172 A SECOND UNDESCRIBED FORM OF WOMERAH, 



in thickness, and is quite flexible. The whole "womerah has been 

 stiiined red, except eight inches from the proximal and five and a 

 half from the distal end, which spaces have been left uncoloured, 

 and with the grain of the wood showing. At the proximal end 

 the blade has been cut out to form a handle, and is terminated by 

 a more or less shortly-pyriform knob-shaped mass of black gum 

 cement, over which string has been spirally wound and interlaced 

 in a highly finished manner, tlie whole smeared with a thin 

 coating of gum-cement, and then coloured red like the blade. 

 The string is at the edge of the gum knob wound three times 

 spirally, occupying a space of somewhat less than a quarter of an 

 inch, then passed along parallel to the length of the womerah for 

 the space of an inch, and again following this for one and a 

 quarter inches in a spiral direction. The carving of the handle 

 is in the condition of very fine, regular, and beautifully executed 

 incised lines, extending for three and a quarter inches up the 

 blade. The first and widest band is of transverse or spiral lines, 

 the second of oblique lines inclined to the right, the third trans- 

 verse, the fourth obliquely inclined to the left, the fifth again 

 transverse, the sixth oblique to the right as before, and the 

 seventh and last again transverse, and the widest of all. It will 

 be observed that the oblique lines alternately to the right and 

 left produce a kind of herring-bone pattern divided by transverse 

 bands, 



I have not met with a precisely similar ornament in any 

 Australian weapon or ornament, although the simple herring-bone 

 pattern is not uncommon. 



The attenuated distal end of the blade is mounted with a very 

 neatly made hard-wood peg, somewhat bottle-stopper shaped, and 

 lashed on by fine fibre or string. 



The largest of the Port Darwin womerahs in the Macleay 

 Museum, precisely similar in shape to this one, is three feet nine 

 and a half inches long, and two inches and two-eighths wide at 

 the base of the blade. It is an exact counterpart of the Rev. G. 

 Brown's, but is coloured throughout the entire length. The 

 second is three feet five inches long, and one and five-eighths at 



