The Food of Manankurra

This is a special place for high-carbohydrate food from the Cycad palms.

From these palms, nuts can be harvested which are baked, split, sliced, soaked, ground and then cooked. These women are splitting open the nuts. Click here to see the process in a photo display.

This is also a good place for bush-tucker (nuts, yams, wallaby) and for fishing. It is just below the fresh-water limit of the Wearyan River and if boats are available, within easy reach of rich shellfish, dugong and turtle-hunting areas of the lower river.

The middens that exist tell us that this area has been settled for a very long time and by big groups of Yanyuwa and Garrwa people. Leichhardt, the first European explorer to pass through this place, observed that the cycad nuts were very poisonous and watched them being prepared so as to leach the poisons out of them.