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1. As to how much labour is entailed in the manufacture of a spear depends largely upon the nature of the timber employed, according as to whether this is a bamboo or a thin sapling, or whether the implement is cut out of a tree en bloc, as happens sometimes in the Boulia and Rockhampton Districts, or split out of the solid. The different methods adopted in getting it into shape, e.g. bending, straightening, etc as well as the tools required for the purpose have already been described*.
I propose including certain mention of the spears used in hunting and fishing, which although not fighting weapons, find a more or less natural place here.
2. Most of the weapons used in the North-Western Districts have been fully detailed§ and hence require but little additional description. Mr E. Palmer however records three additional timber used for spears in these areas: Phragmites communis[?], trim stems used for reed-spears on the Mitchell River; Sesbania aegyptiaca, Peason[?], stems for the ends of reed-spears at Cloncurry; Thryptomene oligandra, F.v.M for the Points of reed-spears only on the Mitchell and Gilbert Rivers. Spears that have since been met with are the stone-spearsØ of Burke-town, Point Parker, and the ranges along the Queensland-Northern Territory Border, and the multiple-prong fish-spears of the Wellesley Islands. The lancet-flake of the former is fixed into the split extremity of the shaft after the manner of a wedge®, and then bound round with twine, and finally strengthened with cement. The prongs of the fish-spears, spliced and fixed only with twine onto the proximal portion, have their barbs one behind the other cut out en bloc. (Figs 1, 2).
3. On the Pennefather River spears have the generic term of ché-a applied to them, and are formed of a proximal (butt) portion morticed into a distal (shaft. lib) one#, the latter being either simple or multiple. The extreme tip is called pe-éidana. All these spears are thrown with a spear-thrower or wommera, though they can occasionally be used with the hand alone. The barb, except in the stingaree-tail spears, is of Kangaroo bone pencil (nowadays oft replaced by thick iron wire) fixed into a longitudinal groove cut with a tooth-scraper7, into the spear tip beyond which it projects: it is bound round and round with twine, the cording finally giving place to a plain looping (Fig 3), the whole of which is ultimately covered with cement substance. The colouring of these spears is fairly uniform: starting from the proximal end in a short length of white, a compounding
Roth - §sect 246 - 25 Ethnol Studies etc 1897; Sects, 2, 3, 4
Rott * Bull, # Sect 4.3, Bull 7 for method of morticing, and for heading of the butt-end
Rott [?] Sect 30, Bull 7
Ø Roth Plate VI and Sect 24, Bull 7
® Roth Sect 31 Bull 7
(P.C)