Boomerang
The Boomerang’s uses are wide and varied, and to the Aborigines it was a highly prized possession. Not only was this used to hunt game, but it could be used to create fire , as a digging implement and as a musical instrument.
At a corroboree (tribal gathering), the Boomerang would be used with another one, clapping them together to accompany song and dance. Its most common use was in hunting food.
It would be thrown into a flock of birds with the chance of bringing down more than one, or in hunting larger land animals.
The Boomerang was shaped from wood, in central Australia, Mulga wood was commonly used. In other areas Black Wattle, Bat Willow, Needlewood or Mangrove were the choice of wood.
Depending on the area, Boomerangs from these regions are painted with ochre with incise designs representing totemic clans and travels of spirit hero's or simply left in its natural state.
On this particular Boomerang the circular dot painted formations represent meeting places or campsites, joining these sites together are the travel lines the tribes have taken to each meeting place.
Aboriginal creation accounts describe how the Australian Landscape was formed and shaped by the ancestors in the Dreamtime.
In the Dreamtime, many features of the land were created by mythological spears, clubs and Boomerangs which were hurled into mountains, deserts, rivers and the sea .