1888.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 363 



A STUDY OF THE BOOMERANG. 



BY H. EGGERS, OF MILWAUKEE. 



In the beginning of my studies I sought access to the literature on 

 boomerangs and strove hard to hunt up everything written about them, 

 but in such an out-of-the-way place as Milwaukee I succeeded but 

 poorly, and whatever I read was either entirely false or only partially 

 true or even invented. For example, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 

 article " Boomerang," gives the manner of throwing wholly wrong, for 

 just the reverse of its statement is true. Lubbock, in "Prehistoric 

 Times," page 443, second edition, gives some correct statements, but they 

 are useless for a person wishing to make a boomerang. Other communi- 

 cations in periodicals or daily papers are not worth mentioning. It is 

 clear, after my experience, that those writers never handled this instru- 

 ment or studied its properties closely enough to be entitled to pub- 

 lish anything about it. Some, for example, say it is a weapon of war. 

 This can hardly be true, for the boomerang is a very costly instrument 

 with the natives of Australia, considering the small number in every 

 tribe that can make good ones and the difficulty they are under for 

 want of proper tools ; for the natives possessed but stone knives and 

 stone hatchets to work the very hard wood the boomerangs are made 

 of. One kind of this wood is the weeping-myale (Acacia pendala), 

 which covers portions of eastern Australia for miles ; but I think the 

 boomerang is made also of other hard and heavy woods. Kow the 

 boomerang can not be a weapon of precision, and even if in a skirmish 

 somebody be hit, it is of small execution, and the instrument is then 

 lost. A stone or a common club will do more harm and is evidently 

 much cheaper. Their spears, which can be manufactured by much less 

 work, are dangerous weapons, as the natives throw them about 90 feet 

 with sure aim ; or, according to Captain Cook, a distance of 50 yards. 

 From these reasons alone I believe the pretension that the boomerang 

 is a weapon of war must fall to the ground. This opinion is supported 

 by the testimony of Mr. Oldfield (Lubbock, I. c). This gentleman says : 

 " The boomerang is but little used in war." 



But the boomerang is a good weapon for hunting birds; not that it 

 would be thrown at a single bird with some chance of success, but it is 

 very effective when hurled among a large flock of flying birds. The 

 rapidity with which the instrument rises and the comparatively large 

 space it describes will almost insure the hitting of a bird, and then 

 bird and boomerang both will fall to the ground on nearly the same 

 spot. But when the boomerang does not strike a bird it will then re- 

 turn near to the hunter, if it was properly thrown. Another false opiu- 



