Page:Australian race - vol 1.djvu/390

Rh material. It is suspended by a string, which rests on the left shoulder, and nnder the right arm, a little above the hip.

Their implements are of the sort more or less general throughout Australia, with the exception, perhaps, of the tomahawk, which, before our introduction of iron ones, was made by sticking a piece of sharp flinty stone into a lump of the gum of the “blackboy” (Xanthorrhoea) made hot, and about the size of one’s fist. Behind the stone, and close to it, a short stick was also forced into the heated gum, and served as a handle. The gum was mixed with a quantity of pounded charcoal to render it hard and solid. With this instrument the Blacks cut notches in the bark, and readily ascended the highest tree.

Spears of several sorts are in use, some of them jagged with flints attached to the edges near the point with “blackboy” gum, others merely pointed, but all lighter, shorter, and much inferior in make to those in the southern and eastern portions of the continent. In Victoria, for instance, the war-spear and emu-spear was chopped out of the solid box-tree, was nine or ten feet long, fully as thick as three fingers, and beautifully straight, whilst those of the Perth tribes are little better than twigs, not much thicker than the finger, only seven feet long, and not very straight. Some of them are barbed with a bit of wood fastened on near the point with sinew and gum. But, poor as they look, they are thrown 60 or 70 yards, with the aid of the wommera, and with considerable precision. Shields are like those in Victoria, but if the weapons are inferior to those of Southern and Eastern Australia, the cookery is also more rude and dirty. Mr. Knight says that the entrails of the opossum are dragged out, and the far pulled off and inserted in their place for the purpose of soaking up the blood and gravy which exude when cooking. The animal is then thrown on to the coals, and, when well heated through, is torn to pieces and eaten, the fur from the inside being sucked with great relish. Before the cooking takes place,