Boomerang

“ Boomerang is very much below the medium height, with a sad, faraway look in his eye. He has an expression of woe and disappointment and gloom, because life has been to him a series of blasted hopes and shattered ambitions. ”

“ This was the celebrated boomerang, the curved or crooked flat piece of wood which was one of Man's earliest weapons. Hurled by a practised hand it will whirl through the air, and unless it strikes the object aimed at with its sharp, flat edge, it returns almost to the spot from which it has been thrown. The boomerang has been in use at one time or another from West Africa to east Australia, and was once used in ancient Egypt. Reproduced in metal it is the origin of the throwing-knife of North Central Africa. ”

“ There is another mode of throwing the returning boomerang which is even more remarkable. The thrower, instead of aiming high in the air, marks out a spot on the ground some thirty or forty yards in advance, and hurls the boomerang at it. The weapon strikes the ground, and, instead of being smashed to pieces, as might be thought from the violence of the stroke, it springs from the ground Antæus-like, seeming to attain new vigor by its contact with the earth. ”

“ The boomerang is a very formidable weapon; it is a short, curved piece of heavy wood, and is propelled through the air by the hand in so skilful a manner that the thrower alone knows where it will fall. It is generally thrown against the wind and takes a rapid rotary motion. ”

“ The reader may readily have imagined that the manufacture of so remarkable an implement is not a very easy one. The various points which constitute the excellence of a boomerang are so light that there is scarcely an European who can see them, especially as the shape, size, and weight of the weapon differ so much according to the locality in which it was made. The native, when employed in making a boomerang, often spends many days over it, not only on account of the very imperfect tools which he possesses, but by reason of the minute care which is required in the manufacture of a good weapon. ”

“ Even if it be met with the shield and stopped, it is apt to break, and the two halves to converge upon the body. The very fragments of the boomerang seem able to inflict almost as much injury as the entire weapon; and, in one of the skirmishes to which the natives are so addicted, a man was seen to fall to the ground with his body cut completely open by a broken boomerang.
It is in warding off the boomerang, therefore, that the chief skill of the Australian is shown. When he sees the weapon is pursuing a course which will bring it to him, he steps forward so as to meet it ”

“ But it is evident that the principles of the flight of the boomerang, such as I have described it, according to the recognized law of projectiles, must have been entirely unknown to the savage; he can no more be said to have invented the boomerang than he can be said to have invented the art of sustaining life by nourishment. ”

“ The boomerang is found almost throughout Australia; the variety that returns when it is thrown is as a rule only a plaything or for throwing at birds. The forms of the various implements vary in different parts of the country and in some districts certain implements may be entirely absent. For example the boomerang is not found in the northern parts of Cape York peninsula or of the Northern Territory, and the spear-thrower [Pg 432] is absent from south-east Queensland. Bows and arrows are unknown and pottery making does not occur. ”

“ It is necessary that he choose a soft as well as spacious field, as the boomerang has a special knack of selecting the hardest spots on which to fall, and if it can find a large stone is sure to strike it, and so break itself to pieces. ”

“ Round after round of applause greeted this little gem of oratory. A small boy gathered up the bouquets and filed them with the secretary, when the meeting proceeded with its work. Most of the delegates came instructed, and therefore the business was soon transacted.
I located a claim called the Boomerang. I named it after my favorite mule. I call my mule Boomerang because he has such an eccentric orbit and no one can tell just when he will clash with some other heavenly body. ”

“ The inhabitants know how to throw this little piece of wood so that, after it has struck the enemy or the game, it rises in the air, turns, and falls into the hand of the thrower. The boomerang realizes, then, the enchanted arms spoken of in the old fables—arms which after having struck the mark, come back themselves to their possessor. ”

“ Occasionally one, as if moved by some sudden impulse, but in reality I suppose, seeing the eye of his antagonist removed from him, would either throw a boomerang or launch a spear. The boomerang, when used in war, is generally thrown so as to take the ground a few yards in front of the person at whom it is aimed, and is intended to wound him as it rises from the earth, by touching which, its rotatory motion is accelerated; if it miss its object it comes back to the person by whom it was thrown. In the hands of these savages it is a very formidable weapon. ”

“ A man will be shown standing in a reed boat which has been pushed in amongst the waving papyrus. A boomerang is in his hand, and his wife by his side helps him to locate the wild duck, so that he may penetrate within throwing-distance of the birds before they rise. Presently up they go with a whir, and the boomerang claims its victims; while all manner of smaller birds dart amidst the reeds, and gaudy butterflies pass startled overhead. Again one sees the{133} hunter galloping in his chariot over the hard sand of the desert, shooting his arrows at the gazelle as he goes. ”

“ Day after day he may be seen with the boomerang in his hand, chipping at it slowly and circumspectly, and becoming more and more careful as it approaches completion. When he has settled the curve, and nearly flattened it to its proper thickness, he scarcely makes three or four strokes without balancing the weapon in his hand, looking carefully along the edges, and making movements as if he were about to throw it. The last few chips seem to exercise a wonderful effect on the powers of the weapon, and about them the native is exceedingly fastidious. ”

“ I also succeeded in at last obtaining a slight return of flight; in fact, it flies better than many Australian boomerangs, for they vary considerably in size, weight, and form, and many will not return when thrown. The efficacy of the boomerang consists entirely in the rotation, by means of which it sails up to a bird upon the wing and knocks it down with its rotating arms; very few of them have any twist in their construction. The stories about hitting an object with accuracy behind the thrower are nursery tales ”

“ The non-return type may also be made to return in a nearly straight line by throwing it at an angle of 45°, but normally it is thrown like the return type, and will then travel an immense distance. No accurate measurements of Australian throws are available, but an English throw of 180 yds. has been recorded, compared with the same thrower’s 70 yds. with the cricket ball.
The war boomerang in an expert’s hand is a deadly weapon, and the lighter hunting boomerang is also effective. ”

“ The Australian savage has the boomerang, a weapon which cannot be used rightly except by an Australian. Many Europeans can throw it so as to make it perform some trifling evolution in the air, but there are none who can really use it as an efficient weapon or instrument of hunting. The Dyak has his sumpitan, and the Macoushie Indian his analogous weapon, the zarabatana, through which are blown the tiny poisoned arrows, a hundred of which can be held in the hand, and each one of which has death upon its point. ”

“ He likes to come to my tent in the morning about daylight and sigh in my ear before I am awake. He is a highly amusing little cuss, and it tickles him a good deal to pour about 13 1/2 gallons of his melody into my car while I am dreaming, sweetly dreaming. He enjoys my look of pleasant surprise when I wake up.
He would cheerfully pour more than 13 1/2 gallons of sigh into my ear, but that is all my ear will hold. There is nothing small about Boomerang. He is generous to a fault and lavishes his low, sad, tremulous wail on every one who has time to listen to it. ”

“ It is a dangerous game for an inattentive spectator. An enemy or a quarry ensconced behind a tree or bank safe from spear or even bullet, may be taken in the rear and severely hurt or killed by the recoil of the boomerang. The emu and kangaroo are stunned and disabled, not knowing how to avoid its eccentric gyrations. Amongst a flight of wild ducks just rising from the water, or a flock of pigeons on the ground, this weapon commits great havoc. At close [153] quarters in fight the boomerang, being made of very hard wood with a sharp edge, becomes no bad substitute for a cutlass. ”

“ The different curves of the boomerang are the natural curves of the sticks, and like all the Australian weapons, they are made on the grain of the wood. Some are thicker than others; some will fly in the curves peculiar to that weapon, and others will not: scarcely two are alike. ”

“ The natives can do almost anything with the boomerang, and the circuitous course which it adopts is rendered its most useful characteristic. Many a hunter has wished that he only possessed that invaluable weapon, a gun which would shoot round a corner, and just such a weapon does the Australian find in his boomerang. ”

“ Men armed with spears surround and exterminate a shoal detected in shallow water; and the boomerang and the nulla-nulla as well as the spear form the weapons of the solitary fisherman. On one of the islands of the Gulf of Carpentaria the boomerang (I am told) alone is used, the blacks being so expert that little is left to chance.
Though the wommera, or, as it is known locally, the yellamun, is common in the neighbourhood of Dunk Island, it is not employed as an accessory in the spearing of fish. ”

“ The natives frequently make the boomerang touch the ground ten or twelve paces from where it is thrown; but this, far from diminishing the speed, gives it on the contrary increased velocity. It may even touch the ground a second time, and then whirl off in the above-described circle from the right to the left. It is impossible to aim accurately with 51the returning boomerang: with the plain one, which does not return, it is much easier to do so, and the mark is not missed. A man is rarely killed by a boomerang. ”

“ This terrible weapon cannot be merely turned aside, like the spear or the waddy, and often seems to receive an additional impulse from striking any object, as the reader may see by reference to page 737, in which the mode of throwing the boomerang is described. A boomerang must be stopped, and not merely parried, and moreover, if it be not stopped properly, it twists round the shield, and with one of its revolving ends inflicts a wound on the careless warrior. ”

“ To return to material culture, it may be noted that the boomerang groups with Australian rites and social organization in being a highly specialized form of a fundamentally simple and presumably early type, namely the throwing stick or flat club. Crescentic throwing sticks are in use in Asia and America: they fly faster and straighter than rod shaped or knobbed ones. The Australians alone added the twist which gives the boomerang its peculiar flight. ”

“ In like manner the boomerang, as long as the forward movement imparted to it by the thrower continues, will continue to rise, and the plane of rotation, instead of continuing perfectly parallel to its original position, will be slightly raised by the action of the atmosphere on the forward side. When the movement of transition ceases, the boomerang will begin to fall, and its course in falling will be by the line of least resistance, which is in the direction of the edge that lies obliquely towards the thrower ”

“ At first thought it seems rather strange that the boomerang should have been evolved by two groups of mankind dwelling in parts of the world so remote, but we must look for the explanation of this phenomenon in the fact that the natural conditions of the two countries have much in common—a generally level, sandy country, with here and there patches of brush, a peculiar condition which would readily yield itself to the development of an equally peculiar and specialized weapon. ”

“ Travers about the boomerang, and he said it was all true. Once there was an Australian savage in a circus, and he got angry, and he threw his boomerang at a man who was in the third story of a hotel. The boomerang went down one street and up another, and into the hotel door, and up-stairs, and knocked the man on the head, and came back the same way right into the Australian savage's hand. ”

“ In the hands of the natives of Australia, however, the boomerang performs most wonderful feats. Sometimes the savage takes hold of it by one end, and gives it a sort of careless jerk, so that it falls on the ground at a short distance from him. As soon as it strikes the earth it bounds up into the air, turns, twists, and pitches about in every direction, knocking with great force against everything in its way. ”

“ 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. ”