On circular and SPIRAL INCISED ORNAMENT on 



AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL IMPLEMENTS and 



WEAPONS. 



By R. Etheridge, June., Curator. 

 (Plates i., ii.) 



The more or less rare occurrence of this form of sculpture on the 

 implements and weapons of our Aborigines will probably render 

 a notice of several instances interesting. 



The late Mr. R. Brough Smyth remarked* many years ago 

 that — "Curved lines are rarely seen. Any attempt to represent 

 a curve in all the specimens I have examined has been a failure.' 

 Mr. Andrew Lang even made a more sweeping statement! when 

 he wrote that the patterns used by the Australian Aborigines 

 are such as can be produced without the aid of "spirals or curves 

 or circles." 



Of the incorrectness of this statement, no Ijetter example 

 can be adduced than the circular incised figures seen on the 

 "Bull-roarers" figured^ by the late Mr. Edsvard Hardman, from 

 the Kimberley District, N.W. Australia. 



A very beautiful instance is represented in PI. i., Fig, 1 and 2, 

 all the more interesting because it is a stone implement, and the 

 only one of its kind that has ever come under my notice. It 

 consists of a flat pebble (in all probability) of indurated shale, 

 long-oval in shape, and incised on both faces ; five and six-eights 

 inches long, and three and three-sixteentlis wide, but is fractured 

 at the lower end. On one aspect (PI. i., Fig. 1) is a nearly 

 central figure consisting of incised circles arranged spirally within 

 one another. The figure is generally very slightly longer than 

 wide, the greatest or longitudinal diameter being two and fifteen- 

 sixteenths inches. On the right hand side there are thirteen 

 incised grooves, and on the left twelve, the grooves becoming 

 slightly wider towards the circumferential one. Immediately 

 above, on the same face of the pebble, are two smaller figures, the 

 incised grooves, three in number in each case, being however 

 simply concentric within one another, and not spiral. That on the 

 right is half-an-inch in diameter, and that on the left five-eighths. 



* Smyth ; Aborigines of Victoria, i., 1878, p. 283. 



fLang ; C\astoms and Myth, p. 279. 



JProc. E. Irish Acad., i., 1888 (2), No. 1, t. 2, f. 4, t. 3. 



