A woomera is a wooden

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

n Aboriginal

spear A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastene ...

-throwing device. Similar to an atlatl, it serves as an extension of the human arm, enabling a spear to travel at a greater speed and force than possible with only the arm.

Name

The word "woomera" comes from the Dharug language of the Eora people of the

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

basin. The name was adopted for the town of Woomera, South Australia, founded in 1947 as the home of the Anglo-Australian Long Range Weapons Establishment, also known as the "Woomera Rocket Range" and now called RAAF Woomera Range Complex.

Description

The woomera is in length. One end is wide and possessing a hollow, curved cross-section not unlike an airfoil, while the other is more pointed and has a hook. Some woomera were traditionally decorated with incised or painted designs that indicated belonging to a particular linguistic group that it may be returned to if found abandoned.

Use

Records show that the implement began to be used about 5,000 years ago, although the Mungo Man remains from at least 43,000 years ago show severe osteoarthritis in the right elbow associated with the use of a woomera. It is still used today in some remote areas of Australia. Like spears and

boomerangs A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning b ...

, woomeras were traditionally used only by men. Some woomeras, especially those used in the central and western

n deserts, were multi-purpose tools. Often shaped like long narrow bowls, they could be used for carrying water-soaked vegetable matter (which would not spill and could later be sucked for its moisture) as well as small food items such as little lizards or seeds. Many woomeras had a sharp stone cutting edge called a ''tula'' adze attached to the end of the handle with black gum from the triodia plant. This sharp tool had many uses, such as cutting up game or other food and wood. It is supposed that the woomera could be used as a shield for protection against

s and boomerangs. The woomera is held in one hand while the other hand places the butt of the spear on the woomera's hook; the hollow curved shape facilitates this alignment without looking. The woomera effectively lengthens the thrower's arm, greatly increasing the velocity of the spear. Correcting for the game animal's lateral dodging is accomplished by tilting the wing-shape woomera during the throw for last-second corrections. The kinetic energy of a spear launched from a woomera has been calculated as four times that of an arrow launched from a compound bow. Different Aboriginal groups had different shapes and styles of woomera. For example, the woomera of the central desert tend to be very wide and slightly bowl-shaped whereas those of the Kimberley are flat long and narrow.

References

External links

Aboriginal technology

A drawing of a woomera
from the book ''Boy Scouts Beyond the Seas: "My World Tour"'' by Sir Robert Baden-Powell, 1913 {{Indigenous Australians Throwing weapons Australian Aboriginal bushcraft Australian inventions Australian Aboriginal words and phrases Primitive weapons Weapons of Australia