Boab Nut
Ngarinyin, Woddorda (Worrorra) and Wunambal are the three main languages of the North Kimberley language families. The Boab Tree is known by Wurnambal people as Jungurri, in Woddorda as Jungurim and in Ngarinyin as Jungulan jirri, Larrgari jirri and Malawudi jirri.
Boab or Larrgardi Trees (lt.: Adansonia Gregorii) – is an Australian native species only found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They are very recognisable due to their unusual shape – reminding one of a full-bodied bottle. Some trees are more then 1500 years old and can hold more than 100,000 litres of water in their trunks.
Every part of the tree is used either as a food-resource, as medicine or otherwise. Almost every part of the tree is edible from the young leaves and tubers to the internal fruit pods and seeds.
The tree produces beautiful large fragrant yellow flowers. Inside the fruit pod the fruit is naturally dried on the tree itself. This is the only fruit in the world that does this.
Indigenous artists carve designs into shell of the boab nut or paint it with different designs and children use it as a rattle. The designs on the nuts vary from Wandjina’s to different animals, like the Brolga, turtles, and fish to people’s faces and landscapes.
“Boab nut Carving was a way of expressing ones artistic skills. Aboriginal people across the Kimberley Region of Western Australia was carving along time ago it started with our ancestors.”
