malsten

Ur generalkatalogen: "Denna malsten, ett verkligt praktexemplar i sitt slag utgöres av en stor, tunn sandstensskiva av spetsoval form. Den jämna, finslipade malytans begränsningslinje är i det närmaste likformig med malstenens. Walter E. Roth skriver i sitt utmärkta arbete över infödingarnas i North Queensland föda följande: 'Marsilea Drummondii, Braun. - "Nardoo". The hardshelled seed (spore-cases), easily and speedily collected from the plant when growing in marshy swamps, is poundred and broken up with a special stone, etc., previous to grindling. Boulia. Cloncurry.' Konsul Helin uppgav att detta malfat är en dylik nardoo-sten. "

I uppslagsverket "The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia" kan man läsa följande under rubriken malstenar: "Tools for grinding plant seeds, until recent years common in the diet of Aboriginal people. In suitable areas and seasons large quantities of seeds were harvested by women. They also arduously processed the seeds into flour, which was then cooked. Hard seeds such as acacias were often roasted and then broken up in a mortar and pestle. The mortar is a block of stone, generally with a shallow cicular depression into which the seeds were placed and pounded with the pestle, a hand-sized stone with a rounded surface. The same implements could also be used to prepare pigments for painting. Using water, the broken seeds and soft grass seeds were processed on millstones, large flat stones (usually sandstones) with a long processing groove in which a muller (similar to a pestle) was rubbed up and down. Stone suitable for milling was highly valued. People in areas lacking it would obtain it by trade over great distances and particularly good specimens could be handed down from mother to daughter. There is no good evidence for seed-grinding equipment before about 3,000 years ago, and the process was therefore probably not important in the initial colonisation of the arid zone. In recent years use of seed for flour has greatly declined and been replaced by store-bought processed flour. This has meant that women no longer have to invest enormous lengths of time in flour processing but it also has adverse health implications. In many areas it has also resulted in the disappearance of songs depicting grinding."
(ref Horton, 1994, sid 427, vol. 1)

Vidare står det följande under rubriken Nardoo: "A Yandruwandha word which refers to one of the most widely distributed Aboriginal plant foods. The food comes from Marsilea, a small fern growing on swampy mudflats throughout mainland Australia. Four of about 50 Marsilea species are indigenous to Australia. Sometimes called 'clover fern' because their fronds resemble the leaves of four-leaf clover, they produce spore cases containing starch. These remain on the ground when the plant withers away during summer. Aboriginal people gathered them in large quantities to pound or grind into flour on a stone. Mixed with water the flour becomes a paste, which can be eaten raw or cooked as a damper (ett slags ojäst bröd) in the ashes of a fire. The name is used for both the plant and the food. The nutritional value of nardoo flour is doubtful. Before wheaten flour became readily obtainable Aboriginal people subsisted on nardoo in dry seasons when little else was available, but in good seasons appear to have preferred making damper from the seeds of other plants." (ref Horton, 1994, sid 760, vol. 2.)