Identifier: nativesofaustral00thomuoft (find matches)
Title: Natives of Australia
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Thomas, Northcote Whitridge, 1868-
Subjects: Ethnology -- Australia Australia -- Social conditions Australia -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : A. Constable
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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stling are found. In Victoriathe shoulders were the point at which they gripped,and each endeavoured to push his adversary down.In Queensland the loins are the point dappui, andthe aim is to throw the adversary off his feet; raisinghim in the air does not count if he comes down on hisfeet. A tug-of-war is also found on the Upper BataviaRiver, the rope being a long pole; instead of pullingthey push, and it does not seem to demand greatexertion. Not unlike the cockatoo game is the bean-tree;each hand is a bean, and the player who is it gatherseach in succession. When all are collected, the nextstep is to pretend to hide them in the bush, thenthe other children look for them, of course, in vain ;finally the game is ended by the announcement thata flood has come and carried the beans away. The duck game is a representation of the methodof catching ducks by means of a noose, details ofwhich are given for the turkey in the chapter onfowling. The children pass in line before the one Plate 23
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1 ^ 7^ 5 J a; < TOY SPEARS 137 who is it, who drops a noose in front of one of them,and the latter immediately falls on his or her back,pretending to be dead. When all are caught, thefowler comes up to each in turn and asks where itcame from ; on getting as an answer From Cook-town, he gives the duck a poke with the stick, and offit scuttles home. Among the male portion of the juveniles there isnaturally no lack of toy weapons. Some of these aremade by relatives, some by the little warriors them-selves. Toy spears are made from grasses, reeds,rushes, etc.; sometimes they are thrown with thehand, sometimes with the toy wommera or spearthrower, made of split bulrush or a piece of woodresembling the ordinary implement, but on a reducedscale. A curious and interesting method is foundwest of Burketown; the spear is a straight withe,two or three feet long, and it is thrown by a stringcoiled round the end. Curiously enough, Yorkshireboys have just the same method of throwing sticks;it is

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