of the spinifex sand dunes, pituri plants were and still are husbanded with only the older and more potent leaves being taken to ensure the longevity of this most important resource.

The trade of pituri continues today but in a very different way from when people walked the “pituri track” which is thought to have stopped in the 1930’s. Linda Crombie, a Wankangurru woman residing in Birdsville, remembers walking the “pituri track” in the 30’s with her grandparents collecting the plant for the manager of Roseberth station (Letnic, 2000).

Ethabuka Reserve abounds with Aboriginal cultural heritage from stone artifact scatters, lizard traps, occupation sites to rock art sites being found throughout the property.

With the arrival of the early settlers in far west Queensland in the 1870s, life changed for the Aboriginal people of this region. In time they worked in all areas of pastoral life becoming part of a very different community.

Only surveyors had been out this far by the 1890’s describing it as ‘spinifex sandhills with gidyea flats in places’. (Nolan p204)

In the 1880’s a rabbit proof fence was built to stop the rabbit migration north into Queensland. Men were employed to maintain the fence, ‘each given a stretch of thirty to forty miles to inspect and repair and they were provided with huts, paddocks, water and horses’. (Nolan p78) This fence ran through Ethabuka with at least two boundary workers’ huts being situated on the reserve. The boundary workers’ hut of Ethabuka Spring was transported to Bedourie and is now the dining room at the Royal Hotel, Bedourie.

Ethabuka was offered as a pastoral lease in 1910 but was not taken up until 1946 when Charles Herbert Smith of Bedourie received a 30 year lease for 2/6 per mile, a total of £71/15/0.

The original Ethabuka lease did not extend as far east as it does today and was considered waterless except after rain. In 1955, Charles Smith applied to the government for more land applying for ‘some springs country, frontage to the Mulligan [River] and watering rights to Pulchera Waterhole’ (Nolan p205). Pastoralists were now required to fence their land and so the previous arrangement of Ethabuka and Kamaran Downs working together was no longer feasible. The lease was not extended until the early 1980s with a portion of land being taken from Sandringham Station owned by S Kidman & Co. When Charles Smith died in 1961, Ethabuka passed to his sons Cedric Allan and Raymond Patrick Smith then in 1969 to a partnership between Cecil James (Peter) and James Peter Smith.

Peter Smith and wife Jean (nee Scobie) managed Ethabuka from Bedourie with Peter coming out to work on the property as needed. Their children are Jim Smith, publican of the Royal Hotel, Bedourie, Donald, David, Roy and Max. The property passed to David and in 2004, was purchased by the Australian Bush Heritage Fund.

Bibliography
Peter Latz, Bushfires and Bushtucker – Aboriginal Plant Use in Central Australia, 2004
 - Pituri drawing p 163

Carolyn Nolan, Sand Hills and Channel Country, 2003
- photo of boundary rider’s hut p174