Boomerang
A boomerang is a thrown tool typically constructed with airfoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight, designed to return to the thrower. The origin of the word is from an Aboriginal Australian language of the Sydney region. Its original meaning, which is preserved in official competitions, refers only to returning objects, not to throwing sticks, which were also used for hunting by various peoples both in Australia and around the world. However, the term "non-returning boomerang" is also in general use. Various forms of boomerang-like designs were traditionally and in some cases are still used by some groups of Aboriginal Australians for hunting. The tools were known by various names in the many Aboriginal languages prior to colonisation. The oldest surviving Aboriginal boomerang, now held in the South Australian Museum, was found in a peat bog in South Australia, dated to 10,000 BC. Historically, boomerangs have been used for hunting, sport, and entertainment, and are made in various shapes and sizes to suit different purposes. Ancient "boomerangs", used for hunting, have also been discovered in Egypt, the Americas, and Europe, although it is unclear whether any of these were of the returning type.
History
Boomerangs were, historically, used as hunting weapons, percussive musical instruments, battle clubs, fire-starters, decoys for hunting waterfowl, and as recreational play toys. The smallest boomerang may be less than from tip to tip, and the largest over in length.Depictions of boomerangs being thrown at animals, such as kangaroos, appear in some of the oldest rock art in the world, the Indigenous Australian rock art of the Kimberley region, which is potentially up to 50,000 years old. According to reports the oldest European surviving boomerang, that was found in a cave in Poland in 1985, dates back about 40,000 years old. The oldest surviving Australian Aboriginal boomerang was found in a peat bog in the Wyrie Swamp of South Australia in 1973. It was dated to 10,000 BC and is held by the South Australian Museum in Adelaide. According to Tony Butz, former history teacher and linguist and founder of the Boomerang Throwing Association of New South Wales, "the returning boomerang was unknown to Aboriginal peoples in most of the Northern Territory, all of Tasmania, half of South Australia and the northern parts of Queensland and Western Australia. Roughly 60% of Aboriginal peoples used both returning boomerangs and non-returning hunting sticks, and therefore had words for them; a further 10% had only non-returning hunting sticks, and the remaining 30% used neither". Stencils and paintings of boomerangs appear in the rock art of West Papua, including on Bird's Head Peninsula and Kaimana, likely dating to the Last Glacial Maximum, when lower sea levels led to cultural continuity between Papua and Arnhem Land in Northern Australia.
Although traditionally thought of as Australian, similar weapons have been found also in ancient Europe, Egypt, and North America. There is evidence of the use of non-returning weapons similar to boomerangs by the ancient Egyptians, the Native Americans of California and Arizona, and inhabitants of South India for killing birds and rabbits. An 1883 study reported Ancient Egyptian examples and African examples, but these were non-returning tools. Hunting sticks discovered in Europe seem to have formed part of the Stone Age arsenal of weapons. A boomerang-like weapon discovered in Obłazowa Cave in the Carpathian Mountains in Poland and reported in 1987 was made of mammoth's tusk. It is believed, based on AMS dating of objects found with it, to be about 40,000 years old, the earliest certain find of this type of weapon in the world. In the Netherlands, boomerangs have been found in Vlaardingen and Velsen from the first century BC. King Tutankhamun owned a collection of boomerangs.
No one knows for sure how the returning boomerang was invented, but some modern boomerang makers speculate that it developed from the flattened throwing stick, still used by Aboriginal Australians and other indigenous peoples around the world, including the Navajo in North America. The curving flight characteristic of returning boomerangs was probably first noticed by early hunters trying to "tune" their throwing sticks to fly straight.
It is thought that the shape and elliptical flight path of the returning boomerang makes it useful for hunting birds and small animals, or that noise generated by the movement of the boomerang through the air, or, by a skilled thrower, lightly clipping leaves of a tree whose branches house birds, would help scare the birds towards the thrower. It is further supposed that this was used to frighten flocks or groups of birds into nets that were usually strung up between trees or thrown by hidden hunters. In southeastern Australia, it is claimed that boomerangs were made to hover over a flock of ducks; mistaking it for a hawk, the ducks would dive away, toward hunters armed with nets or clubs.
Traditionally, most hunting sticks used by Aboriginal groups in Australia were non-returning. These weapons, sometimes called "throwsticks" or "kylies", were used for hunting a variety of prey, from kangaroos to parrots; at a range of about, a non-returning boomerang could inflict mortal injury to a large animal.
Recent evidence also suggests that boomerangs were used as war weapons.
Etymology
The origin of the term is uncertain, although it is known to be Australian.David Collins listed "Wo-mur-rāng" as one of eight Aboriginal "Names of clubs" in 1798. but was probably referring to the woomera, which is actually a spear-thrower. An anonymous 1790 manuscript on Aboriginal languages of New South Wales reported "Boo-mer-rit" as "the Scimiter".
The first written record of a boomerang's return flight was made by a French-born ensign of the New South Wales Corps, Francis Louis Barrallier in November, 1802, but there had been reports of boomerangs in action by colonist of Sydney in the first few years of the colony. At Farm Cove, in December 1804, a weapon was witnessed during a tribal skirmish, as recorded in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser:
One source asserts that the term entered the language in 1827, adapted from an Aboriginal language of near Sydney, New South Wales, but mentions a variant, "wo-mur-rang", which it dates to 1798. In 1822, it was described in detail and recorded as a "bou-mar-rang" in the language of the Dharawal people of the Georges River near Port Jackson. The Dharawal used other words for their hunting sticks but used "boomerang" to refer to a returning throw-stick. Similarly, other Aboriginal peoples used different words for throwing sticks and returning weapons. The word was also spelt "bomerang", "bommerang", "bomring", "boomereng", "boomering", "bumerang", and other variants.
The word was adopted into International English, and also started to be used with a figurative meaning. An early example of its adoption into American English is found in Boston Daily Advertiser in 1846. From the 1850s, it started to be used as a verb in Australian English.
Traditional styles and uses
According to the Boomerang Throwing Association of New South Wales, only returning devices should be referred to as boomerangs, per the origins of the word. However, the term "non-returning boomerang" is used in common parlance to refer to a range of devices that are thrown.One of the traditional uses of a boomerang was for hunting birds, kangaroos, and smaller marsupials.This type of boomerang was either the same width from end to end, or had a broad middle and tapered at either end, with thin edges. They could travel very fast and so were effective and dangerous. Expert hunters are said to be able to kill an animal away. Another hunting technique involves hanging nets among a group of trees, and when a flock of birds flies above them, boomerangs would be thrown above the birds to resemble a bird of prey such as a hawk. The spooked flock would swoop down to escape the hawk, and fly into the nets. The classic returning boomerang was never used in warfare, owing to its wide arc.
Medium-weight "non-returning boomerangs" were sometimes used for fights at close quarters, by throwing them at the enemy, and larger ones and by dancers. Styles and decorations varied widely among clans and different Aboriginal groups across Australia, and were significant in the ceremonies.
Traditionally-made boomerangs take a long time to make. After obtaining a suitably-shaped piece of wood from a tree, it would be left to dry out for weeks, before the maker would sit scraping it back for days and days to achieve the required shape. Few are made by this method today, with some exceptions being in some remote areas of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. These are mostly non-returning boomerangs, used for hunting. In La Perouse in Sydney, and on Palm Island, Queensland, they are made for the tourist trade.
Modern styles and uses
Beginning in the later part of the twentieth century, there has been a bloom in the independent creation of unusually designed art boomerangs. These often have little or no resemblance to the traditional historical ones and on first sight some of these objects may not look like boomerangs at all. The use of modern thin plywoods and synthetic plastics have greatly contributed to their success. Designs are very diverse and can range from animal inspired forms, humorous themes, complex calligraphic and symbolic shapes, to the purely abstract. Painted surfaces are similarly richly diverse. Some boomerangs made primarily as art objects do not have the required aerodynamic properties to return.Boomerangs are mostly used for recreation today. Modern boomerangs used for sport can be made from Finnish birch plywood, hardwood, or plastics such as ABS, polypropylene, phenolic paper, or carbon fibre-reinforced plastics. Most sport boomerangs typically weigh less than, with MTA boomerangs often under. There are different types of throwing contests: accuracy of return; Aussie round; trick catch; maximum time aloft; fast catch; and endurance.
Boomerangs have also been suggested as an alternative to clay pigeons in shotgun sports, where the flight of the boomerang better mimics the flight of a bird offering a more challenging target.
The modern boomerang is often computer-aided designed with precision airfoils. The number of "wings" is often more than 2 as more lift is provided by 3 or 4 wings than by 2. Among the latest inventions is a round-shaped boomerang, which has a different look but using the same returning principle as traditional boomerangs. This allows for safer catch for players.