Indian Antiquary Vol 15

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 32

26
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
invariably carry, at them, in doing which they are very expert. Similar testimony is borne by another writer to the accuracy with which they use their little hatchets "knocking over a hare at full speed with astonishing celerity and certainty of aim." "The Baigå Gonds in the Pachmarhi Hills use a hatchet which they throw with great skill at deer and even at tigers. They always carry it in their hand." In the Southern Marâtha Country, and also in the hill tracts of the Madras Presidency, several varieties of clubs and sticks are in use as missiles. Some of these are merely short clubs from 2 to 3 feet long, heavy at the extremity, and go by the name of kuruntaḍi (See Plate, fig. 3). Others are simply sticks of various lengths strengthened by iron bands to give them weight. Two specimens from the Dhârwär district, from 2 feet 7 inches to 2 feet 10 inches, long, heavy, and becoming gradually more curved and wider towards the extremity, and with a steel ring at either end (see Plate, fig. 4) are said to be favourite weapons of the Bedar caste. All these varieties of the throw-stick continue in use to the present day. In the wilder tracts, on the festival of the Ugâdi, which occurs on the first day of the soli-lunar year, early in March, the whole village turns out armed with every available weapon, the great proportion being throw-sticks, the Kanarese term for which is yese-gólu, and beats across the whole area of the village lands, sparing neither bird nor beast, but not venturing across the line of their own boundary. The pursuit of a wounded hare beyond these limits has led to violent affrays with the people of the neighbouring township, similarly engaged, sometimes ending in bloodshed, which has brought them under the cognizance of the magistrate.
Prof. Huxley, in a paper on The Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind, observes that "the indigenous population of Australia presents one of the best marked of all the types or principal forms of the human race," a description of which he gives, founded on their
Highlands of Central India, p. 118.
Seonee in the Satpura Range, by Robert A. Sterndale,
p. 52.
Handbook, p. 76.
Journal, Ethnological Society, Vol. II. p. 404.
10 The men of the Hadendoa tribe, of whom so many fell in the actions at El-Teb and Tamai, are described by an eye-witness as tall and athletic, with dark skins, the hair divided horizontally round the head above the ears, the upper portion drawn up to the crown, the lower hanging down to the neck, all features of the Australoid type..
[JANUARY, 1886.
physical characters alone, and goes on to state that this group, to which he gives the name of Australoid, is not confined to that continent only, but includes the "so-called hill-tribes who inhabit the interior of the Dakhan in Hindostân." To 'these he adds the Ancient Egyptians and their modern descendants. "For although the Egyptian has been much modified by civilization and probably by admixture, he still retains the dark skin, the black silky wavy hair, the long skull, the fleshy lips, and broadish ale of the nose which we know distinguished his remote ancestors, and which cause both him and them to approach the Australian and the Daśyu more nearly than they do any other form of mankind."
11 Schweinfurth in his Heart of Africa, Vol. II. p. 9, says, "The principal weapons of the Niam-Niam are their lances and trumbashes. The word trumbash, which has been incorporated into the Arabic of the Soudan, is the term employed to denote generally all the varieties of missiles that are used by the Negro races. It should, however, properly be applied solely to that
Now it is very remarkable that it is to these three groups that the use of the bomerang is exclusively confined, thus adding a further confirmation to the principle of an ethnological classification adopted by the author for the arrangement of the multifarious arms he was about to describe. It is true that the use of the throw-stick had disappeared from the debased inhabitants of Egypt proper, under the grinding influence of centuries of oppression. It is still, however, the national weapon of the brave and unsubdued people of the Soudan, improperly called Arabs, with whom they have nothing in common except their religion, and with whom we have recently come into much to be lamented collision.10 In all the recent conflicts, armed only with their throw-sticks and short spears, they rushed, regardless of the withering fire, upon the serried ranks of their opponents, hurling their wooden missiles and endeavouring to close in with their spears. Several of these sticks, picked up at random by an officer of the Black Watch after the action at El-Teb, are now before me. They are called kolai by the Soudanese, assai in Arabic, and in Central Africa trumbash.11
The best formed are from 30 to 30 inches long and curved only at one end (see Plate, fig. 5) a peculiarity noticed by Wilkinson" and also
sharp flat projectile of wood, a kind of bomerang, which is used for killing birds or hares or any small game. When the weapon is made of iron it is called kulbeda."
13 The use of the throw-stick was very general, every amateur chasseur priding himself on the dexterity displayed with this missile, and being made of heavy wood, flat, and offering little surface to the air in the direction of its flight, the distance to which an expert arm could throw it was considerable; though they always endeavoured to approach the birds as near as possible under cover of the bushes or reeds. It was from one foot and a quarter to two feet in length, and about one inch and a half in breadth, slightly curved at the upper end. Its general form may be inferred from one found at Thebes by Mr. Burton, from those of the Berlin Museum, and from the sculptures." Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, Vol. III. pp. 38, 39, (1837) particu-.. larly fig. 837 on p. 42.