When Europeans first settled in Australia at the end of the 18^th century, they found an indigenous population who extensively exploited nicotine-containing plants - a similar situation to that experienced earlier by Europeans establishing colonies in the Americas. Australian Aboriginal societies obtained nicotine from at least four different sources: some came from local species of Nicotiana; two tobaccos were traded into the country, probably from Papua New Guinea and the Celebes; and Aboriginal people also utilized a nicotine-containing desert plant, Duboisia hopwoodii. Pituri is the drug made from this shrub. Of all the Aboriginal Australian nicotine-based drugs, pituri contained the highest percentage of nicotine and appears to have had the greatest economic and social significance (Watson, Luanratana and Griffin 1983).

Accounts of the role of pituri in Aboriginal life are incomplete. Although nicotine was identified as an ingredient of the drug as early as 1879 (Bancroft 1879), no social studies of pituri consumption were undertaken at a time when use was current. Today, most Aboriginal people lack detailed knowledge of pituri because European settlement disrupted or destroyed much of the material basis of Aboriginal society, and this prevented the transfer of Aboriginal knowledge and ritual from one generation to another. Thus, information about pituri is fragmentary, and largely depends upon what Europeans found pertinent and chose to record in explorers’ journals, accounts of missionaries and early botanists, and pastoral memoirs (Watson 1983).

Pituri was chewed. Users selected about one tablespoonful of the cured leaf and stem of certain specific socially-sanctioned Duboisia hopwoodii plants. This was chewed or ground to a finer state, and alkali plant ash added. Both ingredients were thoroughly mixed to a paste of brownish grey colour, or shaped into a small roll slightly longer and thicker than a cigarette. This formed the pituri quid.

Early references state or imply that pituri consumption was the prerogative of older men of ritual standing, a situation compatible with Aboriginal social practices. Use by women and young men is noted only after extensive Aboriginal contact with missionaries and pastoralists. Since members of both of these groups manipulated pituri supplies for personal advantage, the apparent change in the identity of users may have occurred as a result of the breakdown in traditional distribution patterns.

Aboriginal use of pituri was qualitatively quite different from European utilization of tobacco. In addition to understanding the use of alkali ash to potentiate the action of the drug, Aboriginal people also appreciated the bi-phasic action of nicotine, utilizing it both as stimulant and depressant. At least 15 primary references indicate that pituri was chewed in large enough quantities to achieve radical alterations of consciousness with effects ranging from euphoria through to stupor and catalepsy (Watson 1983:26).

These episodes took place in a social setting, but the meaning this had for participants is unrecorded. There is also some indication of ritualized transdermal application and shamanistic use. While not enough evidence exists to make definitive comparisons and contrasts, certainly the role of pituri is reminiscent of the position of tobacco in what Furst calls the ecstatic complex of the New World (Furst 1976).

Not only did Aboriginal people possess considerable practical knowledge of nicotine as a drug, they also understood it as a constituent of plants. Duboisia hopwoodii, the basis of pituri, grows widely, though very sparsely, throughout the arid Australian interior. Everist (1981) gives the toxic principle as the alkaloids nicotine and nor-nicotine, with various combinations and proportions present in different samples. In an analysis of 70 samples, nicotine varied from 0.0 to 5.3 per cent and nor-nicotine from 0.1 to 4.1 per cent.

However, Aboriginal people only used Duboisia hopwoodii plants from one small area (the Mulligan River) to make pituri, and plants elsewhere were shunned as a source of the drug and used only as an animal poison. Alkaloid identity appears to have been the basis of this choice: plants in the Mulligan area contained nicotine as the dominant alkaloid, while the plants whose use was avoided were rich in the more toxic nor-nicotine. Alkaloidal quantity seems to have been a further criterion; plants rich in nicotine were selected, and only the newer shoots of these were used, the parts highest in nicotine content.

Many tribal peoples cure plants by sun-drying them, but Aboriginal people at the time of conquest also cured the pituri by artificial heat. This is a risky process compared with natural drying, but one with the potential to produce a more stable drug, and accounts suggest that this was the result. Although Aboriginal people were hunter/gatherers, the vast amounts of pituri in circulation indicate that people were cultivating Duboisia hopwoodii in some way, possibly by fire-stick farming.

Control over access to pituri was extremely important. Demand for the drug was high, and during the l9th century people traded pituri over at least ½ million sq. km of territory, a geographical area far greater than the small section of country which produced the cured prepared substance. Some references describe pituri as a currency, and certainly ownership of pituri bestowed power over others, both individuals and groups, with the issues sometimes involving access to women.

Despite the social, economic and political importance of the drug, at the time of initial European/Aboriginal contact use of pituri was mediated by a number of controls. These influenced both demand and supply, and targeted not only the act of consumption itself but also the processes of production and distribution (Watson 1983).

There were controls over demand in that pituri was defined as appropriate for use only in a ceremonial context, and probably only by older men of ritual standing. A common method of controlling drug supply in tribal groups is to restrict access to the means of production including the material instruments of production and the technical knowledge. Aboriginal people utilized this strategy by allowing production only by old men with ritual standing who possessed a monopoly on knowledge. The exact location of suitable and socially-sanctioned Duboisia hopwoodii plants was a closely-guarded secret, and information about the techniques of artificial drying was also restricted. Records from the 19^th century indicate that younger males would attempt to cure the plant for their own use but would fail because of lack of technical knowledge and unfamiliarity about the correct plants to use. A further restriction on pituri supplies arose from limiting the number of sources from which the drug could be obtained; thus pituri was distributed only by totemic clans whose rights to the drug were religiously based.

In summary, although Western knowledge of the role of pituri in Aboriginal life is incomplete, and mainly represents only what 19^th century and early 20^th century European observers found pertinent, nevertheless several conclusions can be reached: pituri was a nicotine-based drug the use of which bore many resemblances to tobacco consumption among the indigenous peoples of the Americas; Aboriginal people showed considerable knowledge of nicotine both as a drug and as a constituent of plants; pituri had great political social and economic importance at the time of European conquest; and social controls existed over both drug supply and drug demand.

References

Bancroft, J. 1879 Pituri and tobacco. Paper read before the Queensland Philosophical Society. Brisbane: Government Printer.

Everist, S. 1981 Poisonous plants of Australia. London: Angus and Robertson.

Furst, P 1976 Hallucinogens and culture. San Francisco: Chandler and Sharp.

Watson, P 1983 This precious foliage: a study of the Aboriginal psycheactive drug pituri. Oceania Monograph 26. Sydney: Oceania Publications, University of Sydney Press.

Watson, R, O. Luanratana, and W. J. Griffin 1983 The ethnopharmacology of pituri. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 8: 303-311 .