46 Mr. Ferguson on the Antiquity of the Kiliee or Boomerang. 



by Thor was his gauntlet, which he always put on when he would throw the 

 miolner. And there appears some probability that this and the manubrium of 

 Saxo are one and the same, for the haft is not mentioned in the Edda, nor the 

 gauntlet in the works of Saxo, while both describe the miolner. If so, it might, 

 perhaps, be inferred that this was a sheath not for the protection of the hand, but 

 for the reception of one limb of the weapon ; and hence it is suggested, that an 

 elastic haft, having a sheath attached, might also be found serviceable in throwing 

 the Boomerang. 



Many of the foregoing inferences will, doubtless, appear in a high degree 

 speculative ; and the writer is conscious, that, in pushing the inquiry in some 

 directions to the length it has gone, the bounds of strict induction have been 

 very closely approached ; still it is submitted, that if the first step of the argu- 

 ment, namely, the identification of the Cateia with the Australian weapon, have 

 been taken on sure ground, it will not be possible to stay the subsequent progress 

 of the inquiry. And, that this step has been taken with great, indeed with 

 extraordinary, certainty, appears as well from the minuteness with which all the 

 peculiarities of the weapon in question are described in the passages already 

 quoted, as from the fact that unquestionable representations of the Boomerang 

 are found on ancient monuments. The representations in PI. II. figs. 1 and 2, 

 taken from Sig. Rosellini's " Egyptian Monuments," cannot be mistaken ; and 

 the reader who will take the trouble of referring to Mr. Wilkinson's work on the 

 same subject, will there find still further confirmation of the acquaintance of this 

 most ancient people with the very implement in question. In the latter instance, 

 parties are represented throwing missiles of a form which, from experiment it is 

 now certain, must have produced a reciprocating flight, at birds, reminding us 

 strongly of that passage of Strabo, (1. iv. pp. 196, 7, Ed. Causab.,) where he 

 describes the Belgae of his time as using " a wooden weapon of the shape of a 

 grosphus, which they throw out of the hand, and not by means of an ancyle, and 

 which flies faster than an arrow, and is chiefly used in the pursuit of game." 

 So, also, it is difficult to assign any other use to the instrument appearing in the 

 hand of the Belgic Briton represented in PI. II. fig. 6. 



