Not an Australian Aborigine Self-Bow Pre-1920's

[ben8763]

My understanding was that our indigenous peoples never developed bows (no need for what they were hunting), more likely from New Guinea maybe black palm, this is all guess work.

[duke3192]

I agree that it looks like black plam, I've worked with black palm and it is full of very fine splinters.
ben, are you in Australia, do you know anything about an ornamental tree/shrub known as carrot wood, we have it in Florida and it was imported in the 1950's.

[Scaramouche]

A Google image search shows some New Guinea bows made of black palm that look a lot like the one I received. The strings are supposedly made of bamboo, and look kinda like the remnant of the string left on mine. The nocks look different, though.

So I'm guessing its some form of New Guinean bow. Still pretty neat.

[simson]

This is black palm.
Not a bow from australia, the only continent where never a bow was developed.

[sleek]

I held a few palm bows. Odd shape, hexagon.  Very long, and narrow.  Reminded me of bamboo fly rods only much wider but and shorter. There was normally a plant fibre string wraped around the bow spiraling down it, then becoming the bow string itself loose from tip to tip with thin sharpened pencil point nocks. Never strung them or saw them drawn but thats all I can contribute.  Had a chance to buy a pair of them but was un educated and uninterested as a result in them. 

[sleek]

The belly carving looks very PPNG to me.....

[Scaramouche]

@ Sleek, do you have any images of others for comparison?