I recently acquired this boomerang a little while back and I have no clue just what it is exactly. After a tiny bit of research I am leaning towards it being an Australian Aboriginal boomerang, but then again it could just be some sort of reproduction or something all together entirely different. It is 30 inches long and the wood has ridges. I do not even know what year or era it is from. If any of you have an idea of what this is, please let me know. Here are a few pictures of it:

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/1518/img2382d.jpg

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/8326/img2381g.jpg

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/6885/img2384cr.jpg

Looks like non return variety ... ie throwing stick.  IDK looks vaguely Australian in the decorative motif ...
Nice bit of wood.  

it looks to be a reproduction of an Australian light hunting boomerang. they had several varieties for everything from birds, small game, large game, and war.

I concur; I have photos of Aboriginal boomerangs in a weapons history book that look exactly like this; down to the ridged surface.

I recall reading that the ridges actually make the thing more aerodynamic.

it's true. they act the same way that dimples on a golf ball do.

How would I go about finding out if it is reproduction or an original? I don't even know how much something like this is worth. I think it is a fantastic piece though.

Thanks for all the help so far guys. If anyone can offer anything else feel free to let me know. I'm all ears.

well, it's hard to tell from your pics, but several things point to it being a repro. one, the carving looks to done with modern woodcarving tools. stone tools leave long straight shallow grooves versus those carved 'u' shaped channels i see on yours. two, it appears to be stained and/or finished with something that makes it glossy. an original might have painted designs with a natural pigment, but wouldn't be stained all over. again, hard to tell from the pics but that's my estimate. another way to tell, although not conclusive, is to check the grain. an original will definitely have grain that follows the curve of the boomerang, but so might a good repro. if it doesn't, and the grain runs off the edges, then it is definitely modern. repro or original, still a very nice piece.  :)

Thanks for the information, I'll look at it more closely and see if I can say much else about it for you. So reproduction or original, how much would one normally expect to pay for such a piece? I acquired this one at a small local estate auction, I believe it was an estate piece at least, and when they presented it they didn't say anything other than pretty much "here is a boomerang". They didn't know anything else to say about it, and because of that no one bid on it and I was able to get it for just $5. I had a feeling that this was "something", although I had no clue just what it was exactly. But certainly worth the $5, and likely a lot more.

 I suppose it would really help to find out what wood it is made from, that would give you a clue to it's country of origin.  Also I have made and used bone chisels before and I have to say that I think you could achieve grooves like those using them, so it could be authentic or have been made after established trade with peoples who had metal tools.
 The good news is that it was made following the grain of the wood.  That means that it wasn't cut out of a plank but carved out of a curved or steam bent piece of wood that may have been split or whittled.
 If you split the stick you should get two boomerangs, possibly exactly the same, which is why I think you see native peoples with one in their belt and one in their hand.
 

 Oh!  and definitely it was worth $5!!  It's cool to have one like that whether it is an original or not as it appears to be very well made.

Thanks again!

And like before, I still welcome any feedback.

well, Rocky, if it is an original then it might be worth something to a collector, but only if it can be authenticated. without dating or documentation things like this aren't worth a whole lot monetarily speaking. having said that, i agree with Luke and think you got a bargain no matter what. it's definitely a cool boomerang :D

Luke, do we know the grain follows the curve? also, yes, you can acheive similar grooves with primitive tools, but with great difficulty. all the original boomers and rabbitsticks i've seen with grooves have been scraped flat and then scored uniformly using a burin. this leaves a distinct and decidedly different pattern than the one i'm seeing here. compare the grooves on his boomer and these on my atlatl. i intentionally didn't run these in straight lines, but you can still see the similarities in cut shape. this is what leads me to believe it was made with modern tools.

http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz119/paleoarts/atlatls/100_3375640x480.jpg http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz119/paleoarts/spears/misc/img2384cr.jpg

what does it weigh ?
Aboriginal hunting boomerangs were made of dense hardwood.
Kangaroos have pretty tough skulls :-)

Curious Aardvark wrote on Sep 28^th, 2010 at 6:10am:

what does it weigh ? Aboriginal hunting boomerangs were made of dense hardwood. Kangaroos have pretty tough skulls :-)

I'm not sure, but I'll check later today after work. I want to say around 3-5 pounds, but that could be off. I'm awful at guessing at weights. It is certainly strong and firm enough with enough weight to knock something out or kill it when thrown though, at least I believe so.

 Yes, it looks like a hard wood from the pic.  The other thing I meant to ask was if the short end, (I think that's the right end,) on Australian aboriginal boomerangs is flat on the edges for a space to make a hand hold.

if it's anywhere near the 3-5 lb mark than I'd say yes it's  a genuine aborigenal hunting boomerang.

The lack of serious art work (which is a given for anything made for the tourist market) is also an indication it was a working piece :-)

Interesting. So are ones with all the artwork usually the cheaper versions made to sell to tourists and that sort of thing? I originally thought I had something cheaper because it lacked all of that for the most part. Shows how much I know.

most tourist goods are highly decorated, made of lighter softer woods and designed to be hung on a wall.

What you appear to have is a serious working boomerang that looks like it's seen service.
It would have sufficient decoration to aid in it's use, but nowhere near as much as a purely decorative piece would have.  

IF you look at this site. You can see the similiarity to your own.
http://www.flight-toys.com/throwsticks.html

here's some more
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Australia_Cairns_Boomerang.jpg/799px-Australia_Cairns_Boomerang.jpg

http://www.objectlessons.org.uk/img_hr/AUS881XE4855.jpg

The info on this site is worth a read.
http://www.objectlessons.org.uk/default.asp?Document=200.0070.0020&Image=AUS881XE4856&gst=

Your boomer looks as authentic as anything on any of the sites I've seen :-)

the ones made for tourists in the present day do tend to be overly decorated, but there was a time during and shortly after WWII when a large number of these things were sold to British and American soldiers stationed in Australia. many of these were crafted by aboriginal people in much the same way their grandfathers did, albeit with modern tools, so in that sense it could be somewhat original. you said that you got it at an estate sale? i wouldn't be surprised if the owner of that estate was a G.I. who'd been stationed down under during that time.

 I also think it does look a little "antiqued".  I don't think it was made just a year or two ago.
 That's an awesome collection of throwing sticks you have there ardvark!  I have some pieces of white and yellow birch drying out right now I will be carving into some.

lol they're not mine - just snagged the pic from wikipedia (or one of the other sites I looked at)

Looks reasonably genuine from the toolmarks, and the colour, grain and form is consistent with centralian work.

Those supersharp ridges among the finish are, as paleo points out, inconsistent with stone tools. However, a lot of central desert mobs finish with incisor teeth (sometimes still mounted in a jawbone, for grip) and it leaves those regular, almost hypnotic patterns. Some artists use modern steel tools to achieve the same results... think "lino-cutting" tools ;)

Coverage of artwork does not mean a whole lot... some tourist pieces here are entirely "plain" and others are heavily ornamented... but more typically in gloss acrylic or enamel paints, rarely ochre as some of your pictures seem to indicate. Of course, 45 year old acrylic looks a lot like ochre in a photo. Try rubbing the artwork on a small area, and rubbing your finger on your teeth... if it scratches, it's stone mineral.

Not all Aboriginal Australian boomerangs/throwing sticks are made from the classic super dense hardwoods... plenty of our so called "soft timbers" are more than heavy enought to crack skulls or break ribs of small hopping game.

Very early "tourist" or "anthro" trade would have been ornamented in ochres rather than paints... but simply using ochre does not mean it is is a "real" item (ie, a used one...) as at one time it would have been more available to some tribes than western manufactured pigments. One of the most significant pieces of totemic cave art I have seen is done in (literally) what was once known as "blue chinese laundry chalk"... we use what we can find, here.

A good example of how "the normal" condradicts the "norm" is that everyone OS knows aussie indig art is about "dot painting". Thing is, almost all classic "dot art" is essentially an indigenous "Po Mo" movement... artists here at one time were basically told by elders to not use spirit art etc for sale or tourist market... so some "fragmented" them in dot form ( which is to say, before the marketable era NO central mob ever used dot art ;) ) so they could still reproduce their cultural symbols without infringing "taboo" law ;)

Think... a very low res thumb versus the original, glorious HD :D

Where was the "Estate sale" situated? A lot of semi-marketable goods were sent back to Europe and the US a LONG time prior to the very brief period where Australia was a US airbase ;) Especially back along german and scottish family trees.

That "antiquing" look you mention is here called "silicon glazing"... basically stone or timber from around here, after being exposed to x amount of weathering and use shows up that real deep hard glassy gloss... it's the silica coming thru... joys of an aged continent.



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the proportions (length v bulk) make me wonder if it's one half of a pair of clapping sticks, throwing stick like items mainly made for the resonance of their timber and designed to be used as precussion to traditional dance. I can just see someone buying or being given a pair and some freckled, mutant kiddlywink throwing ONE of them over the back fence just to see how it goes ;)

It's very light for it's length, by looks... could be for birding? Or just dancing? a lot of dance weapons look "real" but are more about form and design than actual efficiency.

those parallel and occasionally valley-ing ridges are a distinctly central aus thing though... Maralinga was a helluva party... or at least, it had the best fireworks :D but the art on that looks a little off... maybe traditional materials and just a purely touristy motif? hard to say... some mobs have symbols that are very important one year, and then noone uses them again for another 50 years...

as a general rule, the further you go inland the heavier, flatter, curvier and more ornate the sticks get. On the coast you can get away throwing one or two foot lengths of nearly anything somewhat dense at small, soft game but out west they need the heavy guns ;) longer ranges, less cover, more wiley game.

 Well, I don't know whether they did this in Australia, but I know that many tribes would ornament their weapons with the blood of the first kill they made with it.  You could look it over and see if it had any smears or drops of blood on it, that might be hard to see but a darker smear or pattern of drops may be worth further investigation.  This would indicate it had been used.  Just a thought, probably isn't too brilliant though.

Nah, this is Australia. We clean that mess off before it makes people sick ;) Who wants scabs in their lunch?

Many aussie mobs had a similar (in significance) "contract" as judeo-christians do with god, though instead of god we put "nature" (for want of a more readily translated term). Hunters gave all the blood they ever had to give upon their own initiation (which incidentally often featured genital circumcision and removal of teeth) or it was seen that burying the stomachs of game taken which would lead to growing more fruit and nut trees, etc, was payment enough.

In other tribal groups, all the blood a hunter or warrior had to spill was accounted for in the blood his mother spilt birthing him (given that totetmically, he was going to be a hunter before he was even born...) and so those groups were oddly lax in terms of post-mortem hunting rituals seen in other peoples around the world. James Frazer has a lot to answer for, hah.

Not much into blood here... it's just the stuff that comes out of food ;) Natural blood yeah, but not many blackfellas are into playing with the stuff. More of a pacific thing, that.

But as you mentioned Luke a lot of indigenous cultures DID blood weapons... even among fairly sophisticated people like Indonesians  from some of the smaller islands, it still kind of persists. Kris culture, etc.

It looks like fairly legit Centralian work, that one. I'd doubt it being "used" a lot of bush weapons here are seen as being kinda spent once they have more than 4 or 5 dings or knocks or dents on the working face. Any excuse to make another ;) boys will be boys...