Double headed spear carved from one piece of hard wood, each head bearing two rows of 20 barbs, the last pair of barbs being reversed. This appears to be a double version of the female Tiwi spear for use in the hand.
Forked & Barbed Spear, Tunkaguni, Tiwi People, Melville or Bathurst Island, Northern Territory, Australia The spears of the island-dwelling Tiwi people from the far north of the Northern Territory stand out as starkly different from those of their mainland neighbours. Like several other aspects of their arts, they reflect a separate cultural history that has yet to be properly reconstructed. In local use, these spears are classified as male or female, depending on whether their points are barbed on one side or both. This, therefore, is a rare example of a double-headed female spear. The form of the female Tiwi spears is thought to allude to the tail of the ancestral crocodile Jerekepai, who first taught the Tiwi how to carve them. Originally, this spear would have been brightly painted throughout with different areas of red, yellow and white mineral paint, but it has suffered the fate of many non-Western woodcarvings in being stripped of its original decoration and darkly varnished Although these were perfectly functional practical spears, their weight and complexity meant that Tiwi carvers tended to produce them only for special occasions. They were largely wealth items for displaying status, and also served as gifts for the dead during the pukamuni ceremony, the most elaborate of Tiwi rituals. Wood. Early 20th Century. Purchased at Anderson’s Antiques in 1961.
