Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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The Implements Made Use Of By The Natives Are Not Very Numerous, And
Their General Characteristics Are Nearly The Same
All over the continent.
The native hatchet is made of a very hard greenish-looking stone, rubbed
to an edge
On either side; it is fixed in the cleft of a stick, or a
branch is doubled round it, and either tied or gummed to prevent its
slipping. The throwing sticks have generally a sharp piece of quartz or
flint gummed on at the lower end, which is used as a knife or chisel;
flints or muscle shells are used for skinning animals, dissecting food,
cutting hair, etc.
The ngak-ko, a strong chisel-pointed stick, from three to four feet long,
is used for dissecting the larger animals and fish, for digging grubs out
of the trees, for making holes to get out opossums, etc., for stripping
bark, ascending trees, for cutting bark canoes, and a variety of other
useful purposes. The rod for noosing ducks, (tat-tat-ko) and other wild
fowl, is about sixteen feet long, and consists, in its lower part, for
the first ten feet, of hard wood, tapering like an ordinary spear, to
this is cemented with resin, a joint of tolerably strong reed about
sixteen inches long, at the upper end of this is inserted and cemented
with wax, a tapering rod of hard wood, three feet long and very similar
to the top joint of a fly-fishing rod, to this is spliced a fine springy
and strong top, of about eighteen inches in length, at the end of which
is bound a piece of fine strong cord, which works with a running noose
upon the tapering end of the instrument.
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