This slate morah grinding stone is from North Queensland.  Morah were used to process rainforest nuts.  This example is from the traditional country of the Dyirbal people.

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This large slate morah was found near Millaa Millaa on the Atherton Tablelands in North Queensland.  The stone was split along bedding planes and shaped by bifacial percussion flaking around most of the perimeter.  The sharp edges were rounded off by grinding.  A series of ca. 42 parallel grooves were cut across the working surface.  The grooves are V-shaped in profile and are relatively wide relative to depth; they were probably made with a sharp-edged stone tool.  The stone is slightly dished on the grooved surface.  The notch in the top edge is recent damage, probably from a plough-strike or heavy equipment damage.

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A morah is a type of grinding stone unique to the tropical rainforests of North Queensland.  Morah are relatively common on rainforest sites from Tully in the south to Cairns in the north, and were used by Aboriginal people to process rainforest nuts,  primarily yellow walnuts (Beilschmiedia bancroftii) and hairy walnuts (Endiandra insignis).   They were usually made from slabs of relatively fine-grained slate or similar platy metamorphosed schist.  Slate is known to outcrop in the Russell River catchment, and this may have been the primary stone source for morah across the region.  The characteristic feature of morah is the series of grooves cut across the stone’s width, usually on one face only.  These grooves are parallel to each other and relatively deep.  Some morah stones have decorative grooves added near the edges at each end.  The granite river-rolled top stone used in combination with the morah was called a moogi.  The morah and moogi were used primarily by women.

An unidentified Ngajanjii woman demonstrated the use of a morah stone to a collector in 1967.  The morah was placed on a sheet of bark or cloth.  Roasted and shelled nuts were placed on the morah and lightly pounded with the end of the cylindrical moogi, breaking them into small angular fragments.  The moogi was then turned to the rounded side and rolled and pushed across the nut fragments, which were held in place by the grooves in the morah.  This was described as a ‘rolling crushing’ gesture to produce coarse meal rather than flour.  The pushing motion moved the processed meal off the end of the morah, where it accumulated into a pile on the bark or cloth.  The process caused the centre of the morah to wear away from attrition, eventually creating a dished surface.  The grooves are worn away on some heavily-used morah, and many show signs of resharpening by re-engraving the grooves.  Archaeologists have identified starch grains from processed nuts embedded in the grooves.