196 RECORDS OK TI1K AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



couple of spears manufactured within the previous two years by 

 local blacks (presumably Karun-burra) similar to the preceding, 

 with a thickisb girdle taking the position of the barb (PI. lviii., tig. 

 10); but the Rockhampton (Tarumbul) Natives knew nothing of 

 this substitution. Three spears in the possession of Mr. A. Cowie, 

 of Rockhatnpton, were of interest, not onty in that he himself had 

 obtained them from the blacks in the district under consideration 

 some eighteen or twenty years previously, but that the barbs 

 were cut out of the wood en bloc. I made careful enquiry from 

 l be older natives concerning any information about these 

 weapons, which were all about eight feet six inches long, and 

 Learnt that they passed under the name of mMo, the term for 

 a barb, peg, etc., but that they had not been made for many-a- 

 long day, the necessary timber, owing to the white settlers, being 

 then obtainable at no less a distance than nine or ten miles from 

 the township. The first is a " rosewood " one obtained in Rock- 

 hampton from Westwood aborigines. It has a flattened expanded 

 head twenty inches long and three inches wide, sloping in a 

 graceful curve to a slender point, each side being carved into four 

 barbs (PI. lviii., fig. 11); from this enlargement, which has 

 been raddled, the diameter of the shaft progressively diminishes 

 to the butt where it abruptly tapers off. The second, from the 

 same locality, with tip similarly flattened, has five barbs, but 

 only on the one edge (PI. lviii., fig. 12) : the shaft is peculiar in 

 that it progressively increases down to the butt. The third 

 example, believed to have come originally from the Marlborough 

 District is of the common acicular type, but bears a barb cut 

 out of the wood itself, the tip of the weapon not being flattened 

 (PI. lviii., fig. 13). 



7. The Brisbane Blacks 1 *' had three kinds of spears, all of 

 them simple, i.e., of one single piece, and thrown by hand only. 



(a) The pi-lar was made from Eucalyptus crebra, F.v.M. 

 (local " iron-bark," the tandur of the local natives). They would 

 pick out a young straight-grained tree, one that would split well, 

 climb up to ten or eleven feet, cut a transverse notch above deep 

 in, then two vertical ones reaching down from it, a transverse 

 one below according to the length they wanted, and split it off. 

 Then gradually trimmed it down to the size required. They then 

 spoke-shaved it with a Mytilus (mainlanders) or Donax valve 1 ,; 

 (coastal ones), smoothed it down with a piece of broken shell, 

 which was subsequently replaced by glass, straightening and 



,5 Notes from Mr. T. Petrie. 

 Roth— Ball. 7— Sect. 28. 



