To The Women Are Committed The Fishing-Lines, Hooks
And Nets.
As very ample collections of all these articles are to be found
in many museums in England, I shall only briefly describe the way in which
the most remarkable of them are made.
The fish-gigs and spears are commonly
(but not universally) made of the long spiral shoot which arises from the top
of the yellow gum-tree, and bears the flower. The former have several prongs,
barbed with the bone of kangaroo. The latter are sometimes barbed
with the same substance, or with the prickle of the sting-ray, or with stone
or hardened gum, and sometimes simply pointed. Dexterity in throwing
and parrying the spear is considered as the highest acquirement. The children
of both sexes practice from the time that they are able to throw a rush;
their first essay. It forms their constant recreation. They afterwards heave
at each other with pointed twigs. He who acts on the defensive holds a piece
of new soft bark in the left hand, to represent a shield, in which he receives
the darts of the assailant, the points sticking in it. Now commences
his turn. He extracts the twigs and darts them back at the first thrower,
who catches them similarly. In warding off the spear they never present
their front, but always turn their side, their head at the same time
just clear of the shield, to watch the flight of the weapon;
and the body covered. If a spear drop from them when thus engaged,
they do not stoop to pick it up, but hook it between the toes and so lift it
until it meet the hand. Thus the eye is never diverted from its object,
the foe. If they wish to break a spear or any wooden substance, they lay it
not across the thigh or the body, but upon the head, and press down the ends
until it snap. Their shields are of two sorts. That called 'illemon'
is nothing but a piece of bark with a handle fixed in the inside of it.
The other, dug out of solid wood, is called 'aragoon', and is made as follows,
with great labour. On the bark of a tree they mark the size of the shield,
then dig the outline as deep as possible in the wood with hatchets,
and lastly flake it off as thick as they can, by driving in wedges.
The sword is a large heavy piece of wood, shaped like a sabre, and capable
of inflicting a mortal wound. In using it they do not strike with the convex
side, but with the concave one, and strive to hook in their antagonists
so as to have them under their blows. The fishing-lines are made of the bark
of a shrub. The women roll shreds of this on the inside of the thigh,
so as to twist it together, carefully inserting the ends of every fresh piece
into the last made.
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