200 KKOOKDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN Ml.'SEUM. 



know something about it, asked the local blacks what it was ; 

 they could not give it a name, but they told him that the person 

 who made it must have been mad ! 



12. At Princess Charlotte Bay the wommera is made of iron- 

 wood. The blade is longer than at Cape Bedford, etc., wide at 

 the centre, narrower at the handle, with the shell-haft fixed at 

 any angle, obtuse or acute. The long peg is flattened at its 

 attachment ; if drilled it is only partly covered with cement, if 

 tied on it is wholly covered. Local names : — KRA. bo-un, 

 K IVA. alvau-ul. North-west of Princess Charlotte Bay, the 

 koko-olkulo type of spear-thrower is comparatively short and 

 wide, almost leaf-bladed with a long peg, this peg is made of 

 "beef-wood," and tied on, not drilled, its back being covered 

 with beef-wood (Grevillea) cement. With this kind of wommera 

 a very short spear, about six feet long, is employed. 



13. On the Lower Tally Iti'ver the spear-thrower, used with 

 the bangkai spear, is called charin (= nasal septum) from its 

 flatness. It is a long thin lath with two holes drilled at its 

 extremity, and the peg (MAL. kom) tied on with small strips of 

 "lawyer-cane" {Calamus, sp.). 



14. In the North -Western Districts I have nothing to add to 

 the descriptions of spear throwers already given- 7 , but must 

 draw attention to a very primitive form of implement met with 

 in the Wellesley Islands, and on the adjoining mainland in the 

 neighbourhood of Burketown- 8 (PI. lviii., fig. 14). 



[It is a straight stick in one piece, two feet five inches long, 

 obtusely pointed at the proximal end, and round throughout the 

 entire length until within about the last six inches, when the 

 sides are flattened more and more, resulting in an " eel-tailed " 

 distal end. The latter is higher than the shaft, the fore upper 

 angle forming the "peg"; it is a very light implement.] 



Two other types, it is true, are occasionally to be found in the 

 area around Burketown, but they are certainly not of local 

 manufacture, being brought in from the eastward 29 . 



[The first of these is, again, a plain stick' 1 ", gradually taper- 

 ing a little from proximal to distal, two feet long and raddled. 



27 Roth-Etlmol. Studies, etc., 1897— Sect. 253. Note the small 

 projection on the edge of the blade at the distal extremity illustrated in 

 fig. otift of the :-;une work. 



28 Type in general figured l>y Luschan — Bastian-Fcstschrift, 1S96, pi. 

 ix., fig. 9— (Ed.). 



29 Westward and southward — (Ed.). 



■'"'See Spencer and Gillen— Northern Tribes of C. Austr., 1904, p. 669, 

 fig. 224. 



