AustraliaCeremonial spear from Melville Island, Australia, Oceania. Collected by Dr. Houson. Given to the Museum by Frederick Augustus Dixey in 1914.

This is the carved and painted head of a ceremonial spear used by the Tiwi of 'Melville Island, situated off the north-west coast of Australia. The head (shown) is composed of a two rows of barbs identifying it as a 'female' spear (displayed next to it in the Museum is a complementary 'male' Tiwi spear with just one row of barbs. Both are over three metres in length). According to the anthropologist Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer, who visited Melville Island in 1911, the barbs were carved using cockleshells.

Ceremonies play an important part in Tiwi culture. This spear would have been made for use in Pukamani (a mortuary ceremony) as a gift to the dead. This public ceremony features song, dance, sculpture and body painting and ensures that the spirit of the dead person goes from the living world into the spirit world. It has also been suggested that such 'female' spears were used in girls' puberty rituals, and although this is quite possible, it was certainly not their primary function.