Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/121

 wide, and half an inch thick, crooked or bent in the middle. It was a very formidable weapon in the hands of a native. They could throw it and hit an object behind a tree which was behind the thrower. An attempt to throw it by any one unaccustomed to its use might  result injuriously. It was used both in war and the

NATIVE THROWING THE BOOMERANG.

chase, and was peculiar to the natives of Australia, no other tribe or nation having anything bearing the  slightest resemblance to it.

We witnessed one of their Corrobory dances. It was held in a little clearing near the woods, close to their  huts, and near a fire. About twenty natives, in quick succession, came out of the woods, their dark bodies  marked with pipe clay to represent skeletons, with white