An elegant, but rare, type is found among the weapons of the Ponga Ponga, Mulluk Mulluk, and Wogait tribes on the Daly River. Its hard-wood head is long and uniformly tapering from its point of insertion to its sharp tip. On one side there are very many small barbs, diminishing in size from the shaft upwards; as many as one hundred barbs have been counted; they point either slightly backwards or at right angles to the length (p).
A spear in use on the Alligator River, and in the districts south and west therefrom, has the barbs along the edge of the anterior moiety directed backwards, whereas those of the posterior portion point forwards. And occasionally one finds the barbs arranged asymmetrically on two sides of the spear-head.
Finally, a rather remarkable type will be referred to, which belongs to the Arnhem Land tribes, or rather to the country extending from Port Essington to the Roper River, including Groote Island and smaller groups lying off the coast. It is a neat and comparatively small spear, about eight feet long on an average. The head, instead of possessing a number of barbs, has a series of eye-shaped holes cut along one of its sides, which give the impression of being so many unfinished barbs, or so many barbs with their points joined together (q). The major axes of the holes are parallel and directed backwards; there may be up to thirty holes present. Occasionally there are a few real barbs cut near the shaft end of the head; or a number of incomplete barbs may there be cut with their axes turned towards the front of the spear. The point is always sharp and stands back somewhat from the level of the uncut barbs.
For special purposes, like fishing, two or three of the simple-barbed prongs are frequently affixed to a reed shaft with beeswax or resin, and vegetable fibre. This combination is met with all along the coast of the Northern Territory. The natives know very well that the chances of stabbing a fish with a trident of this description are much greater than with a single prong. As a matter of fact, a barbed spear with less than two prongs is not normally used for fishing purposes, yet a plain, single-pronged spear is often utilized when there is none of the other kind available.
The Australian aboriginals do not poison their spears in the ordinary sense of the word, but the Ponga Ponga and Wogait tribes residing on the Daly River employ the vertebræ of large fish, like the barramundi, which have previously been inserted into decaying flesh, usually the putrid carcase of a kangaroo, with the object of making the weapon more deadly. The bones are tied to the head of a fighting spear. This is not a general practice, however, and the spear never leaves the hands of the owner. The natives maintain that by so doing they can kill their enemy “quick fella.”
CHAPTER XXII
SPEAR-THROWERS
Principle of construction—How held—Some of the common types described—Other uses.
To assist in the projection of a spear, the aboriginal has invented a simple apparatus, which is commonly referred to as a spear-thrower or wommera. In principle it is just a straight piece of wood with a haft at one end and a small hook at the other. In practice the hand seizes the haft, the hook is inserted into the small pit at the bottom of the spear, and the shaft is laid along the thrower and held there with two of the fingers of the hand, which is clasping the haft. In this position, the arm is placed well back, the point of the spear steadied or made to vibrate, and, when the native has taken careful aim, the arm is forcibly shot forwards. The missile flies through space, towards its target, but the thrower is retained by the hand.
One of the simplest types was made by the tribes living along the shores of the Great Australian Bight. It consists of a flat piece of wood, about three feet long, roughly fluted lengthwise and slightly sloped off at either extremity. At one end a mass of resin forms a handle, in which, moreover, a quartzite or flint scraper is embedded. At the other end a wooden peg is affixed with resin against the flat surface of the stick. Both surfaces of the implement are flat or slightly convex; at Esperance Bay they are rather nicely polished, the wood selected being a dark-coloured acacia. Towards the east, however, as for instance at Streaky Bay, the inner side, i.e. the one bearing the hook or peg, becomes concave and the outer side convex. On Eyre Peninsula, the old Parnkalla tribe made the spear-thrower shorter but wider, and its section was distinctly concave.