Waddy

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Clubs of the Arrernte tribe. No. 20 and 21: Waddy, No. 22: Leonile . From the South Seas Department of the Berlin Ethnographic Museum
pronunciation

A waddy , also known as nulla nulla or hunting stick by the Aborigines of Australia, is a club . The wooden club of the Aborigines was used warlike, ceremonial, for hunting or as an everyday object.

Word origin

The name Waddy comes from the Darug Aborigines from the Port Jackson area , Sydney . The name was pronounced like Wadi, Wady or Waddie and can refer to the war club as well as any other piece of wood. The Chambers Dictionary suspects the origin of the English word wood for wood, especially since all tribes of the Aborigines have vernacular names for their clubs.

Waddies can already be found on historical rock carvings.

description

A waddy is a heavy club made of carved wood that was made by both men and women. A thickened upper part often has a slightly oval or rhombus-like shape. Your shape, e.g. B. Sword club or blackjack, and ornamentation differ from tribe to tribe of the Aborigines. In general, they are about 60 cm to a meter long and sometimes a stone with wax and fibers is attached to one end, where there are transitions to a battle ax. They are mostly sharpened at the lower end so that they can be used as a close-range and long-range weapon at the same time.

They are made from young tree woods or from ground roots that have formed a club shape. Waddy originally referred to a hardwood tree of an acacia species, the Acacia pulchella , or a piece of wood from it. But it also meant slaying or killing with a club. They can also be painted.

use

Waddies can be used to smash battle shields, narrow parrying shields such as the mulga , and to knock opposing warriors dead or incapacitated during armed conflicts with appropriate powerful blows . The two-handed Kul-luk or Bittergan from Gippsland was used to break the neck. Generally, waddies were one-handed weapons. They could also be used as a throwing weapon in combat.

As an everyday object, waddies were also used for cutting firewood, as a pestle for making z. B. Ocher or used as a digging stick to dig up bush food.

They were also used to punish those who broke Aboriginal laws, such as the Yarra. B. for the first offense a club hit with the waddy, for the second a spear stab in the hip, with the third offense then death by being hit.

Ritual use

Another use of the waddy by the Aborigines took place in ceremonies, here in war dances. Men moved the waddy back and forth over their heads to absorb the spirit and power of the club. In some cultures, women could not attend the ceremony, they had to go out and prepare a feast to hunt the big kangaroo or other bush food.

literature

  • Robert Brough Smyth : The Aborigines of Victoria. With Notes Relating to the Habits of the Natives of other Parts of Australia and Tasmania. Ferres / Robertson, Melbourne / Trübner / Robertson, London 1878. Volume 1, in it chapter: Offensive Weapons pp. 299–329 with club illustrations. 56-67; archive.org
  • Leopold AD Montague: Weapons and Implements of Savage Races (Australasia, Oceania, and Africa). Bazaar, London 1921. Therein Chapter: Part I: Australia. Clubs. P. 6–12 and Fig. 1–5 archive.org .

further reading

  • Felix Speiser : About club shapes in Melanesia. In: Journal of Ethnology. Vol. 64, 1932, pp. 75-105, ISSN  0044-2666 (standard work on basic club shapes , as they can also be found in Australia).

Web links

Sample images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joan Hughes: Australian words and their origins. Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1989, p. 611, ISBN 0-19-553087-X .
  2. ^ Chambers Dictionary. P. 1870 (keyword: waddy) .
  3. ↑ Rock drawing of a waddies on epress.edu.au; Retrieved February 6, 2010
  4. ^ BAL Cranstone: The Australian Aborigines. Trustees of the British Museum, London 1973, p. 35, ISBN 0-7141-1535-5 .
  5. ^ Smyth, 1878, Volume 1, p. 130.