On
this page is some information
on history of boomerangs.
Most people in the world associate boomerangs with Australian
Aboriginal People.
It is true that it has been one of the most
important tools and weapons for Australian indigenous people, however
boomerangs were not only used
in Australia.
Poster by AllPosters. Click on thumbnail to buy
The
Oldest History of
Boomerangs
While the oldest boomerangs used by Australian
Aboriginal People
are about 10,000 years old, similar items of older age have been found
on many other continents like in Europe, northern Africa, America and
Asia. Firstly, there are many different kinds of boomerangs. Not nearly
all boomerangs are the recreational toys that Aboriginal people in
Australia today teach tourists how
to throw – they are the classic
“boomerangs that come back”. There are however many boomerangs that
won’t come back, and they were never meant to! This is because they
were made for different purposes. Hunting boomerangs are the largest
ones, they can be up to two metres long, and they are way too heavy to
ever come back. They were thrown at kangaroos
and emus
to cut their legs or necks, and it would not
have been practical in the hunting
action to waste time waiting for the boomerang to come back.
Poster by AllPosters. Click on thumbnail to buy
The Returning Boomerangs
Other,
smaller boomerangs were also used as battle clubs, musical instruments
and even fire starters. How the returning boomerang was first invented
is not very well known, but it has been suggested that it could have
developed from the flattened throwing stick that was used by Australian
indigenous people, and also some other indigenous cultures around the
world. It may have been that some sticks that were more bent, showed a
turning flight path, and the indigenous people finally worked out the
exact angle that was needed for the boomerang to come back to the
thrower. A hunting boomerang however is much more difficult to make,
and it has to be much more exactly balanced. Apart from Australian
indigenous
people, hunting boomerangs are known to have been used by Egyptians,
Native Americans and people from southern India.
Poster by AllPosters. Click on thumbnail to buy
Australian
History of
Boomerangs Not all Australian Aboriginal People used boomerangs
however. Many
tribes in Northern
Territory, Tasmania,
South
Australia, and northern parts of Western
Australia and Queensland
didn’t use returning boomerangs. About 60% of Australian indigenous
people used both returning and non-returning boomerangs. About 10% used
only non-returning ones, and 30% used none at all. Both returning and
non-returning boomerangs have however mostly been associated with
Australia,
perhaps because they were very well suited to Australian open landscape
and hunting the upright standing animals like emus and kangaroos, so
they may have been more important weapons in Australia than elsewhere.
The word “boomerang” is believed to come from Australian Aboriginal
language, from tribes that lived south of Sydney
in New
South Wales.
Got your own story to tell?
Share it!!!
We all love to read other readers' stories!
You will create YOUR own page on Gondwananet!
Make it nice - you can also submit a photo to your page ;-)
Note:
This site uses
British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will
find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all
correct in the language used in Australia.
Disclaimer: Although
best efforts have been made to ensure
that all the information on this site is correct,
gondwananet.com is not to be blamed should there be a mistake.
Copyright notice:
All contents of this website are strictly protected
by the Law of Copyright. What
does that mean?