Volume 03 Item 03: Walter Edmund Roth Bulletin No. 13 Fighting Weapons, 1904-1906 - Page 43

                                                                                       22a

28.  In the Rockhampton [D]istrict, nullas are were usually made from "brigalow" or wattle, timbers known to the local Tarumbal (Rockhampton distri [T]ribe as Ku-num and pakkar respectively: rose-wood was occasionally employed, and, on Keppel [Islands] mangrove. Six or seven varieties are Known, the first three of which are manufactured in large (heavy) and small (light) size. The heavy ones never leave left the hand being used for the offensive and defensive at close quarters.  The light ones are were thrown from a distance, and but were often used for Knocking over native-bears, Kangaroo, and other game, i.e., employed as hunting weapons. Good nullas should show the fine fluting caused by the stone chisel and all possess handle marks to prevent the implement slipping. Of late years, some of these weapons have been (?) improved by the addition of horse-shoe nails stuck into the distal extremity. In the neighbourhood of Rockhampton itself the Tarumbal had a word barkal (= any stick or handle) to express all these varieties of nulla collectively. To the following short description of each the Tarumbal name is attached:-
(a)  The distal or free extremity progressively enlarges to end finally in a gradually tapering point (Fig.51) [and is] the commonest of the series. The smaller kinds are called barkal, the larger tindil.
(b)  The weapon gradually enlarges from the handle end to the globular extremity, this knob being either distinct from (Fig. 53) or merged into (Fig.52) the shaft. Known as tanda.
(c)  The head of the implement is girdled, the girdle being subsequently cut into from two to five rows of squares, by means of transverse and longitudinal incisions (Fig. 54) It is called a nil-li. For decorative purposes, I have here and there seen one of these weapons with two opposite sides of the girdle shaved down to the general surface level and then coloured red and white respectively.