ErHErIpGE 

Some Implements, etc., of the Alligator Tribe, Port Essington. 239 
in width towards the proximal end, but there again swelling out to afford a hand 
grasp. The larger of the two is five feet four inches long, four inches across the 
blade, and two inches across the thinnest part of the handle ; weight three pounds 
four ounces. The handle, covered with gum-cement and whipped with twine, is 
proximally emarginate. The shaft is decorated (PI. xxx. fig. 4) with oblongs or 
squares in black outline, arranged in pairs and cut off from the blade by alternate red 
and white transverse bands, which are repeated at the centre of the blade and again 
at the distal end. Each of the intermediate spaces bears a rhomb in red, with a 
central line, all other parts of the blade being covered with pipeclay checker-work. 
In the smaller sword (Pl. xxxum. fig. 1) the shaft is simply stained indian-red, 
the cross bands of the blade alternately red and yellow instead of red and white ; the 
intermediate spaces bear a series of imperfect rhombs, divided by a thick red line, 
and the remainder of the blade as in the first specimen. The twine of the handle is 
marked with a white cross. 
Macgillivray says* that the Port Essington swords, which he terms clubs, are 
made of a heavy Eucalypt called Wallaru. He divides them into three sections :— 
(a) Cylindrical, tapering at each end, and four feet long; (6) narrow, compressed, with 
sharp edges, four feet long; (c) similar to (4), and like a ericket-bat with a short 
handle. 
The examples now figured possibly fall into the first section. Smyth gives an 
ilustrationt of one, describes it as “ almost paddle-shaped,” and rightly ascribes it to 
Port Essington. It has the same emarginate proximal end. The shaft is unorna- 
mented except the usual red body colour, but on the blade a central longitudinal 
lenticular space is marked off by two white lines, the lateral spaces by white 
divaricating lines, and the blade separated from the shaft by two transverse lines of a 
similar colour. 
Eyre’s figure of the “two-handed sword” of the North Coast is referable to 
Section (c), but is not a good example of it. It is a lanceolate piece of hardwood, 
cylindrical, somewhat expanded in the centre, and accuminating distally. The apical 
fifth bears five equidistant transverse narrow bands. 
The sword of the Mackay District§ is to some extent curved like a scimitar, with 
a narrow handle, ornamented at the distal end with serpentine bands of pipeclay. 
It is two feet eleven inches in length, again coloured red, and is a double-handed 
weapon. 
* Voyage ‘‘ Rattlesnake,” 1852, II. p. 147. 
+ Aborigines of Victoria, 1878. I. p. 308. f. 86. 
t{ Journ. Exped. Discovery Central Australia, 1845, II. t. 6, f. 6. 
§ Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, 1878, I. p. 303, f. 66. 
