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Updated: May 11, 2025
The hatchet is used to cut up the larger kinds of game and to make holes in the trees the owner is about to climb. The kiley is thrown into flights of wild-fowl and cockatoos, and with the dow-uk, a short heavy stick, they knock over the smaller kinds of game much in the same manner that poachers do hares and rabbits in England.
The destruction of cockatoos with the weapon, or throwing stick, called a kiley, the hunting and snaring of different sorts of wild fowl, afford ample room for a display of that cunning, skill, and amazing patience, which distinguish the character of uncivilized man. One curious way of catching birds in Australia is certainly original, if it be but correctly reported.
Indeed, these people nearly always carry the whole of their worldly property about with them, and the Australian hunter is thus equipped: round his middle is wound a belt spun from the fur of the opossum, in which are stuck his hatchet, his kiley or boomerang, and a short heavy stick to throw at the smaller animals.
But the wily savage has not yet done with them. He avails himself of the extraordinary attachment which these birds have for one another, and, fastening a wounded one to a tree, so that its cries may induce its companions to return, he watches his opportunity by throwing his kiley or spear to add another bird or two to the booty he has already obtained.
"We were making ready to pipe water into our ship, when Mr. Kiley, our boson, always a forehanded chap, thought it all a pity to have to use our bran-new hose for that kind of work. You all know how hose gets lying chafing around with people stepping on it, carts and wagons running over it, coal-dust grinding into it, and so on.
Let me have that endorsement gadjet and I'll lash it to the fluke of one of our mudhooks next time we come to anchor, and after it's laid a while on the bottom of Singapore harbor, or wherever it is we next let go, under twenty, thirty, or forty fathom of water, whatever it is, I'll let you see what it looks like. "'No, no, Kiley, don't you do it, says the gunner. 'Don't you do it.
Ordinarily say, if 'twas anything to be done out to sea he'd have said, 'Why, of course, Kiley; go ahead and do it, But this was in a navy yard, ashore, and when he gets a note with something about regulations in it, he begins to haul to. "And many a good sea-going old skipper is bluffed the same way about anything that spells regulations, you betcher.
The native throws aside his cloak so that he may not even have this slight covering to impede his motions, draws his kiley from his belt, and with a noiseless, elastic step approaches the lagoon, creeping from tree to tree, from bush to bush, and disturbing the birds as little as possible; their sentinels however take the alarm, the cockatoos farthest from the water fly to the trees near its edge, and thus they keep concentrating their forces as the native advances; they are aware that danger is at hand but are ignorant of its nature.
For example, when Major Mitchell was desirous of taking the portrait of a native in Eastern Australia, the terror and suspicion of the poor creature, at being required to stand steadily before the artist were such, that, notwithstanding the power of disguising fear, so remarkable in the savage race, the stout heart of Cambo was overcome, and beat visibly; the perspiration streamed from his breast, and he was about to sink to the ground, when he at length suddenly darted away; but he speedily returned, bearing in one hand his club, and in the other his boomerang or kiley, with which he seemed to gain just fortitude enough to be able to stand on his legs until the sketch was finished.
The kiley, or boomerang, is a thin curved missile, which can be thrown by a skilful hand so as to rise upon the air, and its crooked course may be, nevertheless, under control. It is about two feet four inches in length, and nine and a half ounces in weight. One side, the uppermost in throwing, is slightly convex, the lower side is flat.
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