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Otago Witness, Issue 4057, 15 December 1931, Page 47

Queer things from all over the world are to be seen in the storeroom of the Museum (says the Auckland Star). The thought that strikes one, seemg all those curios, is the ingenuity expended in the inventing of instruments of war. Possibly here, as ever, necessity has been the mother of invention. ’ In the miscellany, one of the most interesting examples of ingenuity in war weapons is a collection of daggers from New Guinea. They are made of the bone of the cassowary, and are as deadly as any of steel. They look as though they have been made from the leg bone of the bird, and they have been shaped with the grain of the bone, to give added strength. At the hilt end, the roundness of the bone is plainly visible, and the curved shape is gradually lost as the point is reached. About halfway down the blade becomes flat, and has been sharpened on both edges: and the bone can be made sharp, particularly on the point. A missionary explained how the dagger was used. The attack was made from behind, and the point only was used to sever the artery passing just under the collarbone.

The rhea, the ostrich of South America, is hunted in Patagonia by horsemen armed with the bolas, a weighted cord which they cast with wonderful skill.