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



draws his water with his axe" (a quaint phrase parallel to that of Sidonius Apol- 

 linaris, " Ligerimque securi exclsum, per frusta bibit. — Carm. v. v. 209.) 

 advances shields charged with the white blazonry of the double aclys." Now, 

 the general family to which this tribe belonged, appears as well from their being 

 brought from the Alazonian or Amazonian river (it is also fi'om the banks of 

 the Danube that Seneca brings the Amazons in his Hyppolitus) as from some 

 markedly Amazonian characteristics attributed to them. Of these the most 

 striking is the adoration of pillar-stones, an Amazonian trait not to be mistaken. 

 For, however fabulous that story was which appears to have originated in a 

 vulgar etymology of the word Amazon, it is certain that there were nations of 

 such a family, among whom the women took an active part in war, and that the 

 worship of pillar-stones has been very generally ascribed to them by ancient 

 writers. Plato mentions an amazonian pillar-stone at Athens. IlXrja-iov cokci 

 Tcov TTvXcov Trpo^ rrj Afia^oviSi crrvXr) (Plato in Axiocho. v. iii. p. 365.) And 

 the Argonauts of Apollonius are represented as finding a similar one in Pontus, 

 near the Amazonian Temple of Mars. 



'Itpog (^ VOTE nacrai Afia^oveg £V)(sraovTai," 



Apollon. Argonaut. 1. ii. v. 1177. 



" Wherein was set up a black holy stone to which all the Amazonians offered 

 their prayers." A stone of the same sort was shown in Colchis in the time of 

 Arrian, and was said to have been the anchor of the Argo, (Arrian. Peripl. 

 p. 9 ;) and even down to the thirteenth century, pillar-stones were of frequent 

 occurrence throughout the plains bordering on the north of the Euxine, (^Rubru- 

 quis apud Hackluyt. vol. i.) So that, in reference to the bearers of the shields 

 blazoned with the double aclys, the following passage from Bryant's Analysis of 

 Ancient Mythology may safely be submitted. 



" The Amazonians were Arkites ; hence it is, that they have ever been 

 represented with lunar shields ; many have thought that they were of a lunar 

 shape, but this is a mistake, for most of the Asiatic coins represent them other- 

 wise. The lunette was a device taken from their worship. It was their 

 national ensign which was painted on their shields ; whence it is said of them, 

 * Pictis billantur Amazones armis,' and in another place ' ducit Amazonidura 



