Yet, with all this care, the weapon is a very rough one, and the marks of the flint axe are left without even an attempt to smooth them. In a well-used boomerang the projecting edges of the grooves made by various cuts and chips become quite polished by friction, while the sunken portion is left rough. In one fine specimen in my possession the manufacturer has taken a curious advantage of these grooves. Besides marking the handle end by covering it with cross-scorings as has already been described, he has filled the grooves with the red ochre of which the Australian is so fond, and for some eight inches the remains of the red paint are visible in almost every groove.
So delicate is the operation of boomerang making, that some men, natives though they be, cannot turn out a really good weapon, while others are celebrated for their skill, and can dispose of their weapons as fast as they make them. One of the native “kings” was a well-known boomerang maker, and his weapons were widely distributed among the natives, who knew his handiwork as an artist knows the touch of a celebrated painter. To this skill, and the comparative wealth which its exercise brought him, the king in question owed the principal part of his authority.
(1.) SPEARING THE KANGAROO.
(See [page 734].)
(2.) CATCHING THE CORMORANT.
(See [page 738].)
A fair idea of the size and weight of the boomerang may be gained by the measurements of the weapon which has just been mentioned. It is two feet nine inches long when measured with the curve, and two feet six inches from tip to tip. It is exactly two inches in width, only narrowing at the tips, and its weight is exactly eleven ounces. This, by the way, is a war boomerang, and is shaped like that which is shown in “Boomerangs” on page 731, [fig. 3]. Another specimen, which is of about the same weight, is shaped like that of [fig. 8]. It measures two feet five inches along the curve, two feet one inch from tip to tip, and is three inches in width in the middle, diminishing gradually toward the tips.
In order to enable them to ward off these various missiles, the natives are armed with a shield, which varies exceedingly in shape and dimensions, and, indeed, in some places is so unlike a shield, and apparently so inadequate to the office of protecting the body, that when strangers come to visit my collection I often have much difficulty in persuading them that such strange-looking objects can by any possibility be shields. As there is so great a variety in the shields, I have collected together a number of examples, which, I believe, comprise every form of shield used throughout Australia. Two of them are from specimens in my own collection, several from that of Colonel Lane Fox, others are drawn from examples in the British Museum, and the rest were sketched by Mr. Angas in the course of his travels through Australia.
As a general fact, the shield is very solid and heavy, and in some cases looks much more like a club with which a man can be knocked down, than a shield whereby he can be saved from a blow, several of them having sharp edges as if for the purpose of inflicting injury.