Mr. Ferguson on the Antiquity of the Kiliee or Boomerang, 41 



appropriate name is almost Identical with the word kiliee, at present used by the 

 natives about Swan River to indicate the same weapon, it cannot but excite spe- 

 culations of great interest. And, wide as the difference is between the cultivated 

 Germans of the present day, and the savages of Australia, it may not, perhaps, 

 be too much to hope that this very striking point of coincidence may yet lead to 

 the. development of a perfect link between this widely and long separated race, 

 and their kindred of the human family elsewhere. 



We are now in a condition to form a conjecture as to the origin of the wea- 

 pon. We have seen the ^Xvait fustis bent into the crooked clava ; then flattened, 

 and used as a reciprocating missile : the elongation of the shorter limb of this 

 clava would give the perfect Cateia, " Eminentibus hinc et hinc acuminibus," 

 and thus the Boomerang would appear to be immediately sprung from the first 

 offensive weapon used by man. Its place in the order of the invention of other 

 weapons may be now investigated. 



VIII.— OF THE COMPARATIVE ANTIQUITY OF THE BOOMERANG AND 



SPEAR. 



It is a remarkable fact, that the names of the straight spear, in various lan- 

 guages, are either identical or radically connected with the names under which 

 the weapons of this family have been hitherto found. 



Thus, identical with Cateia are the straight Tudesque Cateice of Servius, 

 " Cateice autem lingua Teuthisca hastas dicuntur," (Serv. in ^neid. 1. vii. 

 v. 741 ;) the straight Persian Cateia of Johannas de Janua, "Cateia telum dicitur 

 lingua Persarum et ut dicunt, lancea vel hasta," (Catholicon ;) and the kaduayu 

 of Lhuid, whiph is the word still in use among the Welsh for a straight spear. 

 To these may be added, as evidently looking to a like origin, the chcBts of the 

 Hebrews, the kadmos. of the Cretans, (Megisser,) and the got of the Irish, all 

 having a like signification.* 



• An instance of the use of the word Cateia in the sense, as there would appear reason to 



believe, of a straight projectile, is furnished by the poem of Abbo, " De Obsessa a Nortmannis 



Lutetia Parisiorum," printed with the works of Aimoinus, " De Gestis Francorum." The siege 



described in the poem took place in the year 885, and Abbo was an eye-witness. The word Cateia 



vol,. XIX. F 



