18 BOWS, ARROWS, SPEARS, 



and sometimes barbed. The Kowraregas obtain 

 bows and arrows from their northern neig'hbours, 

 and occasional!}^ use them in warfare, but prefer the 

 spears which are made by the bhicks of the main- 

 land. We saw three kinds of spear at Cape York 5 

 one is merely a sharpened stick used for striking- fish, 

 the two others, tipped and barbed with bone, are 

 used in war. The principal spear (kalak or alka) 

 measures about nine feet in leng-th, two-thirds of 

 which are made of she-oak or casuarina, hard and 

 heavy, and the remaining- third of a soft and very 

 lig-ht wood 5 one end has a small hollow to receive 

 the knob of the throAving'-stick, and to the other the 

 leg'-bone of a kang-aroo six inches long-, sharpened 

 at each end, is secured in such a manner as to fur- 

 nish a sharp point to the spear and a long- barb 

 besides. Another spear, occasionally used in fig-ht- 

 ing*, has three or four heads of wood each of which 

 is tipped and barbed with a smaller bone than is 

 used for the kalak. 



The throwing--stick in use at Cape York extends 

 down the N.E. coast at least as far as Lizard Island j 

 it differs from those in use in other parts of Aus- 

 tralia in having- the projecting- knob for fitting* into 

 the end of the spear parallel with the plane of the 

 stick and not at rig-ht ang-les. It is made of casua- 

 rina wood, and is g-enerally three feet in length, 

 an inch and a quarter broad, and half an inch thick. 

 At the end a double slip of melon shell, three and a 

 half inches long-, crossing- diagonally, serves as a 



