The lives of the Kairi First Nations People at Springsure

This information is taken from a number of informations boards in the parklands at Springsure

Our people

This area is Kairi tribal country, sometimes called Kairi Kairi country.  Kairi means the sun in the aboriginal language.

The tribal area covers much of the present-day Bauhinia and Emerald Shires, including the catchment of the Nogoa River above Fairbairn Dam.  It also covers the area between the Nogoa and Comet rivers from their junction back to Orion creek, as well as the northern side of Iron Creek and Staircase range across to the Nogoa River catchment.  There may have been about 500 people in the Kairi tribe at the time when white people first explored the area.

In the Kairi area there were a number of clans, each broken up into smaller groups using different areas of country.  They would  move from camp to camp to use the available food.  At particular times the groups and clans would meet together, although the availability of food would limit the time that a large number of people could live off the country.  Springsure was an important meeting ground for several clans in the Kairi Tribe.

A large proportion of the natural fauna and flora was used for food, medicine, shelter and tools.  Local Aboriginal people would have hunted emu, kangaroo, plains turkey, goanna and many other animals.  They cut holes into hollow trees to collect eggs from bird nests, honey from native bees and to catch possums.  Insects such as witchery grubs as well as freshwater fish and shellfish were also important protein sources.

Some of the trees planted in this park have been selected because of their usefulness to Aboriginal people for a variety of purposes.  Plants supplied food, were used for medicinal properties and were used to build shelter and make tools.  In some cases, the early white settlers utilised the same plants for their own needs.

The Use of Plants for Food 

Aboriginal people used a very wide range of plants for food.  Many different seeds were collected, ground up for flour, then kneaded with water and baked in the coals.  Some grasses were harvested with stone knives and winnowed, while tubers and the bulbs of lilies were collected and pounded up for cooking.  

For example Cycads, also known as Zamia Palms. These are very poisonous and the nuts are carcinogenic, they are an important food source. The nuts were crushed and ground, and then soaked in tuning water  to leach out the toxin and and render them safe to eat. They were then made into a damper and looked on coals.   Yams and Wild Tomatoes (These edible wild tomatoes were eaten raw or dried on sticks.  The dried fruits could be ground up with water to make a paste).

The Use of Plants for Medicine 

Aboriginal people lived in the open and off the land, a nomadic lifestyle mostly free of diseases.  Common health problems included injuries, burns from sleeping at fires, headaches caused by intense sun and certain foods as well as eye infections.  Colds, digestive upsets and tooth problems from wear by gritty coarse food would also have occurred regularly.

Aboriginal people had an extensive knowledge of how local plants could be used for medicinal purposes.  Medical remedies were made from herbs, leaves, bark, roots, berries and the sap of plants.

Animal products, steam baths, clay pills, charcoal and mud together with massages, amulets and spiritual healing formed the basis of very successful Aboriginal medicinal practices.

For example,  the Tea Tree. The leaves are boiled to create a mixture for coughs, while fever victims were bathed with water with crushed leaves. The bark from paperbark trees was used as bandages for wounds.