ounces. The only specimen from West Australia that I have in my possession was obtained by Mr. H. Y. L. Brown, and it is conjectured that it is used both in hunting and in war. It is a light and well-balanced spear; and great skill must have been employed in shaping it and in bringing the ends to such fine hard points as they present. The wood of which it is made has dark veins in it, and it appears to have been polished and rubbed or varnished with some sort of gum or resin.
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| FIG. 143.–(Scale: ⅓.) | FIG. 144. |
A rather remarkable spear, Fig. 143, is the only one brought from West Australia by Mr. Brown which is in any way ornamented. The shaft from the point downwards is scraped smooth for a length of nearly nine inches, and marked with black bands; and the wood being white, the effect is peculiar. Below the scraped or polished part the wood is in the same state as when the bark was peeled off, except that it has been rubbed with a gum or resin to protect it from the wet.
The spear is nearly eight feet in length. One weighs five and three-quarter ounces, and another six and a half ounces. The barb is formed of very hard white wood, and is exceedingly thin and sharp. It is firmly fixed to the head by some kind of string or sinew, and further strengthened by a coat of the gum of the xanthorrhœa. The lower end is hollowed for the reception of the point of the Womerah, and one is tied (as shown in the figure), to strengthen it. As a weapon of offence, it would be highly dangerous. It resembles the barbed spear of the Cape York natives.
The double-barbed spear—Pillara—(Fig. 144)—is thrown from the Womerah like the Gid-jee, but is employed more commonly in close combat, when it is thrust at the enemy. The wood from which this weapon is made is not known, and it is not used within a distance of four hundred miles north of Perth. It is about nine feet in length. It is stated by the Rev. J. G. Wood[1] that this spear is in use at Port Essington; and this agrees with the information furnished by the Honorable Mr. Barlee.
The four-pronged spear (Fig. 145) is about six feet in length, the tapering heads being apparently of the same kind of wood as the shaft. The barbs on each side project outwards. Though this is named as a West Australian weapon, it is not known, as far as could be ascertained by the Honorable
- ↑ Natural History of Man, vol. II., p. 41.
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