If you live in Australia, you know what a returning boomerang is. As an icon in Australian culture, the boomerang has always been used as a tool by hunters. Here are more facts you never knew about boomerangs.
While in today's world women use boomerangs as much as men do, it wasn't always like that. In fact, due to the culture of the Aboriginals, the men were the hunters and the women were responsible for gathering other types of food and making needed repairs. As a result, women did not use boomerangs at that time.
During the hunting process, men would be permitted to use boomerangs to maim kangaroos, birds and other animals being hunted for food and resources. Since women were not allowed to hunt they were not given the privilege of using a boomerang.
Aside from disabling animals for hunting, boomerangs were used in other ways as well. While most modern day boomerangs only complete one circle per launch, when the Aboriginals used them for hunting some were designed to complete multiple circles each time they were launched. This helped hunters get closer to birds and tricked the birds into thinking the hunters were other birds. When this happened, flocks of birds would fly at a hunter and he would be able to easily catch and kill them. The returning boomerang made this possible.
Though you are probably familiar with the standard shape and style of a boomerang you might not realize they come in other shapes and sizes as well. This is because there are multiple uses for boomerangs. The design of each style of boomerang reflects its purpose. There are boomerangs that were designed in a way that allowed them to travel at a high speed. The ones designed to travel fast were designed that way so when they were used for hunting they would give the hunter a second chance at making a shot they missed the first time.
The boomerangs used to disable large animals such as cows were purposely designed not to be symmetrical, simply because this resulted in one side of the boomerang being physically heavier than the other. The side of the boomerang that was heavier could easily gain momentum in the air and break the legs of the larger animals, making them vulnerable to hunters. For this purpose, boomerangs were sometimes designed with serrated edges, which also helped clip the wings of birds.
The Aboriginal people didn't confine the use of a returning boomerang to hunting. As is the case today, children also considered boomerangs to be a fun toy. Aboriginal children turned playing with boomerangs into a game. They often competed with their friends to see who could throw a boomerang the fastest and the farthest. Children loved this game because they could play it without having to move around a lot.
Boomerangs are so popular with people all over the world that world records have been set using them.In fact, Australia's own Sadir Kattan set a world record using boomerangs when she threw a boomerang 20 meters. The boomerang was 1.8 inches in width and 1.9 inches in length. Eight years after that record
was set, David Schummy set another record for throwing a boomerang up to an impressive distance 427 metres.
If these facts have made you want to purchase a boomerang online, your best bet is to purchase it from Wycheproof Boomerangs.
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