 |
The first measurement references the total length of the arrow, the
second describes the head length from the end of the shaft. Objects are described from left to right.
1. is a short, light type, typical of those from parts of Vanuatu. It has a square palmwood head, incised below the tip. It matches those from Erromanga illustrated in von Wittinsburg (1968), Speiser (1923), and Edge-Partington (1890). (99/27.5 cm).
2. is from the Wahgi Valley/Mount Hagen region. It is cruciform in cross section on the part containing sixteen barbs, and square on the base. This is a standard design for fighting arrows from this region. (124/39.5 cm).
3. is a five-barbed fighting arrow from the Huli people of the Tari area of the Southern Highlands. The palmwood head is teardrop shaped in cross section. Like all Tari arrows it is short and light. (100/29.5 cm).
4. is from Mendi in the Southern Highlands. It has a round palmwood foreshaft, incised and painted red and white with a human bone tip. These arrows were particularly feared, as the human bone was known to cause an almost certainly fatal infection if any fragment remained in the wound. (124/40 cm).
5. is also a Huli arrow. It has a narrow-bladed bamboo head made from a small diameter piece of bamboo, attached with native thread to a blackpalm foreshaft and decorated with Job's tears seeds. These are used for both fighting and hunting. (106.5/35 cm).
6. is from Mount Hagen, and the blackpalm head has four barbs. Note the markings on the shaft. (119/42 cm).
7. also from the Huli, has a broad-bladed bamboo head on a blackpalm foreshaft. These arrows are used for pig hunting and fighting at close range. The broad bamboo head causes massive bleeding, making them the most deadly of the New Guinea arrows, but they stay on course for only about twenty meters or so before the planing effect of the bamboo blade sends the arrow plunging at nearly a right angle into the ground to snap the head off or shooting straight up into the air before it floats down on its shaft. (102.5/37 cm).
8. is an Eastern Highlands arrow from the Kainantu area of a type used in long-range shooting. There are many named varieties of these plain arrows with their round heads of blackpalm, and, because the variations were so slight, I found them to be the most difficult to identify by name. This one has two wrappings of orchid fiber around the head and two orchid fiber rings where the head is inserted into the shaft. (116.5/35.5 cm).
9. is a short, nocked arrow headed with a long piece of bone of flattened concave/convex cross section near its base and lightly carved near its base. Von Wittinsburg (1968) and Speiser (1923) attribute this type to the Vanuatu island of Ambae (Omba/Aoba). (89/23.5 cm).
|
