367 



NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL STONE 

 WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 



By R. Etheridge, Jun. 



(Paleontologist to the Australian Museum, and Geological 

 Survey of New South Wales.) 



V. — Chiles used in wood carving by the Marathon Ti'ihe, Central 



Queensland. 



(Plate xiii., fig. 13.) 



The two chips exhil)ited were given to me by Mr. George Sweet, 

 of Brunswick, Melbourne, who saw them used by " Old Jerry," of 

 the Telebra Tribe, at Marathon, Central Queensland, to produce 

 the indented lines ornamenting wooden weapons. They are com- 

 posed of a black brecciated chert, with a glossy lustre and a 

 subconchoidal fracture, but ap[)ear to have been fortuitous frag- 

 ments chipped from larger masses, and are more or less triangular 

 in form. Large numbers of such chips are found in some districts 

 of Australia, often at great distances apart, and their application 

 has been so variously assigned, such as for cutting scars, skinning, 

 as fragments of tomahawks, and for making jagged spears, that 

 it is satisfactory to be able to figure fragments which have been 

 actually seen in use for a definite purpose. A very interesting 

 account of the distribution and mode of occurrence of similar chips 

 over the surface of some parts of Victoria may be found in the 

 late Mr. R. B. Smyth's " Aborigines of Victoria." * 



Mr. Sweet informs me that the chips are held tightly between 

 the fingers of the right hand, the weapon to be worked reposing 

 in the left, and supported on the left arm. The chip is then used 

 as a chisel, the carving, in the practised hand of the black, pro- 

 ceeding with great rapidity. 



This method of hand-carving is quite different to that pursued 

 by the Victorian natives by means of the implement called the 



* Vol I., 1878, p. 361. 



