The Western Australian Museum acknowledges and respects the Traditional Owners of their ancestral lands, waters and skies.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this digital guide may include images, sounds, and names of now deceased persons.

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A glass display case filled with spears, boomerangs, shells and other material related to fishing.

The First Fishers - How First Nations People Caught Their Fish

Lighting a fire using spear fragments

The spear is an implement which seems to have been developed in some form, through time as well as place, in every culture. The question is, what do you do with a broken spear? The owner of the pieces of spear in this cabinet used them as firelighters. This spear was made of very hard wood. Rapidly sawing a piece of soft, porous wood over it eventually creates a small shower of sparks which, when they fall on tinder, creates fire.

Spear-head made of wood with a single wooden barb attached to the shaft with fibre and resin.

Spearhead of Eucalyptus doratoxylon, spearwood mallee, King George Sound, 1831–33.
Credit: British Museum, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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A glass display case filled with spears, boomerangs, shells and other material related to fishing.

Beverley Hubert's fishing kit.
Credit: WA Museum

The Western Australian Museum acknowledges and respects the Traditional Owners of their ancestral lands, waters and skies.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this digital guide may include images, sounds, and names of now deceased persons.