Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/411

Rh with a rotatory motion, without also exhibiting the great distinguishing property of the boomerang by a reciprocating flight. But the description of the Cateia, given by Isidore, Bishop of Seville, a writer of the end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century, renders this line of argument unnecessary. He describes the Cateia as a species of bat, of half a cubit in length, which, on being thrown, flies not far, on account of its weight, but where it strikes it breaks through with excessive impetus. And if it be thrown by one skilful in its use, it returns back again to him who dismissed it. The passage occurs in the Origines under the head, viz.:—

' est qualis fuit Herculis, dicta quod sit clavis ferreis invicem religata, et est cubito semis facta in longitudine. Hæc et Cateia, quam Horatius Caiam dicit. Est genus Gallici teli ex materia quam maxime lenta; quæ, jactu quidem, non longe, propter gravitatem, evolat, sed ubi pervenit vi nimiâ perfringit. Quod si ab artifice mittatur, rursum redit ad eum qui misit. Hujus meminit Virgilius dicens. Teutonico ritu soliti torquere Cateias. Unde et eas Hispani Teutones vocant.'—Isidor. Origin., 1. xviii., c. vii.

Thus all the characteristics of the boomerang, its use, its shape, its mode of projection, its extraordinary impetus, and its peculiar reciprocating flight, belong to the Cateia, from which it cannot but be concluded that these were the same weapon."

The statements made and the authorities quoted in the other parts of Mr. Ferguson's paper are scarcely less interesting than those given in the above extract. He thus concludes:—

"Many of the foregoing inferences will, doubtless, appear in a high degree speculative; and the writer is conscious that, in pushing the enquiry in some directions to the length it has gone, the bounds of strict induction have been very closely approached; still it is submitted that if the first step of the argument, namely the identification of the Cateia with the Australian weapon, have been taken on sure ground, it will not be possible to stay the subsequent progress of the enquiry. And that this step has been taken with great, indeed with extraordinary, certainty, appears as well from the minuteness with which all the peculiarities of the weapon in question are described in the passages already quoted as from the fact that unquestionable representations of the boomerang are found on ancient monuments. The representations in Pl. II., Figs. 1 and 2, taken from Sig. Rosellini's Egyptian Monuments cannot be mistaken; and the reader who will take the trouble of referring to Mr. Wilkinson's work on the same subject will there find still further confirmation of the acquaintance of this most ancient people with the very implement in question. In the latter instance, parties are represented throwing missiles of a form which, from experiment, it is now certain, must have produced a reciprocating flight, at birds, reminding us strongly of that passage of Strabo (1. iv., pp. 196-7, Ed. Causab.) where be describes the Belgæ of his time as using 'a wooden weapon of the shape of a grosphus, which they throw out of the hand, and not by means of an ancyle, and which flies faster than an arrow, and is chiefly used in the pursuit of game.' So, also, it is difficult to assign any other use to the instrument appearing in the hand of the Belgic Briton represented in Pl. II., Fig. 6.