Silver Box or Smoke Tree: Yarirra
Bush Medicine
Another in our Bush Medicine series, the beautiful Silver Box or Smoke Tree, Eucalyptus pruinosa, abounds Yidumduma Bill Harney's Wardaman country. It is great bush medicine for the relief of toothache and cuts. It is also home to the budgerigar who lives in the termite hollows of the trees.
For the Jawoyn People this is called 'smoke tree' and "the leaves are used to flavour meat when cooking in bush ground ovens. Sugarbag, (native beehives) are often found in this tree. They are a source of very tasty, dark sweet honey, pollen and wax." (Jawoyn Palnts & Animals)
Transcript
Right...Yarirra here everywhere.
Oh, here one. This one alright.
Now...this little bush here I'm hanging onto,
it's called Yarirra in Aboriginal name...
In the white man name called Silver Fox.
Why Silver Fox, because it's looks a silvery color.
And with him with all this leaf here he's got a very beautiful medicine.
...when you got your gum no good in the mouth, you chew this.
...we used to break them like this, and this cures all the gum...
Sometime, if you had a toothache you chew this as well...
You chew them, like this...when you chew them, you keep on chewing it,
when it all melts inside, sort of numb your gum.
And the toothache you can't feel it.
Got a lot of moisture inside of this leaf, and a beautiful tree.
The color you see...from the green to...a silvery color.
That silvery color, I think, is most of all the medicine...popping out.
But if you put your tongue on it and then rub it with your hand,
you can see the green come up. See.
And that green...the one that have a lot of moisture...
And very beautiful, the medicine, for pretty well everything with this one.
Sometime now, we used to boil that too, for curing,
you might be a little wound, whatever,
because he kills that soreness in your little cuts and all this.
And then keep it in place and numb everything up.
And you can move around.
There's a lot of helpful, in this Silver Fox.
This is what the little Yarirra tree, now.
The most of this Yarirra you see, they're all hollow.
A lot of Budgerigars, little Budgerigars, little birds, they live on this, in the little hollow tree.
They breed up and they live.
That's why we don't cut any of this tree down to make anything, we leave it as it is.
And if we need it for a little medicine, we just take this little leaf off, because they regrow again...
They are really, very important little tree all around.
You can see it far, you can see it's all silvery colour.
...make nice and beautiful, to look about in the country.
Keep the happiness to the country, make it look nice...
Now, I can feel this....the leaf here.
When I put it in me mouth, I can feel...I must have a sore gum.
It's sort of burning it a bit, that's curing me...
And this is a Silver Fox now, right here what I'm hanging on.
A great little medicine.
