Of the Cateia he says:—
"The kiliee or boomerang, at present the peculiar weapon of certain Australian islanders, several varieties of which are represented in Plate I. [reference will be made to the figures in the plate], appears to have been known to European and other continental nations from a very remote period.
The name by which the boomerang is most readily recognised in the works of Roman writers is Cateia. Of this, the earliest notice is found in the Æneid of Virgil, where, among various tribes who joined themselves with Turnus, mention is made of a people accustomed to whirl the Cateia after the Teutonic manner:—
'Et quos maliferæ despectant mænia Abellæ
Teutonico ritu soliti torquere Cateias.'
The next mention of the Cateia occurs in the Punics of Silius Italicus, where the poet describes au individual of one of the Lybian tribes, who accompanied Hannibal to Italy, as being armed with the bent or crooked Cateia:—
'Tunc primum castris Phœnicum tendere ritu
Cinyphii didicēre Macae: squaleutia barbâ
Ora viris: humerosque tegunt velamina capri
Setigeri: pandâ manus est armata Cateiâ.'
A third notice of the Cateia is found in the Argonautics of Valerius Flaccus, where, in an enumeration of the Maeotic nations which rose in arms against Jason, a people are described whose tents of raw hides were carried on waggons, from the extremities of the poles of which their young men whirled Cateias:—
'Quin et ab Hyrcanis Titanius expulit antris
Cyris in arma viros: plaustrisque ad prælia cunctas,
Coraletæ traxēre manus: ibi sutilis illis
Et domus, et crudâ residens sub vellere conjunx
Et puer è primo torquens temone cateias.'
From those notices it may be collected:— 1st. That the Cateia was an instrument of a curved shape, for this is the constant meaning of the adjective pandus. 'Carinæ pandæ' (Virg. Georg., 1. II., v. 89).—'Delphines pandi' (Ovid. Trist., 1. III., v. 9).—'Fauces pandæ' (Stat. Sylv., 1.III., v. 15).—'Rostrum pandum' (Ovid. Metamor., 1. IV., v. 57).—'Rami pandi' (Ovid. Metamor., 1. XIV., v. 37).—'Juga panda boûm' (Ovid. Amor., 1. I., and Eleg. 1. XIII., v. 4). 2nd. That it was a projectile—'e temone torquens.' 3rd. That it was dismissed with a rotatory motion—'torquens'— 'soliti torquere.' For, although the verb torqueo is frequently applied to the projection of the straight missile, it is always with reference to the rotatory motion either of the amentum, by which several sorts of straight missile were thrown, or of the weapon itself round its own axis.
These marked characteristics of the boomerang would, perhaps, furnish sufficient grounds for inferring an identity between it and the weapon under consideration; for, from recent experience, it might safely be asserted that no instrument having the peculiar shape ascribed to the Cateia could be projected
