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Taranaki Daily News, 2 June 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

Three articles which all aboriginals in i Australia seize upon and cling to are steel knives, tomahawks and billy cans; but in the far north bits of wire are valued even above these. With pieces ■ of ordinary No. 8 and No. 10 fencing i wire, a few inches long, white men can get almost anything they want from the i blacks. One will do a hard day’s work ■ for a 4in piece of wire, but the usual . .practice is to give some article in ex- ■ ’change. The wire is used for the heads ; of spears, one end being ground to a sharp point and the other bound with gum and cord to a bambo, reed or ■ wooden shaft. The blacks also use the wire as a medium of bartering between themselves.