When deciding upon a place for removing a flake, a native always selects a corner, in order that the detached piece might be triangular in transverse section, and, therefore, without exception, lanceolate in shape. Thus the simple flakes are obtained which make stone knives and spear heads. To serve as a knife, the flake is fitted with a handle in one the following ways. It may be attached by means of porcupine grass resin in the bend of a folded haft of wood, as described of the axe above, or its thick end may be held in a cleft, made at the top of a stick, and secured by a good quantity of resin. The simplest form, however, is one common throughout the central and northern regions; it consists of a blade of quartzite embedded at its blunt end in a round mass of resin. The largest stone knives come from the tribes immediately north of the MacDonnell Ranges. The Kaitidji make quartzite blades up to seven inches long and two and a half inches wide, which they embed in a ball of resin and attach to the top of a short, thin, and flat slab of wood. The blades of these knives are protected by keeping them in sheaths of bark when not in use.
PLATE XLVIII
Rock-drawings of archer fish (Toxotes), Katherine River, Northern Territory.
The coastal tribes of the Northern Territory, such as the Wogait, Mulluk-Mulluk, Ponga-Ponga, and Sherait, break similar flakes of quartzite from a core, which they insert into the split end of a reed spear and make secure with a mass of resin or wild bees’ wax.
A narrow, oblong fragment, with the two long edges bevelled on the same surface, such as would be obtained by removing two flakes from the same spot, and keeping the lower, finds considerable application in the sense of a spokeshave. The implement is specially prized when it is slightly curved. Much of the trimming, smoothing, and rounding of wooden surfaces is accomplished with this tool. The native sits with his legs straight in front of him and holds the object he is shaping (like for instance the boomerang shown in [Plate LV], 2) tightly between his heels. He seizes the stone flake with the fingers of both hands, leaving a clear space of about an inch in the centre, and laying the cutting edge against the wood, pushes it forwards at an angle. This process planes down the surface very effectively, and the ground soon becomes covered with the thin shavings produced.
In former days the River Murray and south-eastern tribes used pointed splinters of stone for making holes through the skins of animals they made up into rugs. Nowadays the northern tribes make awls out of bones which they sharpen at one end; they are used principally for holing the edges of their bark implements prior to stitching them together with strips of cane.
By additional chipping, the main flake, whether obtained from a nucleus or otherwise, is often altered considerably in appearance, without necessarily improving its effectiveness as an implement or its deadliness as a weapon.
The south-eastern natives, as, for instance, those of the Victorian Lakes district, as well as those of central Australia, used to select a flat fragment of hard rock, into one straight side of which they chipped a shallow concavity; this instrument answered the purpose of a rasp when finishing off such articles as spears, waddies, and clubs which had cylindrical, convex, or curved contours to bring into shape.
The old Adelaide plains tribe were in possession of scrapers which they constructed out of thin slabs of clay-slate. The implement was more or less semi-circular, but had a concave surface on the inner side; occasionally its corners were rounded off, producing a reniform shape. On an average the diameter was something like four or five inches. This implement was used exclusively to scrape skins of animals, after the following fashion: The convex surface was pressed against the palm of the right hand and securely held between the body of the thumb and the four fingers. The skin was laid around a cylindrical rod and held firmly against it with the opposite hand, while the implement was placed over the skin with its concave surface so adjusted as to fit over the convexity of the rod. In this position, the scraper was worked downwards, or towards the native, with its concave surface running ahead of the hand and shaving the skin. Thus the skins were thoroughly cleaned, and all adherent pieces of fat and flesh removed. Slate scrapers of this type are still to be found in large number in the drift sands along the shores of St. Vincent’s Gulf, especially in the neighbourhood of Normanville. Vide [Plate XLIII], 3.