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17. Around Mackay, the natives will describe the local boomerang as having two Knees, i.e. a more or less defined double bend, which results in giving the weapon a very typical appearance (Fig. 26)
18. In the Rockhampton and surrounding coast district, except its southern portion, e.g. Gladstone and Miriam Vale the boomerang (Fig. 27) has a very marked bend or Knee close to its proximal (handle) extremity, the upper convex surface showing a fine stone-chisel fluting: its extremities are tapering, while the width of the shaft gradually increases from the hand onwards, until it reaches its maximum of about 2½ inches at a spot situated at about three-quarters of its length. Lumholtz figures* one similar to this from Coomooboolaroo, Central Queensland. A straight line joining its two extremities measures about 26½ inches, this increasing slightly as one travels northwards from Rockhampton. It is made of brigalow, rose-wood, or wattle. At Marlborough (1897) a local aboriginal told me that in the olden times boomerangs used to be ornamented on their upper convex surface with large diamonds [?] (?graved) placed end on end, each diamond being subdivided by parallel lines into four smaller ones. On the Keppel Islands, I could learn nothing about boomerangs, whereas at Miriam Vale the only two specimens obtainable were bilaterally symmetrical, i.e. with the knee at the middle, its widest portion, and were said to be return- or toy- boomerangs.
* Baiali, Lumholtz - Among Cannibals, 1890, p. 334, 2 figs. Etheridge Internat. Archive Ethnographic, p. 1897, p.graph iii, pp 2-2.3. (Ed.) I do not think Lumholtz's figure represents the same weapon as above described by Dr Roth - see post. p. (Ed)