Category: Payne’s Find

The Mystery of the Maroon Plant

Editor’s Note: This article is taken from an account in The Daily News, 11 Jan 1947.1

In the mid-1930s, the Murchison district was home to a story that would later captivate government scientists and locals alike. It concerns an aged Aboriginal man named Neebrong and his extraordinary recovery from a debilitating illness.

In 1936, Neebrong was admitted to a hospital in Dalwallinu, where doctors delivered a devastating diagnosis: he was suffering from what was believed to be cancer of the tongue. The clinical description was harrowing; his tongue was described as a “red, raw, discharging mass,” and the disease had progressed to the point where he could no longer speak. The surgeons’ verdict was clear—his tongue would have to be surgically removed.

Faced with the prospect of losing his voice, Neebrong took a bold path. He escaped from his hospital bed and returned to the familiar country of Payne’s Find. Back in the scrub, he began a course of self-treatment using the stems of a native plant known to the local people as the “maroon” plant.

The results were startling. Just three months after his flight from the hospital, Neebrong reappeared with his speech fully restored. To the amazement of those who saw him, his tongue had returned to a nearly normal state, bearing only a few scars as evidence of his previous condition. While Neebrong passed away three years later, Constable A. T. Monck, who later reported the case, noted that his death was due to entirely different causes.

The story didn’t end in the Murchison. By 1947, the Western Australian Drug Panel, chaired by Government Botanist C. A. Gardiner, began a formal investigation into the “maroon” plant. Identified as Scaevola spinescens, the plant was prolific around Payne’s Find. Local white residents were so convinced by what they had witnessed that they provided signed statements to the authorities to assist the investigation.

Scaevola spinescens2

While the Drug Panel urged “extreme caution”, noting that it had not been scientifically proven that the disease was true cancer or that the plant was the definitive cure, the story of Neebrong remains a powerful testament to the traditional knowledge of the land. For family and local historians, it serves as a reminder of the cultural mysteries that linger in the red dust of our outback history.

  1. Native’s Story Of Cure By Plant (1947, January 11). The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 – 1955), p. 10 (FIRST EDITION). Retrieved April 4, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article78216938 ↩︎
  2. Tucker Bush (2020). Maroon Bush – Scaevola Spinescens. Retrieved 4 Apr 2026 from https://tuckerbush.com.au/maroon-bush-scaevola-spinescens/ ↩︎

The Rutherford Family of Ninghan

Searching for the ghost town/area Ninghan (occasionally spelled Ningan) I found a story which indicates the everyday dangers always present in outback Western Australia. When she was 11 years old, Hazel Rutherford, of Ninghan Station via Yalgoo wrote in to ‘Aunt Mary’ (children’s letters to the Silver Chain) about where she lived. She told of the spring near their homestead, the garden of poppy flowers, and her kitten. Hazel had five brothers and a sister. She also had a friend, Iris Vickery, and they went for long walks together. Ninghan Station still exists, and the descriptions of it are as picturesque now as they were in 1925.

Childrens Corner conducted by “Aunt Mary”1

A few years later, Hazel’s name was again in the newspaper, but this time the information was not so benign. She was listed as family mourning the death of her twin brother, Harold Arthur Rutherford, who had died riding home from his day’s work as a stockman – he was 17 and six months. Harold was laid to rest where he was found, at Ninghan Station, which at the time was owned by Tom Elder Barr Smith. By that time, the Rutherford family seem to have moved to Bungar Station, Paynes Find which is still in the area. This I could not find. Perhaps the name has changed, or the land is divided now.

Family Notices 2

A postscript to this story was a request for compensation for Harold’s death, put forward by his father, George Arthur Rutherford, to Tom Elder Barr Smith, heir to a fortune in pastoral properties and owner of Ninghan Station. £75 was awarded under the Workers Compensation Act, on the grounds that Harold had partially supported his father and the family by some of his wages at the time he died. Iris Vickery, a bookkeeper to Mr Barr Smith, corroborated the information.

Peeps at People 3

The Dalwallinu Register of Burials notes the grave, and also that the ashes of a relative, George Edward Rutherford, who died in 1990, were also interred there4. 

Sources
  1. Ginger and Fluffy. (1926, January 21). Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 – 1954), p. 29. Retrieved August 20, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37644656 ↩︎
  2. Family Notices (1932, April 14). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 – 1954), p. 1. Retrieved August 20, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32643172 ↩︎
  3. Peeps at People (1932, April 10). Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 – 1954), p. 7 (First Section). Retrieved August 20, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58661172 ↩︎
  4. Shire of Dalwallinu Burial Register ↩︎