A woomera is an Australian Aboriginal

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 spear

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 bamboo spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as flint, obsidian, iron, steel or...

-throwing device used for when there is a greater distance to be overcome. It is highly efficient and made of wood. Similar to an atlatl

Atlatl

An atlatl or spear-thrower is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart-throwing.It consists of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports and propels the butt of the dart. The atlatl is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup...

, it enables a spear to travel much further than by arm strength alone. It is very much like an extension of the arm, enabling the spear to travel at a greater speed and force than would normally be attainable unaided. The town of Woomera

Woomera, South Australia

The town, or village, of Woomera is located in the south east corner of the Woomera Prohibited Area ; colloquially known as the Woomera Rocket Range...

 in South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

, founded in 1947 as the home of the Anglo-Australian Long Range Weapons Establishment, is named after the spear thrower.

Description

The woomera is roughly two to three feet in length. One end is three inches in width while the other is more pointed and has a hook. The woomera was traditionally decorated with incised or painted designs which gave a good indication of the owner's tribal or clan group, giving one their sense of identity or "being".

Use

Records show that the implement began to be used from about 5000 years ago. It is still used today in some remote areas of Australia. As with spears and boomerangs, woomeras were traditionally only used by men. Some woomeras, especially those used in the Central and Western Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n desert

Desert

A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...

s, were multi-purpose tools. Often shaped like long narrow bowls, they could be used for carrying water-soaked vegetable matter (which could later be sucked for its moisture, but wouldn't spill) as well as small food items such as little lizards or seeds. Many woomeras had a sharp stone cutting edge attached to the end of the handle with black gum from the triodia

Triodia (plant genus)

Triodia is a large genus of hummock-forming grass endemic to Australia; they are commonly known as spinifex, although they are not a part of the coastal genus Spinifex. There are currently 64 recognised species...

 plant. This sharp tool had many uses and was commonly used for cutting up game or other food and cutting wood.

The woomera could be used as a shield for protection against spears

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 bamboo spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as flint, obsidian, iron, steel or...

 and boomerangs. Some boomerangs were deliberately made with a hook at one end designed to catch onto the edge of a woomera or shield, which then caused the boomerang to swivel around and hit the enemy.

According to Eric Willmot, a leading Aboriginal scholar, a woomera and spear were the fastest weapons in the world until the invention of the self-loading rifle. The extra energy gained from the woomera's use has been calculated as four times as much as from a compound bow

Compound bow

A compound bow is a modern bow that uses a levering system, usually of cables and pulleys, to bend the limbs.The limbs of a compound bow are much stiffer than those of a recurve bow or longbow. This limb stiffness makes the compound bow more energy-efficient than other bows, in conjunction with the...

.

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