Aboriginal people manufactured many kinds of tools, weapons and
crafts. From wood they made clubs, boomerangs, shields, spears,
musical instruments, and a variety of ceremonial objects. They
made axes, chisels, knives and scrapers from stone.
The aboriginals made a great variety of spear types and were highly
skilled in their use. In most cases the spear shafts and points
were made of different materials.
Straight lengths of lighter hardwoods such as jiman were favoured
for shafts of spears, though in recent years bamboo has become
an acceptable substitute for lighter spears.
The spear points were usually made from the very hard wood of
jidu, julu julu or junjum. These were further hardened by burning
in a fire and scraping off the charred surface to form the point.
Points were attached to the shafts using fine split-lawyercane
binding and special resins. There were many different designs
for spear points and their arrangement on the shaft - each for
its particular purpose. Heavy killing spears for hunting large
animals or serious fighting would have a single point and were
often (shaft and point) made from a single length of hardwood.
Fishing spears and spears for hunting smaller animals and birds
were lighter and often had multiple points.
