Strange spears from New Hebrides

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by LJ

I've checked Felix Speiser's book 'Ethnology of Vanuatu', and he gives a few paragraphs on these Santo weapons. He calls them javelins, because they were thrown. "The material for the bone spikes is supplied by human long bones, specifically those of relatives and men who held high rank in the suque. The mana of the dead man is thought to be transferred by the bones to the owner of the javelin ... Before discharging his weapon the thrower tried to impart to it a sideways oscillatory movement so that, vibrating in flight, it was capable of inflicting a lateral wound".

Are these for war, or for judicial spearings?