#spearthrower

Andean spearthrower, Late Paracas/Early Nasca, with an amazing carved shaft and handlepiece. 

While boomerangs remain the icon of Australian engineering, the spearthrower equally encapsulates the genius of Aboriginal people in creating refined, portable technologies that mediate their relationship to specific environments. Spearthrowers operate by improving the natural leverage of the arm. Held in the throwing hand with a spear fixed into its end, the spearthrower enables the spear to be projected with greater velocity and accuracy than by using the human arm alone. While its primary function was common across the continent, its shape and composition varied according to the raw materials available, the form of the spears to be thrown, and the additional purposes for which the object was intended to be used.

Created and used exclusively by men, a lankurru (in Pintupi) or amirre (in Arrente) was arguably the most important part of the male material repertoire. It is the Swiss army knife of the desert. It is a spearthrower but its broad body hints at its other functions. Its firm edges were used for digging in the desert sand and scraping the ground in preparing a place to sleep. Those same hardwood edges were sawed furiously against softer wood, to create the smouldering embers by which desert people made fire. In some parts of Australia stone knives were hafted to its end with natural resins, allowing the spearthrower to be used for butchering animals and also as a chisel for engraving other objects. Extra stone flakes or kangaroo teeth (also used as engravers) were set into the resin and carried as spares in order to make repairs.

The spearthrower itself is often decorated with paintings, engravings or incisions of totemic and personal importance to its owner. This aesthetic aspect is as important as their role in projecting spears. As ceremonial objects, and emblems of the owner’s status, skill and authority, spearthrowers perform equally important functions. In this, the spearthrower reminds us that the objects that made life possible also make the world meaningful. Spearthrowers also demonstrate, along with the shields, spear points and baskets, the principle that everyday material culture provides the basis for the development of ceremonial forms used in religious or political contexts.

You can see these objects in the BP exhibition Indigenous Australia: enduring civilisation (23 April – 2 August 2015).

Find out more in the book accompanying the exhibition written by Gaye Sculthorpe and Lissant Bolton, British Museum, John Carty, Howard Morphy and Maria Nugent, Australian National University, Ian Coates, National Museum of Australia, and Aboriginal artist Jonathan Jones.

Spearthrower. Wood, natural pigment. Victoria River, Northern Territory, before 1905.

Spearthrower. Wood, sinew, porcupine grass resin, flint. Alice Springs rregion, Northern Territory, c. 1900.

Spearthrower. Wood, stone, resin. North-west Australia, late 19th or early 20th century.

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