Is it not reasonable to
suppose that the original design was copied from this elemental model,
as, in like manner the boomerang is traceable to a leaf? The pattern is
so profoundly persistent in the minds of the blacks of to-day, that in
fashioning a hook from a piece of straight wire they invariably form a
crescent, though the superiority of the shape approved by civilisation
must have been exemplified to them times out of number. In this
particular the blacks seem unconsciously to follow the idea of their
ancestors as birds obey instinct in the building of nests and in
migratory flights.
Piccaninnies at this date remind us of the genesis of the boomerang as
they sport with the sickle-shaped leaves (or rather PHYLLODIA) of the
ACACIA HOLOCARPA as with miniature boomerangs. The piccaninny of the
remote past chuckled gleefully as the jerked leaf returned to it. As a
boy he fashioned a larger and permanent toy, surreptitiously using his
father's stone tomahawk and shell knife, while the old man was after
wallaby with a waddy. As a young man, hunting or fighting, he found his
boyish toy a very effective missile. Even for a straight shot it had a
longer range and far higher velocity, with less strength expenditure,
than the waddy or nulla-nulla; and its homing flight had practical if
not frequent uses.
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