SAVAGE WEAPONS AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. 229 



which should not be omitted, is the quirriang-an-icun, impossible to 

 explain without an illustration, and not shown in Philadelphia. It is a 

 thin flake of wood, curiously twisted and curved. 41 



Fig. 20 shows, for purposes of comparison, an Australian boomerang (a) 

 from Murray River, and a curved throwing-stick (/>) used by the Moqui 

 and Shimnio Indians in killing rabbits. These throwing-sticks, though 



Fin. 29. — Boomerang and Moqui thr owing-stick. 



curved so as to resemble in one important respect the Australian weapon, 

 cannot, like it.be made to describe the peculiar divergent curved course 

 through the air. These sticks were formerly used by many of the 

 Southern California, tribes. 

 The kangaroo rat (tceet-iceet)" Fig. 30, of the Australians has been 



Fig. 30. — Kangaroo rat. Smith Australia. 



sometimes spoken of as rather a toy than a weapon, but it is a danger- 

 ous missile. Its head is usually a piece of hard wood, of a conoidal or 

 double conical shape, and its tail is a flexible handle a yard long. By 

 this handle it is thrown ; the native takes the rat by the tail and swings 

 it back and forth several times, bending it almost double. Suddenly 

 letting it fly by an underhand jerk, it glides hissing through the air, 

 striking and rebounding like a flat stone skimming the surface of the 

 water — the familiar "ducks and drakes" of our childhood. It does not 

 rise more than nine feet above the surface of the ground, and the dis- 

 tance it readies depends upon the force of the projection and also upon 

 the angleatwhich it first strikes the surface of the earth. If the trajectory 

 be too high, it makes a number of high leaps and soon tires ; if too low, 

 the force is soon expended in friction on the ground. The body with a 

 trailing tail making flying leaps has much the appearance of a small 



* l Ibid.,\, 315, Fi< 

 «Wood, ii, p. 41. 



315. 



