lines irregularly disposed, but so as to form a pattern.—(Fig. 138.) The two rows of shallow depressions marked with detached circles, at the top and bottom are colored red. The spaces at the ends are painted white. The back is nearly flat, and the handle is cut out of the solid wood. A figure, perhaps that of some reptile, is drawn on it, and colored white, and the spaces marked with incised lines are painted red. This shield is twenty inches and a quarter in length, and seven inches in breadth, and weighs only thirty-six ounces. The name of this shield at Mackay is Goolmarry.
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| FIG. 139. |
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| FIG. 138. |
The shield Fig. 139, from Rockingham Bay, Queensland, is a remarkable specimen of native art, and differs altogether from the shields in use in other parts of the continent. The form is an irregular oval. It is thirty-seven inches in length, and fifteen inches in width at the widest part. The thickness varies from one and a half to three inches. There is a boss or knob in the centre about three inches in length, an inch and a half in width, and about an inch in height. The whole is colored black, yellow, white, and red, in stripes and patches. The reverse is plain, and the handle is sunk in the wood. The wood of which it is made is very light.
Mr. A. J. Scott says that this shield is formed of the soft, light wood of the buttress root of a description of ficus, and that it is sometimes painted in blue, black, red, and yellow bands, in a quaint zig-zag pattern.
