Sandalwood Ritual Australian Sandalwood Incense Sticks | Wild Peppery Warmth - 1.06 oz

Long before Westerners discovered Australian sandalwood, the Aboriginal peoples had lived alongside it for tens of thousands of years. The Noongar called it waang; the Martu called it dutjahn. They burned it in smoking ceremonies — to cleanse the body, ward off evil, and carry prayers to the Dreamtime. In the 1840s, the British arrived and saw something else entirely: money. Millions of sandalwood trees were felled, loaded onto ships, and sent to China. At its peak, sandalwood exports accounted for more than half of Western Australia's colonial revenue. By the 1920s, over 330,000 tons had been shipped out. The price of prosperity: wild mature trees driven nearly to extinction.

Today, wild harvesting is strictly controlled, and plantation forests are recovering. Since 2015, Aboriginal communities have re-entered the industry — the Martu co-managed Dutjahn Sandalwood Oils now supplies Estée Lauder's fragrance chain. A century ago, the trees were carried away. A century later, they have returned in a different form.

Chinese merchants called Indian sandalwood Lao Shan — "Old Mountain" — and Australian sandalwood Xin Shan — "New Mountain." The "mountain" was trade jargon for "place of origin." Lao meant authentic, hallowed by time; Xin meant latecomer, substitute. This naming convention ran deep: San Francisco became "Old Gold Mountain" only because Melbourne was dubbed "New Gold Mountain." And Honolulu was simply "Sandalwood Mountain" — because Hawaii once exported vast quantities of sandalwood to China.