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The two elders with their spears straightened and smoothed, make holes in the ends with a stone knife for the woomera. The elders tell us the Antarrengeny people are still making spears this way today. The elders speak about the tradition of spear making throughout the area, and those peoples that are still making them today. They tell us the Irrwelty and Aherreng used to hunt with spears when 'it was calm and there was no wind’.
Curator’s notes
The elders speak about the history of the different clans that used spears and in what conditions they hunted in, in a way that allows us to enter into a world where the craft of spear making is an every day event that has its own technical parameters. When the elders tell us that the Irrwelty and Aherreng used to hunt with spears on calm days when there was no wind we see that the exchange of this sort of information is a cultural norm for the area, and positions anyone who is not familiar with that information as an outsider.
