Canoe Tree: Chowilla Station via Renmark

Scar trees like this one on Chowilla Station north of Renmark, are confirmation that if you want to see what's all around you then you need to focus above eye level. But for an Aboriginal hunter finding the right tree for a canoe was one thing, getting the bark off a magnificent river redgum like this and moulding it into a suitable river craft was quite another. In order to reach the desired piece of bark, the craftsman would need to climb and that's where the "Wudnah" came into its own.

You wouldn't be able to make such a bark canoe without such a device. We're talking about mature trees which probably don't have a lower branch below the level of let's say ten metres in some cases so weíre talking about very wide trees which you canít put your arms around and without being able to cut toe holds you wouldnít be able to get far enough up.

Once prised from the tree with a stone axe, the bark slab would then be fired on a bed of coals.Then as the bark is starting to peel up they'd drop lots of sticks around the edge including as you can see into the canoe, some wood to stop it closing up too much because the bark is trying to take the shape that it had when it was on the tree.
This canoe from Avoca Station on the Darling River is believed to date bake to the 1860's and is one of the best examples still in existence. A canoe like this was an essential part of life on the River, but often the search for the right tree meant one tribe had to venture into territory which was not theirs by law.The curator of the museum in the early 1930's, recorded accounts from Aboriginal people where they actually bartered for access to those inland forests. Whipstick mallee was cut down in some of the mallee areas closer to the river and made into shafts and spears they made very good spears and bundles of these were given to traded to people in the hills up towards Mount barker and the Southern Fleurieu Peninsula and that gave the access to these inland forests.

So when you come across scar trees like this you're really in touch with living archaeology and its literally everywhere if you know where to look. Last week Postcards featured this scar tree at Warraparinga off South Road at Darlington , but across the road in the heart of suburbia is yet another used for the same purpose to make a cooliman.
They would have managed it by sitting in the fork of the tree, there Id say using a stone implement to get that out and that would have been used, that piece, that artefact there would have been a cooliman and that would have been used for carrying food and as a digging implement and also carrying a small child.

Pauls Dixon's grandfather Willie Williams, taught him many of the skills and traditions of the Kauna people including the making of Kauna shields with their traditional colouring.
There actually white ochre with red ochre lines on it. Really distinctive though very much of Adelaide. And about eighty kilometres south of Adelaide stands one of the finest examples of a canoe tree, which sadly was ringbarked by vandals late last year. A local eucalypt expert grafted bark from a similar tree and it's progress continues to be monitored by the Alexandrina Council. The Currency Creek Canoe tree is on the right hand side of the road as you drive from Goolwa to Strathalbyn. The Avoca Station bark canoe in the South Australian Museum will take pride of place in the Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery which is due for completion in March next year. And for those with an interest in Kaurna shields, Paul Dixon makes them on request and can be contacted on (08) 8326 5462.

For more information you can email info@postcards.sa.com.au