Fig. 34.—Lisán or Tongue.
I. The Bulak Museum (Cairo)[106] shows two good specimens of the ancient ‘Lisán’ (‘tongue’-weapon) club or curved stick. The first battles, says Pliny (vii. 57), were fought by the Africans against the Egyptians with clubs which they called phalangæ. The shorter club-sword (1 ft. 11 in.) has a handle ribbed with eighteen fine raised rings. The longer or falchion-shaped weapon (2 ft. 5 in.) is hatched at the grip with a cross pattern. Both are of hard wood blackened by age, and both have the distinct cutting edge. The ancient war-club was tipped with metal and whipped with thongs round the handle for firmer grasp, like the Roman fasces. The modern Lisán-club, made of tough mimosa-wood and about 2½ ft. long, is still used in close combat by the Negroid tribes of the Upper Nile. To the Bishárins and Amri the Lisán supplies, at dances and on festal occasions, the place of the sword. In Abyssinia there is a lighter variety (1 ft. 6 in.) banded alternately with red, blue, and green cloth, and protected by a network of brass wire. The Ababdeh (modern Æthiopians), content with this, the spear, and its pendant the shield, fear not to encounter tribes whose arms are the matchlock and a ‘formidable looking, but really inoffensive sword with a wondrous huge straight blade.’ These pastoral Nomads are of a peculiar and interesting type. The short stature and the well-curved and delicate limbs, whose action is quick, lithe, and graceful as the leopard’s, connect them with the Bedawin of Arabia; while the knotted and spiral locks standing on end, and resembling when tallowed a huge cauliflower, affiliate them to the African Somal. Their arms are more extensive than their dress, a mere waist cloth, the primitive attire of tropical man; and they live by hiring their camels to caravans.
The Dublin Museum[107] also shows the transitional forms between the club and the Sword. The weapon (a) numbered 143 is some twenty-five inches long: the second (b) is labelled ‘No. 144, wooden club-shaped implement, twenty-seven inches long.’
The club of the Savage developed itself in other directions to the shepherd’s staff, the bishop’s crozier, and the king’s sceptre; hence, too, the useless bâton of the field-marshal, and the maces of Mr. Speaker and My Lord Mayor. Here we may answer the question why the field-marshal should carry a stick instead of a Sword. The unwarlike little instrument is simply the symbol of high authority:[108] it is the rod, not of the Lictor, but of the Centurion, whose badge of office was a vine-sapling wherewith to enforce authority. Hence Lucan (vi. 146) says of gallant Captain Cassius Scæva who, after many wounds, beat off two swordsmen:—
Sanguine multo
Promotus Latiam longo gerit ordine vitem.
This use was continued by the drill-sergeant of Europe from England to Russia. The club again survives in the constable’s staff and the policeman’s truncheon.
THE BOOMERANG.
The form of throwing-stick, which we have taught ourselves to call by an Australian name ‘boomerang,’[109] thereby unduly localising an almost universal weapon from Eskimo-land to Australia, was evidently a precursor of the wooden Sword. It was well known to the ancient Egyptians. Wilkinson shows (vol. i. chap. 4) that it was of heavy wood, cut flat, and thus offering the least resistance, measuring 1 ft. 3 in. to 2 ft. long by 1½ in. broad. The shape, however, is not the usual segment of a circle, but a shallow S-curve inverted (Ƨ), more bent at the upper end, and straighter in the handle. One weapon (p. 236) seems to bear the familiar asp-head.[110] The British Museum contains a boomerang brought from Thebes by the Rev. Greville Chester, and a facsimile was exhibited by General Pitt-Rivers.[111] The end is much curved; the blade has four parallel grooves, and it bears the cartouche of Ramses the Great. In no instance have we found the round shape and the returning flight of its Australian congener. Three illustrations[112] show a large sportsman (the master) bringing down birds which rise from a papyrus-swamp, while a smaller figure (the slave) in the same canoe holds another weapon at arm’s length.