1940s carved Australian Aboriginal returning boomerang

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Aboriginal Emu Motif Returning Boomerang circa 1940's This is a vintage Australian aboriginal returning boomerang circa 1940's. This piece is handmade and features a hand carved emu design. (An emu is a large flightless bird native to Australia and similar to an ostrich). This is a transitional piece from when Aboriginals started carving designs on their boomerangs to reflect their important dreamtime traditions of animals and their surroundings, rather than only using simplistic line and dot designs. It was these new, more elaborate designs that started attracting more collectors to the artistic value of aboriginal carvings. The boomerang is completely covered in carvings, except for one end, w it is meant to be held when throwing. This is an excellent early example of an aboriginal hand carved design, which shows from the chunkier less precise carvings of the animals. Early examples of aboriginal carvings were less precise because of the more primitive tools used by the carvers. More modern carved boomerangs tend to have more stylized, tourist appealing designs and also tend to be burnt onto the wood, not hand carved. The boomerang is carved from a sturdy native wood (probably She-oak) and measures approximately 21 inches (54.5 cm) in length and 2.1 inches (6cm) wide. This piece has no cracks in the wood, but does have a small read more

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