Glass Spearhead Found on Australia’s Rottnest Island

originally posted by: intrptr

Too funny, I think I got one of those boomerangs. I threw it and it never came back.

Throwing a Boomerang is an artform unto itself. Ive tried a few times and promptly stopped when I nearly took my own head off

a reply to: Kryties

In high school I had a science teacher who taught a group of us how to make and throw boomerangs. Quite simple when someone in the know shows you what to do. Even though it's more than 25 years since I was in high school, I can still make and throw a boomerang, and have it return to me.

a reply to: cuckooold

The last time I tried was 20-odd years ago when I was on a school camp. I guess if I tried now I'd have better luck but I get flashbacks to the Boomerang narrowly missing my head lol

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: ChesterJohn
a reply to: intrptr

the Hawaiiana term is spelled Haole, it means newcomer or foreigner. It has come to be derogatory and a racist term much like Cracker.

Go live there and experience reverse racism.

US stripped the natives of their ownership there too, like everywhere else the US invades.

I empathize with that.

Thanks for the correction for spelling, when spoken it sounds like howlie, right? Up until now I though it described the way tourists howl when they walk across hot sandy beaches…

Ooh, ow, owt, hoo, howt… 'howlies'.

The ones there before the US were the English, hence the Hawaiian flag. The ones who really stripped the natives were the MORMON Missionaries and the so called Mormon Businessmen and Bankers, who traded the natives liquor and tobacco for their lands and water rights. the LDS Business Owns A&B sugar, Dole Pineapple, and most of the housing development ventures in Hawaii today.

It is no wonder the word MISSIONARY is so sour in the natives mouth. The Mormons owe the Natives big time for the Billions they have made off cheating them of their lands and labor.

You will find these bankers in every nation. Not one nation is wholly are fault it is the Ruling Elite and the fiat system they created.

originally posted by: Kryties

originally posted by: intrptr

Too funny, I think I got one of those boomerangs. I threw it and it never came back.

Throwing a Boomerang is an artform unto itself. Ive tried a few times and promptly stopped when I nearly took my own head off

Oh, I meant the .25 cent ones, the "clown the tourist" boomerangs. Those don't come back.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

It is no wonder the word MISSIONARY is so sour in the natives mouth.

Yah, the "Mission"aries, the ones that go first into countries to convert the natives to western ways. They precede the actual invasion of corporations and military. They gather the intel about culture, numbers, beliefs, etc.

It was a big sham. Bibles, vaccines and bugspray. Now we own most of them and they are decimated.

Western religion 'saved' them from themselves… lol.

a reply to: Ghost147
Hi Ghost147,
Thanks for posting that link.
That is a fabulous piece, it shows the skill of the knapper.
I have a couple of things to say to the, "it's just a tourist bauble", crowd.
Yes those points and blades made from glass were prominent cottage industry products, but there is a reason for that.
Glass is a very good material for traditional lithics,.
Its homogenous in its composition, there are no veins of other rock, or odd built in fracture planes.
It sharpens to a near molecular edge, and it would have been readily available.
It's consistent quality, and ready availability assure that it would supplant native stones for lithics.
Before you he white man shows up , depending on where your tribes lives, it might be a couple weeks journey to a place of good stones .
And the consistent quality of manufactured glass means you'll have fewer knapping mishaps, where you find a hidden flaw in the material, and it breaks before it's done.
So, for many reasons glass is a superior material for knapping in a transitional society.

originally posted by: Ghost147
reburied the artifact out of respect for Aboriginal traditions.

I nearly took a role which was essentially managing the islands infrastructure and during the process it was explained to me about the difficulties in gaining permissions for work that involved any digging - even if it was in an emergency such as a burst water main - primarily because it could disturb burial sites, I understand that an elder must give permission and be present.

Brought home to me how they actually did show respect as opposed to lip service.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Oh, poppycock.

It's either bigotry or not. There is no reverse.

Now then, on topic.

I've tried to make arrow heads out of glass, and it's hard, I actually had an easier time with obsidian. ...and reburying it was a good thing to do, IMHO.

Haole means foreigner, usually in a derrogative fashion.

Source:
Grew up in Maui and Oahu, 1981-2000. Called haole almost every day.

a reply to: intrptr

Dave Canterbury and many others have made glass points and successfully used them for hunting game on video(Youtube search for glass knapping).

Only need to use it once, same with chert or flint it brittle as well.

If its sharp, it will do the job on any number of small creatures.

Larger mammals like deer have thicker hides, but as the article said they just used it for snakes birds and some small cat sized critter.

a reply to: Butterfinger

Hi Butterfinger, welcome to ATS. Thanks for the lesson in arrowheads. You're right, they are a primitive weapon, and brittle.

If I had to learn to hunt with them, I wouldn't make it.

a reply to: intrptr

primitive?

Hardly,


Those points were crafted a master craftsmen, to call them primitive is an insult to the skill of the person who made them.
Has anyone here heard of Ishi?, he was the last surviving member of the Yahi tribe , from the mountains north of Sacramento.

Ishi is revered by flintknappers as probably one of the last two native stone tool makers in North America. His techniques are widely imitated by knappers, and ethnographic accounts of his toolmaking are considered to be the Rosetta Stone of lithic tool manufacture.

Kroeber's accounts (1961) of Ishi's practices collecting knapping
glass are quite vivid, and this particular passage captures the
event in detail: " Plate glass, brown glass from beer bottles and
the blue glass of "Milk of Magnesia bottles" were among Ishi's
favorite lithic materials. " As a final irony of the time of Ishi's
concealment, Ishi was cut off from trade to the north and south and
Yana country had no obsidian or flint. Painstakingly and silently,
Ishi had visited the length of Lassen Trail, every campsite of
emigrant, hunter or camper, up and down Deer Creek, and the cabin
middens and ranch dumps of whatever dwelling he could reach by light
and return from by night, combing them for the discarded bottles
they were likely to contain. Once back home, he shaped at his
leisure, the pieces of glass into his ammunition."

Ishi points


flintknappingdigest.blogspot.com...

a reply to: punkinworks10

Nothing wrong with calling something primitive.

But primitive doesn't equate to stupid, or useless. I learned to flintnap many years ago. It's a craft that was extraordinarily important for our ancestors, can't hunt to feed and cloth yourself, or protect your family with out it.

It's, in the hands of a master, an artform.

Those arrowheads are functional works of art. On the tip of an arrow, in the hands of a skilled hunter? Just as deadly as any non-primitive rifle.

a reply to: punkinworks10

primitive?

Hardly,

Those points were crafted a master craftsmen, to call them primitive is an insult to the skill of the person who made them.

Okay, poor choice of words. I bet any of those master craftsman would have given anything for a .22 rifle. Don't worry, I'm not insulted , I can't make either.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: intrptr

In Hawaii main land tourists are Howlies,

No. Caucasians in general are called haole. There are kamaaina haole.
The word for tourists is "money." Unless they are Canadian.

According to locals in Hawaii they say the term is currently used derogatory towards anyone from mainland and I heard it plenty just before a local was itching to start a fight. Originally they say, that their ancestors used to greet one another by putting their heads together and breath on each other as a way of saying hello or showing mutual respect. When westerners arrived or anyone non-local were accustomed to shaking hands so they coined us that name which means "breathless" and meant foreigner in general wether Japanese, America or where ever.

The last time I tried was 20-odd years ago when I was on a school camp. I guess if I tried now I'd have better luck but I get flashbacks to the Boomerang narrowly missing my head lol

You need more practice playing at slips in cricket

Too funny, I think I got one of those boomerangs. I threw it and it never came back.


& you just had to then write an annoying song about it.!?!
Nice !!!!!