Description (CMS Description)
Cut-down spear with metal blade. Part of the wooden shaft has been cut off. The spear has a long metal blade, that is now rusted. There is a hole in the middle of the blade, possibly from its manufacture or a previous use. The blade is tanged into the wooden shaft and held in place, by strings probably coated in resin, wound around the join. This join, and the upper part of the shaft, show remains of white pigment.
Event Date
Author: maa

Context (Field collection)
Collected by Fredrick John Afford Bateman, a doctor in Alice Springs periodically between 1955 -1959, where he worked both in the hospital there and as a flying medic.Richard Bateman, the collector’s son, in correspondence with CUMAA adds: ‘It was a practice that all weapons, shields, knives were left outside the ward [at the Alice Spring Hospital] and were often unclaimed after the patients left the hospital.’
Event Date 2004
Author: maa