hunting and the war have always been
men's work and they have always made
their own weapons without a doubt the
boomerang is the best-known of these
they're pieces of wood carved with a
slight curve which makes them more
accurate when they are found the heavily
are the more effective they will be in
brain down prey a most expert hunters
are capable of hitting an animal from
over 160 metres normally they hunt small
animals though the most sought-after
prey which brings the hunter the
greatest prestige is the red kangaroo
the biggest of all despite what most
people think the real boomerang does not
come back the tourists and the souvenir
industry has invented devices decorated
with designs from our culture which they
sell as if they were authentic
boomerangs these do come back after
describing spectacular curves in the air
but for us they have no value they are
not good to hunt with or anything
the efficiency of the boomerang comes
exclusively from its weight and the
curvature which makes it easier to
handle
but the boomerang is not our only weapon
in the jungle we cut flexible rods of
bougainvillea with which we make Spears
and harpoons for fishing in fact the
spear is our best weapon we used them in
a fight against the white men who
invaded our country and drove us off the
land that belonged to us
once outside the forest we make a fire
and heat the flexible rods to harden
them then we remove the bark and cut
them to the right size for each man
we have had to defend our countries
since the white man set foot made
according to them our land was called
Terra Australis incognita until in 1605
the first European arrived the Spaniard
Ferdinand if the Kiros who called it
Houston area very spirit of Santo then a
hundred and seventy years later the
Pirates James Cook renamed it New South
Wales and raised the English flag being
is used this island to send us their
prisoners
eighty years after the first ones
arrived there are 170,000 convicts in
Australia but the worst came in the
middle of the nineteenth century when
they discovered gold in our territory it
was then that we really began to get in
their way the Aborigines as they started
to call us for captured confined to
distant regions and finally infected
with many diseases such as the flu which
devastated our population during all
this time we bravely fought the invaders
with our spears but the white man had
gunpowder and rifles and in the end he
defeated us
today our Spears claim our victims when
the tide goes out we fish for the
dangerous stingrays that hide in the
sand ready to plunge there are no
Mustangs into anyone who dares disturb
them
it takes practice to find them hidden in
the sand and not stand on them their
stings are very painful but our
fishermen are almost never caught by
surprise they launch their harpoons into
them from a distance when they have
caught them they hold the tail with
their mouths and pull out the poisonous
sting
after pulling off the skin and gutting
them we pound and knead the flesh with
our hands and eat it raw it's a real
delicacy
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