230 SAVAGE WEAPONS AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. 



kangaroo, and is well named the kangaroo rat. The example illustrated 

 is of wild buffalo horn, heated and pressed to shape. 



The kangaroo rat described by K. Brougli Smith is about 26 inches 

 long, the tail being 21 inches and the head 4.5 inches. 43 



Something like the kangaroo rat of the Australians is a missile 

 employed in a game of the Fijians. 44 A reed four feet in length termi- 

 nates in an ovoid piece of hard and heavy wood six inches long. It 

 is held between the thumb and finger and thrown by an underhand 

 jerk, so as to skim horizontally over the ground. A long smooth stretch 

 of turf is kept in good order in the villages for this purpose. This 

 suggests the pitching of quoits and horseshoes, curling stones, hockey, 

 polo, and other ball games, which we merely suggest as we pass, sup- 

 posing them not to be distinctly savage, though some of them are ath- 

 letic survivals of ancient barbaric exercises. 



The cholera 45 or " quoit weapon" of the Sikhs is savage enough to be 

 worth a mention. It is an annular disk of thin steel with a sharp edge 

 all round. It is whirled upon the fore-finger and then thrown, spinuing 

 as it flies, and is a formidable weapon when aimed at the face of an 

 enemy, several being hurled in rapid succession and with great force. 

 They can also give it a ricochet flight. 



A similar weapon has been brought from Guatemala by M. Boursier, 

 the French Consul. It is disk-shaped, very sharp on the edges, and 

 about 6 inches in diameter. Hurling-disks have been found also in 

 Brittany and Central France. 



The Peruvian hurling-disk is of diorite with a central opening 1 inch in 

 ^diameter and 10 circumferential teeth 2 inches long. It is thrown by 

 .aid of a thong like the bolus. The Mexicans have a similar weapon 46 

 and the Australians a crude affair of the same general idea. 



From this cutting disk whirled by the finger we reach by a single 

 step the simple pebble which is hurled by hand. We began with a stick, 

 and after considering the club simple and compound, and the various 

 forms of throwing clubs, have come to simple missiles — the pebble or 

 small bowlder. Some tribes, however, are not content with the stones 

 of the brook, but shape the projectile ; the Tahitians, 47 for instance, 

 make oval halls of stalagmite, which they hurl by hand with force and 

 accuracy, not using a sling. The Faegians, although very skillful with 

 the sling, are adepts at hurling stones by hand. 



Incendiary balls were used by the ISTervii, who fired the camp of Caesar, 

 and the halls of charcoal kneaded with clay, and found in the lacustrine 

 village remains in Switzerland, are believed to have been for the same 

 purpose. The arrow with a lighted tow torch is commonly noticed 

 among the ancients, and is found in all parts of the world where the bow 

 and arrow survive. 



« Aborigines of Australia, i, Fig. 170, p. 352. "Wood, ii, p. 283. 



46 Wood, i. « Louvre collection. * 7 Wood, ii. 



