GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY. 13 



general form and sides is accomplished in a few hours, but the formation and finish 

 of the finer points is a longer process, involving the expenditure of much time and 

 patience, and, as witnessed by the writer, frequent failures before perfection is arrived at. 



There is an accessory instrument commonly used in conjunction with the spear 

 by the aborigines of North Queensland and North- Western Australia which is 

 of rare occurrence among spear-armed nations. This is the Throwing Stick, or 

 " Woomera," a piece of flattened wood about two feet six in length and three to six 

 inches wide. A small bone or hard-wood peg is attached at an acute angle to 

 the further, distal, end of the instrument, and this fits into a notch in the proximal 

 end of the spear. This accessory instrument gives as it were double length and 

 leverage power to the arm of the spear wielder, who can thus launch his weapon 

 with irresistible force against all but the most impenetrable objects. Among the 

 Kimberley, Western Australian, Natives, the flat surfaces of this "Woomera," .or 

 Throwing-Stick, are, as previously stated, commonly ornamented with carvings presenting 

 various rectilinear patterns, while the handle end, among the North Queensland 

 Tribes, is often decorated with pieces of shell, or the scarlet seeds of that cosmopolitan 

 tropical creeper, Abrtis precatorius, half embedded in a matrix of spinifex cement. 

 A peculiarity observed by the author as usually distinguishing the Woomeras of 

 Queensland from those of Western Australia is the circumstance that the peg 

 attached to the extremity in the Queensland examples is affixed in the plane corre- 

 sponding with the broad side of the weapon while in those from Western Australia, 

 it is invariably at right angles to it. 



The mechanical means utilised by the Australian aborigines for the production 

 of fire invite brief attention. In Queensland the mechanism usually employed consists 

 of two slender light-wood rods some four or five feet in length. One of these 

 is placed horizontally on the ground and held firmly in this position with the 

 feet, while the second rod is placed vertically upon it, with its tip resting in a 

 slight indentation made in the horizontal one. The vertical rod is now rotated 

 backwards and forwards between the two hands at so high a speed that the lower 

 one produces sparks which are communicated to some dry grass placed close at 

 hand. From this, with a little nursing, a large fire is soon established. For 

 convenience of carriage, the " broader " ends of these two fire-sticks are inserted 

 into a short wooden sheath, which is commonly covered with spinifex gum, decorated, 

 as are the handles of the " Woomeras," with the scarlet seeds of Abms precatorw*. 

 This rotatory method of producing fire is, it would appear, practised also in India and 



