iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Hi there !

'Hope I'm posting in the right place...

I was wondering what methods were traditionnaly used by Aborigines for carving and crafting.
They didn't use any metal tools... And I guess there aren't many flintstones in the bush...
Hard for me to imagine them using soft clay-like stones to craft iron-wood bilmas or fine shaped returning boomerangs !

Got any clue ? (couldn't find any on the web)

Thanks ! ^^

I think you're in the wrong place Ahaw.

To answer your question though, it is believed that didgeridoos were historically crafted from the local bamboo species Bambusa Arnhemica as well as pandanus trunks and termite hollowed eucalyptus stems which would have been cut using stone axes. Contrary to your statement regarding flint stones, there are several sites in Arnhem Land famous for the quarrying of rock used for spearheads and cutting tools, one of them being called Ngilipitji.

Djalu refers to the use of stone tools in his chapter (Co-written by our host Guan) in The Didgeridoo Phenomenon.

Sorry for being in the wrong place

So this means that there was flintstone (or Ngilipitji) trading among Aborigine groups and that trees were cut by stone-axes and their wood crafted by stone-knives and chisels.
Must be a really tough work to carve only a clapstick... I just can't imagine carving a returning boomerang !

Thanks for the anwser Kdidj !

Wrong place I know but I also believe that meatle tools were used in the top end long before the rest of australia due to trading with islands further north (could be wrong though)

We are blessed with a good range of very fine grained yet durable stone in Oz that makes great stone tools. They are not of the flint variety, so they are not brittle. You can achieve a razor sharp edge very easily. Naturally, softwoods are easier to work than hardwoods and most of our timbers are hardwoods. So hard, that ironwoods are so-called because in the early days of clearing forests an axeman regularly "gapped" hs axe - that is, a piece broke out of the cutting edge because of the hardness of the wood.

Chert is what you are after if you want to make great stone tools and if you get into flaking them, then make sure you wear eye protection !!

There were all sorts of tools used throughout Australia by Aboriginal peoples. Edged-tools were variously made from stone, tooth, bone, and shell, whilst shark skin and the leaves from some plant species were the bush equivalent of sandpaper. Metal, glass and other modern materials were also used during the colonial period, and perhaps for a time before that from trade with the Macassans and other seafarers but these items would have been rare and would not have traded far into inland places.

Pic attached of artifacts I have, from left to right: WA spearthrower with fine incised decoration probably executed with a stone tool; an Arnhem Land spear with stone spearhead, wrapped in paperbark for protection; a Central Australian boomerang with nice shallow fluting; a Central Australian spearthrower with tula stone adze hafted to handle end. Front: Arnhem Land stone-axe, good edge.

I don't know how ironwood clapsticks would have been made in the old days however! Perhaps fire was used to 'cut' a suitable length of ironwood timber from a dead tree, before the long painstaking work of shaping it followed?

Guan

Thank you all for the answers (and nice pict'!)