HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
87 
srnoko.'!, even witliin a limited degree, tlie point is wliether these variations are 
made use of to constitute an accepted code wliicli is understoood far and wide, and, 
of this being tlie case, I could gain no evidence whatever, either from the natives 
themselves or from whites who had had long experience of their ways. 
Weapons. 
Spears (Plate Y., Figs. 1, la, 1/;, 2 and 2a). 
Two kinds of spears are in common use, one unbarbed, the other with a single 
wooden barb ; in other respects they are similar. The shaft of the best specimens 
is made out of a single piece of the light yellow wood of Tecoma Australis —a 
rock-loving shrub of semi-climbing habit whose long and nearly straight shoots, of 
approximately the right thickness, are admirably adapted for the purpose. The.se 
are decorticated and further straightened by heating and by judicious manipu¬ 
lation. They are then trimmed and so’aped smooth, the natural gentle taper 
of the shoot, from butt upwards, being preserved. The blade, always in 
these spears a separate piece, of a long lanceolate shape, from 10 to 15 inches in 
length and from an inch to an inch and a quarter wide, is made out of the hard 
heart-wood of Mulga {^Acacia aneiira). Usually one surface of the blade is 
more convex than the other, though sometimes both are equally convex. It is 
affixed to the shaft by an oblique junction of the kind known technically as a 
plain scarf joint, being first made to adhere with a thin layer of Triodia resin and 
then the junction is firmly bound round with kangaroo tendons. Apparently from 
want of shoots of sufficient length, it is rarely that the shaft consists of a single 
piece; in nearly all cases from one to three feet of the tapering tail end is a 
separate piece affixed in the same manner as the blade. At the extreme end is a 
small pit to receive the point of the throwing stick. Cracks are filled up with 
resin and bound round with tendon. 
The barbed spear (Plate V., Figs. 1, la, \b) differs only from the above by 
the addition of a single, slightly curved barb of hard wood, about three inches in 
length, stated to be that of Cassia eremophila or of C. Sturtii. This is neatly and 
firmly bound to the blade with tendon in the manner shown in the figures, so that 
about half its length projects as a barb, the tip of which is distant from six to 
eight inches from the point of the spear. In these weapons that surface of the 
blade to which the barb is attached is only very slightly convex, while the 
other is more so. 
The great majority of spears seen on the journey were of one or other of 
these two kinds. In a few, however, of very similar appearance, the shaft was 
