Boomerangs! We have all seen them. We have all thrown them. We probably have accidentally hit someone in the face or broke something with it. Ok, that may be just me, don’t judge. The point is, everyone knows this australian icon but not many know that boomerangs were found all around the world!
A swing to the Past!
Intrestingly enough, the australian icon may not originate in Australia. There have been documents of boomerangs used in Ancient Europe, Egypt, Native America and south India as well! They all used it for the same reason, primarily as a hunting weapon. There are also counts of it being used as a club, a toy and even a percussion instrument!
The oldest aboriginal boomerangs are said to have come from Wyrie Bog in southern Australia, dated to about 10,000 BC. However, there was one, made out of a mammoth’s tusk found in a cave in Poland which potentially can be 30,000 years old! King Thutankamun, one of the most popular pharoahs of Egypt, had a collection of boomerangs dating back to 3,000 years ago!
Boomerangs can be of two types – The returning and the non-returning types. The latter was the first one to come around and as the name suggests, it does not come back. They believe that this was an accidental discovery when tuning throwing sticks for hunting and killing things. Roughly, boomerangs could fly around 100 metres horizontally and have the force to kill small animals or stun larger ones!
On the other hand, the returning boomerang was invented by the Australian Aboriginals through a method of trial and error. These were more as decoys to scare birds off, music and recreation rather than hunting weapons.
Where is it heading?
Nowadays, these deadly weapons have three main purposes; these being recreation, decoration and competitive sport!
Usually, Plastic boomerangs are manufactured and sold as recreational toys for children, similar to frisbees. Wooden ones with ornaments and designs are sold as souvenirs for tourists in Australia, with the wooden, authentic, returning boomerangs fetching quite a good price. We happen to have one boomerang for sale.
Moving on to the competitive realm, there are multiple types of competitions, such as throwing distance, how many catches in a specific amount of time, longest time in air and the competition known as Aussie Round, where there is a circle around the thrower spanning 50 metres, and it should come back as close to the centre as possible.
For competition, you get boomerangs which have 3 or 4 wings, compared to the usual 2 wings. Recently, they even invented round boomerangs, to make catching easier.
That brings the boomerang that is the story to the end of the trip for now but who knows what will happen in the future! Until then, check out our authentic boomerang in our store and our other articles.