Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/552

528 varies from four ounces to ten and a half ounces; the blacks of Western Australia used lighter ones than those of the eastern regions.

"Some of the boomerangs are intended for playthings, while others are for war or hunting purposes. The playthings can be made to return to the feet of the thrower, but the war boomerangs are not expected to return; you can readily understand that a boomerang would be deviated from its course or stopped altogether by hitting an object, and if it did not hit anything it would not be of much use as a warlike weapon.

"We examined the boomerang that the man was to perform with. It was about nineteen inches long from point to point, two and a half inches wide in its broadest part, half an inch thick, and weighed eight ounces and a half. Its shape was somewhat like that of a slightly bent sickle, the curve being about a quarter of a circle.

"When we had done looking at it the fellow took it and examined it carefully, and then he looked at the trees and the grass to note the direction of the wind. Our friend cautioned us to stand perfectly still, especially after the weapon had been launched; the performer selects beforehand the spot where he wishes the boomerang to fall on its return, and sometimes a spectator in his excitement moves to that very spot and is injured. We promised to obey, and we did.

"Two or three times the man made a motion to throw it but did not. Finally, when he felt that he could strike the wind at the proper angle, he launched the weapon almost straight into the air; it went up a few yards, then turned and seemed to glide along a little way above the ground, gyrated on its axis, made a wide sweep and returned with a fluttering motion to the man's feet. The farthest point of the curve was about a hundred yards away. We are told that skilful throwers can sometimes project the boomerang nearly two hundred yards before it starts on its return.

"We offered him a sixpence for every time he would bring it back to his feet and make it fall in a circle two yards in diameter which we drew on the ground. In ten throws he brought it within the circle four times, and in the six misses it dropped only a short distance outside.

"He did not throw it the same way every time. Once he made it skim along the ground for at least fifty yards, then rise into the air fully one hundred feet, and after making a great curve it returned. Next he threw it so that it made at least half a dozen great spirals above him as it came down, and another time it passed around a tree in its course.