Please Note: Image shown is not actual product. Image is an indication of a carved boab nut only. All nuts are individually carved and carvings vary with each nut.
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BOAB NUTS OF THE KIMBERLEY
The Boab Tree is a mystery in itself - purportedly native to Madagascar, it grows in Australia only in the Kimberley Region of West Australia and the Victoria River area of the Northern Territory. Its trunk is voluminous, often trees are seen growing in "triplicate" (three trunks intertwined), its branches spiderlike in comparison with the bulky trunk - impressively monolithic to say the least.
Aboriginal people used it for shelter, and its large "nuts" for food and medicinal purposes. The early white settlers often chose particular trees as meeting places on stock routes when droving - and then there is the Prison Boab near Derby, able to hold overnight up to ten prisoners en route to the next town.
The Boab Tree has now become part of the Art of the Aboriginal people - the large nuts provide a wonderful avenue for painting and carving. The picking of the nuts to be used for artefacts is vital to the finished product - the nuts must dry on the trees, but be picked prior to the winds, which suddenly arrive, to sever the nuts from the branches and send them crashing to the hard earth below. The larger and better formed the nut, the more sought after - but then, even the small ones are presented as tiny birds, echidnas, and all manner of interesting flora, fauna and ornamental objects.