Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/466

382 The chips shown in Figs. 212-l6 were collected by Mr. Ulrich, and are thus described by Wye-wye-a-nine:—

Fig. 212 represents a fragment of a tomahawk (Pur-ut-three). It is a piece of hard, dense, black basalt.

Fig. 213 is also a piece of a tomahawk; it is, like Fig. 212, composed of black basalt, and certainly more resembles a chip which would be used for a jagged spear than anything else.

Fig. 214 is a chip for a chisel (Wot-thun).

Fig. 215 is a chip used in scraping spears. With this instrument the natives remove the bark and cut away excrescences. The name is Wallen-jah.

Fig. 216 is a chip for a jagged spear.

This chip (Fig. 217) was dug out of a Mirrn-yong heap by Mr. John Green, and he and others believed it had been used for skinning animals. It has a tolerably sharp cutting edge, and appears to be a fragment of chert. It has not been ground or polished, and the fracture is semi-conchoidal. I was quite sure it was an ancient chip that had been used in cutting open and skinning animals taken in the chase; but when Wye-wye-a-nine saw it he appeared to recognise it at once as a fragment struck off in making a tomahawk.

The grinding-stones (Fig. 218) used by the natives of the Darling are of the following description:—The slab, generally of sandstone, is about twenty-two inches in length, fourteen inches in breadth, and about one inch in thickness. The hand-stones (Wallong) are round, or of an oval form, and vary in size. One is four inches and a half in length, three inches and a half in breadth, and one inch and three-quarters in thickness; and another is six inches in length, four inches and a half in breadth, and three inches in thickness. The Wallong have hollows cut in them, so as to be more easily held by the hand.