368 AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL STONE WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS, 



leange-walert, formed of the lower jaw of an opossum, and described 

 by the late Mr. R. B. Smyth * 



vi. — An apparently undescribed form of Stone Axe. 

 (Plate xiL, fig. 14.) 



The following very remarkable form of stone hatchet or toma- 

 hawk is, so far as I know, unnoticed. It consists of a head of 

 stone, perfectly resembling in shape the previously described Mika- 

 knives,! but composed of a hard, close-grained, rather flesh-coloured 

 granular quartzite, and produced by f lacture. The heads, of which 

 there are two, are generally similar to the stone-headed spears from 

 North Australia, figured by the late Mr. R. B. Smyth,! similar 

 Australian weapons, illustrated by Mr. J. G. Wood, M.A.,§but 

 without locality, and the obsidian spear-heads of the Admii'alty 

 Islands, 



One of the axe-heads is eight inches long, and the other seven 

 inches _: the longer being two inches wide at the base, and the 

 shorter two and a quarter inches. One face of each is practically 

 flat, the other strongly angular in the middle line. In the shorter 

 of the two this line is replaced by a facet towards the base of the 

 axe. The heads are mounted in withys, artificially grooved, and 

 passed round their bases, formed of some tough fibrous plant, and 

 secured by a mass of black gum. One of the handles is nineteen 

 inches long, and the other eighteen, the two parts being held 

 together near the middle, and at the free extremities, which are 

 pointed, by string, again secured by gum. On the whole, these 

 weapons, although ill-balanced, are formidable, and capable of 

 dealing a most destructive blow. 



This appears to be quite an exceptional form of tomahawk 

 amongst the Aborigines, and is an adaption for this purpose of a 

 spear-head pattern. The shape is clearly that of the Mika-knives, 

 but the weight, proportions, and size are altogether difierent. I 

 am not acquainted with the figure of such a hatchet, but Smyth 



* " Aborigines of Victoria," 1878, 1., p. 349, f. 164. 



+ See Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, antea, p. 251. 



+ "Aborigines of Victoria," 1878, I., p. 308, f. 85. 



§ "Nat. Hist. Man. AustraHa," &c., 1870, p. 38, f. 4 & 5. 



