Part 16

Turning to Africa (Plate XV, diagram 7), we find the boomerang well represented in many parts of that continent. Figure 108 is an ancient Egyptian boomerang of wood, in the British Museum. It was obtained from the collection of James Burton, Jr., Esq., which was formed by him in Egypt, and is described as ‘an instrument for fowling, for throwing at, or knocking down birds, as is continually represented on the walls of the tombs’. It is of hard but light wood, the section is symmetrical on both sides, and not flat on one side, like some of the Australian boomerangs; it is somewhat broader at the ends than in the middle of the blade. Figures 100, 110, and 111, are taken from Rosellini’s _Egyptian Monuments_,[161] and show how this instrument was used by the ancient Egyptians. Sir Samuel Baker has described the weapon called the ‘trombash’, used in those parts of Abyssinia which he traversed.[162] It is of hard wood, resembling the Australian boomerang, about two feet in length, and the end turns sharply at an angle of 30°; they throw this with great dexterity, and inflict severe wounds with the hard and sharp edge, but, unlike the boomerang, it does not return to the thrower. Figure 113 is a wooden instrument, in the Christy Collection, said to be used by the Djibba negroes for throwing at birds. Figure 114 is the Nubian sword, which in form exactly resembles the boomerang. They have a great variety of curves, some of them, especially those of the same form used in Abyssinia, bending nearly in a right angle. I am not aware that this instrument is ever thrown by the Nubians; they, however, are in the habit of throwing their curved clubs with great dexterity. Figure 115 is an iron implement of native workmanship, used as a missile by the inhabitants of Central Africa; it was brought from that region by Consul Petherick, at whose sale I purchased it. Like the majority of the succeeding figures represented in this diagram, it resembles the Australian boomerang, in being flat on the under side, that is to say, upon the side which would be undermost, if thrown from the right hand with the point first; the weight, however, would prevent such a weapon from rising in the air, or returning to the thrower. Figure 116 is used by the Mundo tribe of Africa; like the last, it is flat on the under side; in form it resembles the falchion, represented in the Egyptian sculptures as being held in the hand by Rameses and other figures, when slaying their enemies. The small knob on one side of the blade is used to attach it to the person in carrying it. Figure 117, from Central Africa, is clearly a development of the preceding figure. Figure 118 is a weapon of the same class, from Kordofan, obtained near the cataracts of Assouan, Upper Nile, and now in the Museum of this Institution; though of the same character as the other missiles, its section is equal on both sides, and therefore it is not calculated to range far in its flight. Figure 119 is also from the Museum of this Institution; it is flat on the under side. Figures 120 and 121 are from illustrations in Denham and Clapperton’s _Travels in Northern and Central Africa_ (Pl. xli. 3, 4), of the missile instruments, called ‘hunga-mungas’, used by the negro tribes, south of Lake Tchad. One of these is of very peculiar form; in the course of the innumerable variations which this weapon appears to have undergone, the constructor appears to have hit upon the idea of representing the head and neck of a stork. Figure 122 is from a sketch, in Barth’s _Travels_, of one of these weapons, belonging to the Marghi, a negro tribe in the same region; it is called ‘danisco’, and he says that the specimen here represented is of particularly regular shape, thereby inferring that numerous varieties of form are in use among these people. In another place, he describes the ‘goliyo’ of the Musgu and the ‘njiga’ of the Bagirmi, as weapons of the same class, the name of the latter differing from the word for spear only in a single letter; he says this weapon is common to all the pagan, i.e. negro tribes, that he came across.[163] Figure 123 is from East Central Africa, presented to the Christy Collection by the Viceroy of Egypt; it is described as a cutting instrument, from the country of the Dinkas and Shillooks, capable of being thrown to a great distance. Mr. Petherick met with these tribes in his travels on the White Nile.[164] Figure 124, from my collection, is described as a battle-axe of the Dor tribe, between the equator and the 6th or 7th degree of north latitude. It was brought to England by Mr. Petherick, who obtained it in his travels in 1858; it is used also for throwing. Figure 125 is from an illustration in Du Chaillu’s work,[165] of the missile tomahawk, used by the Fans in the Gaboon, in West Central Africa; he says that the thrower aims at the head, and, after killing his victim, uses the round edge of the axe to cut off the head. We see from this, that notwithstanding the innumerable and apparently meaningless variations which this weapon has undergone, the different parts of it are sometimes applied to especial uses. Figure 126 is another missile, used by the Neam-Nam tribes, East Central Africa. Mr. Petherick says, that the Baer tribe carry a different kind of iron missile from the Neam-Nams. Figures 126 to 129 are different varieties of Neam-Nam weapons, in which, as they are all derived from the same people, the gradual transition of form is more perceptible than in those isolated specimens derived from different tribes. If, however, we had specimens of all the varieties used by each tribe, we should without doubt be able to trace the progression of the whole of them from a common form. As it is, the connexion is sufficiently obvious when the details are examined, throughout the whole region in which they are found, extending from Egypt and the Nile in the East, to the Gaboon on the West Coast. In all, the principle of construction is the same, the divergent lateral blades serving the purpose of wings, like the arms of the Australian boomerang, to sustain the weapon in the air when spun horizontally. The variations are such as might have resulted from successive copies, little or no improvement being perceivable in the principle of construction throughout this region, notwithstanding the innumerable forms through which it must have passed during its transmission from its original source; the locality of which we shall probably be unable to determine, until the antiquities of the country have been more carefully described and studied. As, however, it is everywhere found in the hands of the negro aborigines of the country, it must probably have had the same origin as the art of smelting and fabricating iron, which is everywhere identical throughout this region, and is, without doubt, of the remotest antiquity, dating long prior to any historical record of the continent of Africa.

_Cateia._

The possible employment of the boomerang in Europe has been made the subject of occasional speculation amongst antiquarian writers. Having been used in Egypt, and perhaps in Assyria, there is no good reason for doubting that it may have spread from thence to the north-west. In a learned paper on the subject in the _Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, vol. xix (1843), § ‘Literature,’ p. 22, Pl. i, ii, Mr. Samuel Ferguson endeavours to prove that the ‘cateia’ mentioned by classical authors was the boomerang. He quotes several passages, and amongst them one from Virgil (_Aeneid_ vii. 741), in which mention is made of a people accustomed to whirl the ‘cateia’ after the Teutonic manner. In the _Punica_ of Silius (iii. 327), one of the Libyan tribes which accompanied Hannibal to Italy is described as being armed with a bent or crooked ‘cateia’. Isidore, Bishop of Seville, a writer of the end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century, described the ‘cateia’ as ‘a species of bat, which, when thrown, flies not far, by reason of its weight, but where it strikes, it breaks through with extreme impetus, and if it be thrown with a skilful hand, it returns back again to him who dismissed it’ (_Origines_, xviii. 7. 7).

Strabo also (pp. 196-7) describes the Belgae of his time, as using ‘a wooden weapon of the shape of a grosphus, which they throw out of hand ... which flies farther than an arrow, and is chiefly used in the pursuit of game’.

_General Conclusions relative to the Boomerang._

Those who desire further information relative to its supposed use in Europe, cannot do better than refer to the paper from which I have quoted. Meanwhile, enough has been said to show:--(1) that the boomerang was used in many different countries at a very early period, and in a very primitive condition of culture, and that it was everywhere employed chiefly in the pursuit of game; (2) that it was everywhere constructed of wood, before it was copied in metal; (3) that in Australia it originated as a variety of the almond- or leaf-shaped sword, and was suggested by the natural curvature of the material out of which it was formed; (4) that the subsequent improvements by which its return flight was ensured, arose from a practical selection of suitable varieties, and was not the result of design, and (5) that the form of the boomerang passes by minute gradations into at least three other classes of weapons in common use by the same people, and may therefore be regarded as a branch variety of an original normal type of implement, used by the most primitive races as a general tool or weapon.

_Development of the Club._

Amongst other implements used for war, the form of which appears to be derived from the same common source as those already described, may be included the Australian club, and the wamera or throwing stick. I have arranged in Plate XVI, diagram 8, figs. 130 to 137, a series of Australian clubs, showing a transition from the plain stick, of equal size throughout, to one having a nearly round knob at one end. Nearly similar forms to some of these, from Africa, figs. 138 to 140, are also represented on the same diagram.

_Contrivances for Throwing the Spear._

Amongst the Australian ‘wameras’, there are so many varieties, that it is next to impossible to speculate upon the priority of any particular form, unless the plain stick, with a projecting peg at one end, may be regarded as certainly the simplest, and therefore the earlier form. The ‘wamera’ is held in the right hand, and the projecting peg at the end is fitted into a cavity at the end of the spear, which latter is held in the left hand, in the required direction, until just before the moment of throwing. The spear is then impelled to its destination by the wamera, which gives great additional impetus to the arm. Fig. 147 is a wamera from Nicol Bay, of exactly the same general outline as the sword already figured from that locality, figs. 61 and 62, except that one of the faces at the end of which the peg is fastened, is concave, and the other convex; this specimen is in the Christy Collection. The wamera assumes a great variety of forms; some, as for example fig. 142, resemble on a small scale the New Zealand paddle, the broad end being held in the hand, and the peg inserted in the small end; others, broad and flat, figs. 148 to 150, bulge out in the middle by successive gradations, until they approach the form of a shield. No reasonable cause that I am aware of, can be assigned for these different forms; beyond caprice, and the action of the law of incessant variation, which is constant in its operation amongst all the works of the aborigines.

The wamera is found on the north-west[166] and south-west[167] coasts of Australia, and Major Mitchell describes it in the east and central parts of the continent.[168]

That the wamera preceded the bow, appears probable from the fact that no bow is ever used in Australia, unless occasionally upon the north coast, where it is derived from the Papuans. The bow is not indigenous in New Zealand, or in any of those islands of the Pacific which are peopled by the Polynesian race; it belongs truly to the Papuans, and where it is used elsewhere in the Pacific Islands as a toy, it may very probably have been derived from their Papuan neighbours. The throwing stick is used in New Zealand, in which country Mr. Darwin describes the practice with them. ‘A cap,’ he says, ‘being fixed at 30 yards distance, they transfixed it with the spear delivered by the throwing stick, with the rapidity of an arrow from the bow of a practised archer.’[169] In New Guinea, Captain Cook saw the lance thrown 60 yards, as he believed, by the throwing stick.[170] I saw the Australians, now exhibiting on Kennington Common (1868), throw their spears with the wamera nearly 100 yards extreme range, but as they practised only for range, I had no opportunity of observing the accuracy of flight. Mr. Oldfield says that their practice has been much exaggerated by the European settlers, in order to justify acts on their part, which would otherwise appear cowardly. He says, that a melon having been put up at a distance of 30 yards, many natives practised at it for an hour without hitting it, after which an European, who had accustomed himself to the use of this weapon, struck it five times out of six with his spear. Klemm, on the other hand, has collected several accounts of their dexterity in the use of it; he says, that the range is 90 yards, and mentions that Captain Phillip received a wound several inches deep at 30 paces. At 40 paces, he says, the aborigines are always safe of their mark (l. c., p. 32). A sharp flint is usually fixed with gum into the handle of the wamera, which they use for sharpening the points of their spears.

The throwing stick (fig. 151) is used by the Esquimaux throughout the regions they inhabit. Frobisher[171] mentions it on the east, Captain Beechey on the north-west, and Cranz describes its use in Greenland.[172] Klemm says (l. c., p. 39), that the throwing stick used in the Aleutian Isles, differs from that of the Greenlander in having a cavity, to receive the end of the spear, instead of a projecting tang. The Esquimaux stick generally differs from the Australian in form, and has usually holes cut to receive the fingers, which by this means secure a firm grasp of the instrument. The custom of forming holes or depressions in an implement to receive the fingers was very widely spread in prehistoric times. I have specimens of stones so indented, used probably as hammers, from Ireland, Yorkshire, Denmark, and Central India. In the Christy Collection there is one precisely similar from the Andaman Isles.

The only other race that is known to make use of the throwing stick is the Purus-Purus Indians of South America, inhabiting a tributary of the Amazon. These people have no bow, and in many other respects resemble the Australians in their habits. Their throwing stick is called ‘palheta’; it has a projection at the end, to fit into the end of the spear, and is handled exactly in the same manner as the Australian ‘wamera’.[173]

Another kind of spear-thrower, consisting of a loop for the finger and a thong by which it is fastened to the spear, is used in New Caledonia, and Tanna, New Hebrides (fig. 152). On ordinary occasions this is carried by being suspended to an armlet on the left arm, but, when preparing for war, they fasten it on to the middle of their spears. I exhibit here, fig. 153, a precisely similar contrivance from Central Africa, from my collection. Judging by the spiral ferrule, at the end of the lance to which it is attached, it appears to be derived from Central or East Central Africa. This mode of increasing the range of the dart or javelin was well known to the ancients, and was called by the Greeks ἀγκύλη, and by the Romans ‘amentum’; it is represented on the Etruscan vases, and is figured in Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_, from which the drawing given in fig. 154 is taken.[174] One of the effects produced by this contrivance was, doubtless, to give the weapon a rotary motion, and thereby to increase the accuracy of its flight, upon the same principle as the rifling of a bullet; but the range and velocity were also increased, by enabling the thrower, the tip of whose forefinger was passed through the loop of the ‘amentum’, to press longer upon the spear, and thus impart a greater velocity to it, in the same manner that the effect of the Australian wamera may be said to increase the length of the thrower’s arm. The Emperor Napoleon, who, as we all know, has paid great attention to these weapons of the ancients, caused experiments to be conducted, under his own personal supervision, at Saint Germain, the result of which showed that the range of a spear was increased from 20 to 80 meters by the use of this accessory.[175]

_Transition from Club to Shield (Australia)._

My next example of variation of form is taken from the Australian ‘heileman’, or shield. It may, on the first cursory consideration of the subject, appear fanciful to suppose that so simple a contrivance as the shield could require to have a history, or that the plain round target, for example, so common amongst many savage nations, could be the result of a long course of development. Surely, it may be said, the shells of tortoises or the thick hides of beasts would, from the first, have supplied so simple a contrivance. But the researches in palaeoethnology teach us that such was not the case; man came into the world naked and defenceless, and it was long before he acquired the art of defending himself in this manner. His first weapon, as I have already said, was a stone or a stick, and it is from one or other of these, that we must trace all subsequent improvements. The stick became a club, and it is to this alone that many of the earliest races trust for the defence of their persons. The Dinkas of East Central Africa have no shields, using the club, and a stick, hooked at both ends (Pl. XVI, fig. 170), to ward off lances.[176] The Shoua and the Bagirmi of Central Africa rarely carry shields, and they use a foreign name for it.[177] The Khonds, hill tribes of Central India, have never adopted the shield.[178] The inhabitants of Tahiti use no shield.[179] The Sandwich Islanders use no shield or weapon of defence, employing the javelin to ward off lances: like the Australians, and, like the Bushmen, they are very expert in dodging the weapons of their enemies. In Samoa the club is used for warding off lances, and the warriors frequently exercise themselves in this practice. The ‘kerri’ sticks of the Hottentots are used for warding off stones and assegais.[180]

The club head formed by the divergent roots of a tree (Pl. XVI, fig. 155), offers great advantages in enabling the warrior to catch the arrows in their flight, and this led to the use of the jagged mace-head form of club, which is here represented from many different localities. Fig. 155 is from Fiji, fig. 157 from Central Africa, fig. 156 from Australia, fig. 158 from New Guinea, and fig. 159 from the Friendly Isles. The curved clubs, of which a great variety are found in the hands of savages in every part of the world, are exceedingly well adapted to catch and throw off the enemy’s arrow. The Australian ‘malga’, or ‘leowel’, as it is called by the Australians now in this country, and already described (pp. 125-6), is used in this manner.

By degrees, instead of using the club as a general weapon, offensive and defensive, especial forms would be used for defence, whilst others would be retained for offensive purposes; but the shield for some time would continue to be used merely as a parrying instrument. Such it is in Australia. In its most primitive form, it is merely a kind of stick with an aperture cut through it in the centre for the hand. The fore part varies with the shape of the stem out of which it was made; in some it is round, in others flat. This form appears to have branched off into two varieties; one developed laterally, and at last assumed the form of a pointed oval, as represented in Plate XVI, figs. 165 to 169; these are frequently scored on the front with grooves to catch the lance points. The other variety appears to have assumed a pointed form in front, so as to make the spear glance off to one side, as represented in figs. 160 to 164. The Australians are exceedingly skilful in parrying with these shields. One of the feats of the Australians now in this country, consists in parrying cricket balls thrown with full force by three persons at the same time. The ‘heileman’ is cut out of the solid tree and, like all their other weapons, invariably follows the grain of the wood.

In 1861, Mr. Oldfield, when engaged in collecting specimens of timber for the International Exhibition, came upon one of these shields, nearly finished, and abandoned, but only requiring a few strokes to detach it from the growing tree; and he noticed the immense time and labour it must have cost the native to construct it, not less than 30 cubic feet of wood having been removed in digging it out of the tree with no better tool than a flint fixed to the end of a stick. Trees of sufficient size for these shields are not found in all parts of Australia, and in those places where they are wanting, the natives only obtain them by traffic with other tribes. The same cause may also account, in some measure, for the varieties of their form, yet, notwithstanding these numerous varieties, they never leave the normal type throughout the continent, and you might as well expect to see the Australian using a firelock of native manufacture, as to find in his hands the circular flat shield which is common in Africa, America, and ancient Europe.

_Transition from Club to Shield (Africa)._

In Africa, the development of the shield appears to have followed precisely the same course, commencing with the plain stick or club, Pl. XVI, fig. 170, and passing through the varieties represented in figs. 171, 172, and 173, which are scarcely distinguishable from the Australian ‘heileman’, to the oval shield of the Kaffirs, fig. 174, and of the Upper Nile, figs. 175 and 176, which are of ox hide, but show their origin by a stick passing down the centre and grasped in the hand; with this stick they parry and turn off the lances of the assailant precisely in the same manner that the Australian employs the projecting point at the end of his oval shield. Judging by the side views represented in the Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures, similar shields were used by the ancients, and we may especially notice the Assyrian shield, of small dimensions, fig. 178, mentioned by Mr. Rawlinson as being represented in the Assyrian sculptures, and having projecting spikes on the fore part, to catch and throw off the enemy’s weapons (_Five Great Monarchies_ (1864), vol. ii. p. 51).

_Development of the Shield._