Fast Fact Tag: regional differences

No. “Boomerang” is better understood as a family of related regional implements than as one standard object. Size, weight, curvature, cross-section, edge shape and balance varied markedly according to place and purpose.

Nineteenth-century sources already recognised these differences. In 1878 R. Brough Smyth distinguished the returning Wonguim from the heavier non-returning war boomerang, Barngeet. He also contrasted Victorian boomerangs, which could weigh about ten ounces, with Western Australian kylies that were thin, sharply edged, angular in outline and often only about four ounces.

Later systematic classification makes the regional pattern even clearer. Australian Museum analysis identifies five dominant morphological groups — Common, Central Australian, Kimberley, Lake Eyre and Cooper Creek — together accounting for about 84% of specimens in the classification examined. The Central Australian form, for example, is asymmetrical and club-like and cannot return.

Even where boomerangs were used, therefore, there was no one-size-fits-all design. Regional environment, intended use, local tradition and trade all influenced what a “boomerang” looked like.

The boomerang is often treated as though it were a universal Aboriginal implement. The historical evidence does not support that picture. Boomerangs were important in many parts of Australia, but some Aboriginal peoples did not traditionally use them at all, while other regions used different forms.

One of the clearest nineteenth-century statements comes from the Jardine account of Cape York. After describing local spears, spear-throwers and axes, the report states that among the four tribes being described “the boomerang and nulla-nulla (or club) are not known.” The following paragraph makes clear that these remarks apply to the four tribes north of the Kennedy River. MacGillivray had independently recorded a similar northern limit in 1852.

R. Brough Smyth’s 1878 The Aborigines of Victoria states that the boomerang “is not known in all parts of Australia”. Smyth cites Jardine at Cape York, an independent correspondent at Cooktown who made the same observation, and a correspondent who doubted that the Narrinyeri commonly used boomerangs as early as 1847.

Tasmania also appears to have lacked a traditional boomerang tradition. Alfred Taylor (1892) and H. Ling Roth (1899) examined the historical evidence and noted the absence of boomerangs from early records and ethnological collections.

Where boomerangs were used, form and function varied. Eyre distinguished the eastern wangn or wangno from the western kiley and described different flight according to angle; Dawson later distinguished a lighter returning “toy boomerang” from a heavier non-returning war form in western Victoria.

The safest conclusion is therefore that boomerang technology was ancient, widespread and highly developed, but not pan-Australian. Its modern use as a generic symbol of Aboriginal Australia compresses substantial regional differences.