Traditional boomerangs in India - Tamil Valari - வளரி

I had taken for granted that boomerangs had been traditionally used in India.

But when I tried to know a bit more, I found only the same sentences repeated everywhere on the Internet.

So, I searched the Web more seriously... and gathered here every photo or comment about traditional Indian boomerangs. Most photos are from the British Museum, the Quai Branly Museum, the National Trust Collections, the Royal Collection Trust. The rest was found in the Higgins Collection, the Pitt Rivers Museum, a few commercial sites, blogs, forums or web pages. Comments generally come from old books found on archive.org.

I made screen copies of what was shown in my web browser when I zoomed on the interesting parts of the screen. Then I reworked slightly the resulting image (cropping, harmonizing sizes and orientations). This should not be a copyright violation (no commercial purpose, personal research, teaching of some kind, ...) and it's a protection against the change of url that may always happen on the other web sites. Beside that some web site   (ex. Quai Branly Museum)  don't even allow (bug ? or stupid policy  ?) linking to their photos or web search results.

If you prefer,you can see :
- a quick Web tour without comments

- or a playlist : videos with experiments and visual explanations
(the comments are more often in Tamil language)




If you are interested in the cultural or historical aspect of the subject, you'll be able to read the books or web sites referenced below (although the reliable information that we can gather in english on this subject can seem very "shallow").  Anyway, the interesting thing for who (like me) is ignorant about India, is the unusual quantity of new names that we can't even associate with a vague category (tribes, castes, places, cities, persons, titles, languages, objects, historical events, ...). Add to this the fact that the place names have changed and that there were various ways of transcribing names in the roman alphabet. So, even by chasing such a limited subject as "boomerangs in India", you immediately encounter a fairly interesting quantity of unknown cultural and historical notions. 

This search really began after a discussion with youtuber "Bangalorebobbel" who found an online version of "Castes and Tribes of Southern India", Edgar Thurston, 1909.

As usual this kind of old book is to be found on archives.org, where, maybe, any such search should begin (!?) : https://archive.org/details/castestribesofso01thuriala (pdf version :

https://ia600408.us.archive.org/33/items/castestribesofso03thuruoft/castestribesofso03thuruoft.pdf).

In that document, page 66, 70, 84/85,  boomerangs are said to be a typical weapon of the Kallars/Kallan and Maravans (castes / tribes of the Tamil people in South India). Those boomerangs were made of wood, ivory, metal. The name of the weapon is written as "valai tadi" / "valari tadi" / "vellari thadi" / "vallari thadi" and is said to mean "bent stick". Page 77, 78 is mentioned a tradition : exchange of boomerangs between bride and bridegroom.
Associated place names : Madura, Madras [now Chennai] Museum, Pudukkottai, Tanjore [now Thanjavur]  Armoury.

Actually this text partly comes from "Ethnographic notes in southern India : with 40 plates", Edgar Thurston, 1906; where a chapter is dedicated to boomerangs (page 555 to 559 ?? /  645 to 649) and a plate (XXXVII, page 556) with 2 boomerangs.
plate : https://archive.org/stream/cu31924023651023#page/n648/mode/1up

 

 (I separated the image in two parts)

text : https://archive.org/stream/cu31924023651023#page/n645/mode/2up

This text also states that the Koli tribe of Guzerat [Gujarat, North Western India] used boomerangs. We can doubt that the author ever saw himself an indian boomerang as every assertion is attributed to other authors or personnalities or books : Mr Savile Kent citing Mr Balfour, General Pitt Rivers [ex Lane-Fox], Prof. E.C. Stirling, Egerton's "Indian and Oriental Armour", Dr G. Oppert citing the Dewan of Pudukkottai, Mr R. Bruce Foot, G.F. Dr Penha.

Egerton's "Indian and Oriental Armour" should contain some information about Indian boomerangs, but it is useless on archive.org which refers to googlebooks where (as usual) there is no means to read the thing normally. 

About Pitt Rivers / Lane-Fox, an interesting article describing his experiments on boomerangs can be read on the Pitt Rivers Museum Web site, at  http://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-PR-and-Boomerang-technology.html . We learn that Pitt Rivers made several facsimiles of Egyptian and Indian boomerangs seen in museums and that he successfully trained himself to throw them [so, this obsession about boomerangs is at least 130 years old in the west, may be more :-) ]. These are the 2 facsimiles of indian boomerang shown on the Web site (the egyptian one is beautiful also, but not given below) :

 

I can find only another boomerang photo (a ceremonial throwing stick, Madurai, Tamil Nadu) on Pitt Rivers Museum web site :
http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/weapons/index.php/tour-by-region/oceania/asia/arms-and-armour-asia-138/index.html

October 12th 2017 - I find only 2 images (of the same object) in the ROYAL ARMOURIES COLLECTION web site
https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-10758.html
"Throwing stick (katariya, birra jungee)", "Dimensions: The length of the weapon is 443 mm (17.5in) max. width 5.7mm (2.0in). Weight: The weight of the weapon is 0.25 kg."; Associated Places : India, Hyderabad. 

The same one - maybe, although it seems a bit more sturdy  - as photographed in an exhibition of the Royal Armouries;
found (oct 12th 2017) on http://britseps.blogspot.fr/2012/11/ (toward the end of the post)

Chennai Museum Web Site only shows a bad quality photo of 2 apparently indian boomerangs but, strangely, the associated commentary is about australian Aborigines (although the comment is not very clear).

See  this page, which also mentions the Khonds of Orissa without alluding to boomerangs : http://www.chennaimuseum.org/draft/gallery/02/02/ethnolg2.htm

2018 09 29 : I can't find this web page anymore, but there are now a good number of e-books on the web site of the Museum of Chennai. Some of them mentions boomerangs and valari,
In the Museum's journal of 1998-1999, there is an article written by a curator named Dr C. Maheshwaran : "Boomerangs in the collection of Chennai state museum". The article cites numerous times 150 years old british information (Thurston, Balfour), which suggests that reliable local information on the subject was not easily found in 1999.
http://www.e-books-chennaimuseum.tn.gov.in/chennaimuseum/images/books/GOVERNMENT%20MUSEUM%20CHENNAI%20MUSEUM%27S%20JOURNAL%20APRIL%201998%20-%20NOVEMBER%201999.pdf


In "The races of Man : an outline of anthropology and ethnography", Deniker, 1904 we read that boomerangs named "Singa" are attributed to the Khonds of Orissa [now Odisha, Eastern India] :

https://archive.org/stream/racesofmanoutlin00deniuoft#page/258/mode/2up



In "A study of traditionnal throwing sticks and boomerang tuning", Luc Bordes makes an analysis of the shapes and profiles of 5 Indian boomerangs (Valai thadi series of 5 boomerangs from Tamil Nadu) found in the Quai Branly Museum, Paris. See page 6 "a remarkable Indian Valari series" in http://revedeboomerang.free.fr/tuning2.pdf ; figure 12a is reproduced below :

Elsewhere, on http://revedeboomerang.free.fr/inde.html and http://revedeboomerang.free.fr/planisphere.jpg we find other photos of unknow origin, one is said to represent a Katariya / Katurea (from Gujarat), another represents some Valari and an australian-looking boomerang said to be from Southern India, Tamil Nadu.

After verification... the first image comes from http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=558 (a sold item). The second one is from one of the editions of  "A glossary of the construction, decoration and use of arms and armor in all countries and in all times, together with some closely related subjects", by George Cameron Stone. We find in two places (page 346 & 348) the name "Guzerat" as the source of weapons that resemble more to the Tamil's Valari. (wrong attribution ? all mixed up : katari/valari/south india/katariya/gujarat ?) : 

(Baroda = old name for nowadays Vadodara, third largest city in Gujarat (wikipedia))

Wilbraham Egerton published in 1880 a catalogue of the collections of the "India Museum" (1801-1879)  : "An Illustrated handbook of Indian arms : being a catalogue of the arms exhibited at the India Museum". Some of the objects were reproduced in this catalog, and among them, some of the Indian boomerangs. We can see a rather well digitalized version of it; and here is a partial map of India where we can see what was called "Guzerat", the territory of the "Kolis", and "Baroda" https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.tz1py2;view=1up;seq=8. Extract : 

I can find only a few mentions of the Indian boomerangs in this publication, and only one illustration; pages 73, 74, 78, 81 :

Other boomerangs (southern Indian ones), mentioned, but not illustrated (apparently) :

Another "Katariya", made of brass, is shown on http://akaalarms.com/sold-very-rare-18th-century-indian-boomerang-ref-10327/  

The comments let me wonder if it's a good idea to believe everything ... they seem to be like me : gathering information from every source... I would make every confusion between Katariya and Valari or Gujarat and Tamil Nadu when reading :  "A very rare 18th Century Indian boomerang, traditionally used by the tribes of Gujerat and South India to hunt small animals, and protect livestock from predators. There are various names attributed to these items, Elgood* calls it a ‘Birundungi’ (referring to the South Indian variant); and Lord Egerton**, a ‘Katariya’ (referring to a boomerang used by Koles – a tribe of Gujerat). A lesser known source, Edgar Thurston*** provides some compelling research and calls it a ‘Valari’ or ‘Valai-Tadi’, referring to examples in the Tanjore Museum."


Another similar object, 30 cm long, steel, called Birundungi, said to be from South India is shown on http://akaalarms.com/sold-south-indian-steel-boomerang-known-as-a-birundungi-ref-10082/

Another "Katariya" from the Higgins Collection http://www.higgins-collection.org/artifacts/3485

18 1/4" O.L. 14 oz - Katariya, Gujarat, iron

October 12th 2017; found one image on http://ww.w.flight-toys.com/artifacts/tb423.html
"Iron Singa or Birugundi Boomerang from Southern India"; "Span = 35 cm ; Weight = 238 gm"
Comment [mostly repeating what we read elsewhere] : "This unusual throwing implement is a Tamil Valari or Birudungi Iron War Boomerang. This example was made out of low grade iron and the surfaces are heavily oxidized, but fully intact and functional. The more common steel form is called the Singa. The form of the Tamil boomerang is of very ancient origin, used in warfare and hunting. The term boomerang which has stuck amongst collectors is purhaps misleading as it does not return to the thrower. All surviving examples share several features in common, the ball or egg shaped knob for gripping, flattened deeply curved body, and a squared flaring end. It was made by the Kallars/Kallan and Maravans (castes / tribes of the Tamil people in South India). These boomerangs were usually made out of wood, ivory or metal. The local name for this type of boomerang is "valai tadi" / "valari tadi" / "vellari thadi" / "vallari thadi" all of which mean "bent stick". It is often a tradition that very fine Birugundi boomerangs were exchanged between brides and bridegrooms."

October 12th 2017 - A "birudungi" made of steel, presented as

"Old Indo Persian South Indian Steel Boomerang 'Birudungi" Warrior n Hunting" or "South Indian boomerang"; "Dimension :overall length 35 cm approx", ... 

Image from https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/indo-persian-south-indian-steel-440343259

Wikipedia says... "Indo-Persian culture" refers to those Persian aspects that have been integrated into or absorbed into the cultures of the Indian Subcontinent. From the presentation of this item, we could wonder whether Persian had boomerangs or steel boomerang. (first quick google searches about that topic didn't retrieve anything).

(October 12 2017) One image found of a Katariya said to pertain to the Worcester Art Museum ;
Titled "Katariya (boomerang)" ; origin : Gujarat; made of iron; 46.4 cm (18 1/4 in.), 14 oz (weight) and having small beads inside which make a rattling sound.
http://vps343.pairvps.com:8080/emuseum/view/objects/asitem/20130/332/invno-asc?t:state:flow=ef4f5ed2-f6fe-4765-8248-92e8b90da8a6

I first found mention of the Quai Branly collection on this page :
http://www.ashokaarts.com/shop/extremely-rare-tamil-valari-or-birudungi-wooden-war-boomerang-19th-century where they show another Valari :

 profile and upper face

Extracts of the comment : "[...] its more common steel form it is known as Singa, it has various names in southern languages: Valari (Tamil), Katariya (Khol), Birra Jungee/Birudungi (Hyderabad), Vălaytădi (malayalam). [...] Similar examples can be seen in the British Museum, Quai Branly, Fitzwilliam and Liverpool Museum amongst others."

I found nothing about boomerangs on the Liverpool Museum Web site.

About the Fitzwilliam museum, I was not able to find any photo and their search tool is not very efficient compared to others... it's being replaced... so ... we can at least find a few verbal descriptions for 2 south Indian boomerangs donated by a man named Robert Taylor in 1879  :
http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explorer/index.php?qu=robert%20taylor&oid=160097
length: 47.5 cm ; weight: 140 g ;
http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explorer/index.php?qu=robert%20taylor&oid=160096
length, 46 cm , weight, 250 g  [shorter but heavier]


Quai Branly Museum has a few wooden boomerang not shown to the public, but with photos on their Web Site : http://collections.quaibranly.fr/#71ea5d81-50c8-4054-a2c2-e1fcc19880b7
(searching for "boomerang inde" we find 4 results, all from South India, Tamil Nadu, Gasivaganga)

N° 71.1939.85.69 - 16 x 50,5 x 2,7 cm, 114 g 

N° 71.1939.85.66 - 14 x 48,5 x 2,8 cm, 269 g

N° 71.1939.85.67 - 17 x 46,5 x 3 cm, 202 g

N° 71.1939.85.68 - 48 x 15 x 2,5 cm, 182 g

 knobs

searching for "bâton de jet", we find 2 more boomerangs from India
http://collections.quaibranly.fr/#15e6b86d-c5d8-4982-9b00-ec0a2511ce1e

N° 71.1954.21.19 D - 50,5 x 18 x 3,1 cm, 250 g

N° 71.1950.86.2 - 47 x 14 x 3 cm, 309 g
[can't be flat, if the data is correct, by comparison with the other boomerangs]

The British Museum also has some boomerangs from India. Searching for india+boomerang gives 6 results, all named "Valari", one being strange in shape (and doesn't seem to be able to fly).
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?searchText=india+boomerang

metal valari from Madurai (?) 34cm x 5.5 cm; 219 g

ivory valari from Sri Lanka 47 cm x 7.4 cm, 120 g

ivory valari from Sri Lanka 48 cm x 7.3 cm, 140 g

wooden valari from Madras 46cm x 7cm, 231 g

wooden (mimosa) valari from South India 47cm x 6.8 cm, 159 g

valari, Indian club, from industan (?) 62 cm x 32.5 cm x 3.1 cm ; 480 g [probably not flat and unable to fly]

Searching for "india throwing stick" http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?searchText=india+throwing+stick we find one more boomerang (in shape), this time it is said to have been made by Gond (said to be one of the most diffused tribe in India) but by the shape, it seems to be simply one more valari from south India (with a missing broken angle). 

6.1 cm, 44.6 cm, 0.2 cm, 0.2 g [the alleged dimensions are clearly false]

Searching for "collery stick" ("collery" comes from Kallar) http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?searchText=collery+stick we find one more southern indian Valari. This one related to : Thanjavur (city, formerly Tanjore), Maravar (Tamil tribe).

49.5 cm x 6.2 cm; 207 g

About the "collery stick" we find in "Military reminiscences : extracted from a journal of nearly forty years' active service in the East Indies", James Welsh, 1830, Volume 1, page 130  (https://archive.org/stream/militaryreminisc01wels#page/130/mode/2up) : " [...] taught me to throw the spear, and hurl the collery stick, a weapon scarcely known elsewhere, but in a skillful hand, capable of being thrown to a certainty to any distance within one hundred yards".

Little more information on the collery-stick / valari that had known James Welsh, on the Web page http://www.sivagangaiseemai.com/maruthupandiyar/maruthu-pandiyar-history6.html# (about the history of Maruthu / Marudhu / Mardoo brothers once rulers of Sivagangai) The text seems to replicate parts of James Welsh's text without always saying it, so it's not very clear where the information comes from). 

From the blog Maya Devar comes another photo that spresents a dozen of Valari : http://mayadevar.blogspot.com/2009/04/poomarang-valari.html . By interpreting the automatic translation of the Tamil comments, I guess those Valari were exposed in the palace of the ex-ruling family in Ramanathapuram / Ramnad, South East India.

We can guess that most of those valaris are only slightly flattened : except the one in the center ; they may have been unable to really fly. 4 are broken in a way that let think they were not perfectly cut along the grain of the wood. Maybe because, for handiness, the knob had to diverge slightly from the overall  curve.

On http://tamilnation.co/heritage/weapon.htm we find another article about boomerangs used by the Tamils (but no source is cited) : "Valari - An Unique Weapon of the Tamils". The url "tamilnation.co" is said to replace temporarily "tamilnation.org", so be sure to go there when this url doesn't work anymore. And there is an image of a valari that is said to have been found in Thondi (city, port, in Ramanathapuram District, Tamil Nadu). Associated person names : Dr Jeyachandrun (the man who holds the valari in the photo), Dr Jayabarathi (the author of the article)

On http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?p=56083 we find two photos.
The first one is of a metal boomerang, from the book of Robert Elgood (2004) "Hindu Arms and Ritual: Arms and Armour from India 1400-1865" where it is said to be on page 191 (also said : more boomerang from India to be seen on page 193 ; the author states that there are 6 types of boomerangs in India - [can't verify that, this book is too recent to be freely read online] ).

The second one is said to be from a "book Malbourough House" (I found on archive.org a catalog of "A CATALOGUE OF THE MUSEUM OF ORNAMENTAL ART AT MARLBOROUGH HOUSE PALL MALL (1856)" but there is only the part I ; the Division 14 - about weapons - may be in the second part; see it at http://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.80791435). The photo represents a cluster of weapons labelled "CASE J". I show here only the #205 : something shaped as another ivory boomerang from India.

A few more boomerangs found by searching "throwing weapons" in the National Trust Collections (after having seen photos and detailed comment on Pinterest)  http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/search/1?show=100.

http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1180707.1 calamander wood, 44 cm

  http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1180707.2 calamander wood, 41 cm

http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1183944, calamander wood, 49.6 cm

http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1183941, calamander wood, 49.2 cm

http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1180697, ivory and silver, 48.5 cm

"The Evolution of Culture and Other Essays", Pitt-Rivers, Augustus Henry Lane-Fox, 1906

extract from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44844/44844-h/images/zill_t142g_plate15h.png

 Plate XV, diagram 6, Indian Boomerangs

 

There may have been an interesting collection of Indian boomerangs at the Pitt-Rivers Museum in 1946; Large enough to deserve a catalog (?), from what we may infer from "Sir Francis made a valuable catalogue of our Indian boomerangs" (see the annual report of the curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, in 1946, http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/sma/index.php/museum-annual-reports/246-1945-46-annual-report.html )

From the Royal collection Web site : http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection-search/boomerangs

46.8 x 5.2 x 2.5 cm, rosewood, blades shod in silver, heavy knobs

Presented by H.H. The Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

49.3 x 15.2 cm, rosewood, flat blade, iron band, heavy knob

Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

48 x 15 cm, rosewood, flat blade, iron band, heavy knob

Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

Singhá, 44.2 x 14.5 cm, flat [?? doesn't seem so] steel blade, heavy knob

Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

Singhá, 44.0 x 14.6 cm, flat [?? doesn't seem so] steel blade, heavy knob

Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

38.8 x 15.5 cm, flat steel blade, heavy knob

Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

Singa, 39.5 cm, flat blade, heavy knob

Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

43.3 x 17.0 cm, flat steel blade, heavy knob, N° 38589

Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

46.0 x 5.2 x 2.9 cm, flat rosewood blades, heavy knobs, N° 38129
Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

2 Singá, 34.8 x 14.8 x 2.4 cm, silver-damascened steel, flat blades, heavy knobs
Presented by H.H. the Rani of Shivaganga, Mysore

45.7 x 6.4 x 3.2 cm, ivory boomerang, each side slightly convex
Presented by Ramachandra Tondaiman, Raja of Pudukkottai.

54.2 x 10.6 x 2.1 cm, ivory, slightly convex surfaces, tapering to flat rounded pommel,
fitted with band mount at wide end
Presented by Ramachandra Tondaiman, Raja of Pudukkottai.

36.4 x 4.8 x 2.6 cm, coloured ivory with strong grain, silver and lacquer

"Handbook to the ethnographical collections", British Museum, 1910. Found on archive.org :  https://archive.org/stream/handbooktoethnog00brituoft#page/48/mode/2up

(This comment differs from what we understand from http://revedeboomerang.free.fr/planisphere.jpg, where an australian looking boomerang and 3 southern indian boomerangs are all related to Tamil Nadu)

The Rough Guide to South India, https://books.google.fr/books?id=sEhJBfbhTAAC, page 513

[...]

That is probably related to the mayadevar blog entry seen earlier.

The Hindu, April 22, 2012

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-downtown/rare-boomerang-on-display/article3340886.ece

Update, oct 2015 : 

I'm happy to see the above text reproduced (under the title " Maravar Wepon Boomerang collected in Maravar Zamintaris" ... what is Zamintaris ?) on

• http://thevar-mukkulator.blogspot.in/2015/07/maravar-wepon-boomerang-collected-in.html, although I can't exactly understand what the blog http://thevar-mukkulator.blogspot.in is all about; maybe about Tamil identity and history.
• and http://www.thevarthalam.com/thevar/?p=3811 

The two copies have added something : a link to "chakra(boomerang)" from the "Book of Vishnu" by Nanditha Kirshna. As far as I understand : in some mythical/religious stories and books of India, some gods and supernatural creatures made use of a weapon called "chakra" that had the property to come back in the hand of the thrower; the article makes a link with neolithic boomerangs.



Found this picture of beautiful Indian boomerangs on a facebook group organised by someone named Raniganda Ranganathan and promoting the revival of the Valari : தமிழர் வளரி 2016 (Ancient Boomerang)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1069700086383165&set=gm.1069205826464851&type=3&theater
 [the one on the right side seems more australian (?)]

On the same facebook group, someone (Kamala Balchandar) posted this picture, said to be of a family bringing home natural mangrove elbows (supposedly for making boomerangs).

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1047058982012520&set=gm.944731938941785&type=3&theater

TheHindu.com has an article (dated june 3 2016) about valaris : "The deadly weapon that exemplified Tamil spirit". (http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/the-deadly-weapon-that-exemplified-tamil-spirit/article8684011.ece)

According to this article, there may be lots of information to be read about valaris : " 'A lot of British documents of the 17th and 18th century talks about the weapon' said Sahitya Akademi award-winning writer Su.Venkatesan, who has done a lot of research about the weapon.". The same Venkatesan is said to have seen hundreds of Valaris in a temple in Kovilankulam in Madurai where valari was still offered to a deity named Pattasamy. The article shows a photo with a comment saying that it depicts valaris as an offering to Pattasamy.

Another interesting claim, in part attributed to a man designated as "IAS officer M. Rajendran" : the British would have banned the use of valaris in 1801, and even recollected and destroyed 15000 valaris.

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/02879/02june-kol-01_-_03_2879539g.jpg

South Indian Blow-Guns, Boomerangs, and Crossbows. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2843724

James Hornell

The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

Vol. 54 (Jul. - Dec., 1924), pp. 316-346

The section about boomerangs seems much less documented and precise than that of the blow-gun. But the content seems plausible (to the basic ignorant; when he ignores the seemingly wild speculations about links with Egypt and Egyptian boomerangs). 

We read that non returning boomerang were still in use in India in ~1920.  There is also a mention of the use of thin returning boomerangs.

A glimpse at the original text above cited (Lane Fox Catalogue, page 28; https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951002133997g;view=1up;seq=52) shows nothing very fascinating (lots of speculations about the possible evolution of the boomerang), no much real indian boomerangs, 3 fac-simile. The assertion that some Indian boomerangs can be made to return may well be the result of his practice with fac-simile, not the result of him witnessing South indian individuals using their traditional boomerangs in this way.

The tradition seems rooted in the past, if we believe the remark that tales about heroic skilled throwers were appreciated.

In ~1920 the boomerang was mainly used for hunting.

Here are the figure of the boomerang Hornell found in a the Ramnad district 

A short YTB video 
by user "mohamed rafeek" showing some beautiful exemplars 

"boomarang valari kambu of tamilnadu once used by maruthu brothers"

The term "valari kambu" is rarely seen elsewhere on the internet and seems related to Sivaganga Palace.
The mentions I found (often mere copy/pastes) :

• once here : http://www.sivagangaiseemai.com/history/sivagangai-kingdom.html
• once here : http://www.discoveredindia.com/tamil-nadu/attractions/historical-and-archeological-places/sivaganga-palace.htm
• same thing here : http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/of-valour-and-victory/article4953775.ece
• and here http://tamilnadu-favtourism.blogspot.fr/2016/08/sivaganga-palace-sivaganga.html 
• and once again duplicated here http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1467658&page=21 
• an again (a small excerpt) here http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/149560/10/10_chapter%204.pdf

From the V&A web site

Boomerang made in Gujarat, wood, Length: 68.6 cm, Width: 4.7 cm max; made in ~1850

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1289532/boomerang-unknown/

Another one, made in Gujarat, Length: 74 cm, Width: 6 cm max.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1289531/boomerang-unknown/

We can find interesting keywords in the notes : Kole tribe, hunting game, katariya, katureea

• "As originally arranged and displayed in Exhibition Road Indian Museum galleries until 1955, with some additions while in storage, case F.695"
• "Carved wooden boomerang with inscriptions in black ink on one side, used by the Koles for hunting game, Gujarat, mid 19th century. Ex India Museum. Egerton 2.; boomerang, katariya; Arms, wood, Gujarat"
• "Boomerangs katureea: (three); wood, undecorated; length on outer curve 34, 29, 29 ins; Kole tribe, Gujarat2761 I.S. [pre 1993]"
• bibliographic reference : "Lord Egerton of Tatton, Indian and Oriental Armour, London, 1896, p. 78, Cat. No. 1-3"

From the National Portal & Digital Repository of the Museums of India

http://museumsofindia.gov.in/repository/record/sjm_hyd-ACQ-70-23-2324

a boomerang from the Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad

(almost no description : wood; 46.0 H; origin = North Eastern India (doubtful ? resembles too much to a south Indian valari) ; irrelevant comment about Australian boomerangs)

June 9 2018 : A search for "boomerang" across all museum retrieves only this result.

Exact searches for "valari", "valai thaddi", "valai thadi", "katureea", "katariya", "singa", "birudungi", "birundugi", "kollery", "collery", "throwing stick", "throw stick", "rabbit stick" retrieve nothing, or nothing resembling a boomerang.

From a  video ("Maṟakkappaṭṭa vaḷari") in Tamil language about Valaris, showing mostly metal ones:

2 photos posted on https://twitter.com/ThanjaiMadhavan  (an account focused on archaeology) apparently taken in a museum in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu (Thanjavur Royal Museum ?). No much new information in the tweets as far as the automatic translation goes (weapons used againt the British by the Maruthu Pandiyar brothers ) and maybe 1 precision I did not notice before : the name of a commander - வைத்திலிங்க தொண்டைமான் / Thondaiman.

https://twitter.com/ThanjaiMadhavan/status/1033004438770790401

and a close up on one of the valaris :

https://twitter.com/ThanjaiMadhavan/status/1033006811857674241

From https://twitter.com/Nellai_MARAVAN 

one photo - that may be from the same museum as above  (Thanjavur Royal Museum ?) and even may represent the exact same valaris as above, but arranged differently at another time , with other artifacts including 2 more valaris -  in the tweet 

 https://twitter.com/Nellai_MARAVAN/status/856550704613253120

and another one, in a tweet mentioning the Kallar and Marawar comunities in Sivagandai and Ramanathapuram. Maybe the place of origin can be read, under the objects represented, by people understanding Tamil language. 

https://twitter.com/Nellai_MARAVAN/status/856551664353804288

From a blog about the Kallar clan history 

2 photos of Valaris, in a post http://kallarkulavaralaru.blogspot.com/2018/05/blog-post_3.html about a Thondaiman family of rulers in Tamil Nadu (as far as I can understand from the automatic translation of the very few explanations that are given on this blog. 

The post is mainly a series of photos with almost no comment. 

So, we won't know were the photos were taken. They represents a showcase that may not be focused only on Tamil weaponry, as we can see a Australian-looking boomerang, and a primitive-looking bow.

Actually it's probably the same showcase partially shown on Raniganda Ranganathan's facebook page (see higher) and his photo mentions  Pudukkottai Museum.

Note the Australian-looking boomerang in the lower part of the showcase.

A video briefly showing weapons held at the Pudukkottai Museum, featuring the same showcase with boomerangs and valaris :

A Thanthi TV video (sept. 2018) about valaris in Nellai Museum :   https://youtu.be/dLemfXCxdOw

Images - 2019 - of metal valaris from Kovilankulam, already mentioned previoulsy  :

- in the video https://youtu.be/Ai45UAXEtRU ,  posted on Youtube channel "Pitchappan Ramaswamy", in 2019. The australian boomerang champion Roger Perry encounters Virumandi, the "first indian" (his DNA has the 70.000 years old gene-marker M130, typical of the african migrants to india, east asia and australia); then he visits the temple to see the valari.

- in a video inserted directly into the blog (not found on Youtube)     https://kallarkulavaralaru.blogspot.com/2019/04/blog-post_13.html ; the video refers to the same event (Roger Perry visiting the temple). We see Perry guessing the distances to which he would be able to throw various of the valari. (But... no tests... the valari seem to be respected objects, not to be used).

About wooden valari... 

Until 2019, I've read lots of comments from people saying that valari were only made from metal.

We can find 2 recent (mid 2019) videos from youtube channel "Pandiya Rajan" where old wooden boomerangs are shown and manipulated (but not thrown).

- drawing the contour of an old wooden valari : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jigMVd3lZAE

- showing the size and shape of one (or more) old wooden valari : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX-BUDGfbrA

Valari in old stone carvings 

(no scientific datation, i guess)

Several carvings featuring warriors holding a pair of valari are shown on Youtube channel 

"மாமன்னர் சிலம்பக்கூடம்". The description, by Khartik Raja, a boomerang/valari player, indicates that the location is near Karumathoor, Madurai.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsXQCr1QJ4w

Modern usage of valari for hunting

We can read that “Today, many in Madurai and Ramnathapuram, in parts of Thanjavur, Tirunelveli and Pudukottai indulge in hunting using the boomerang. We find that vellalas, valliyans, nadars and Muhammadans using it, though of course, less than maravans and kallars, with whom it is particularly identified,”
in : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/tracing-the-tamil-boomerang-connection/articleshow/71946275.cms

The statement is attributed to Lily Bhavna Kauler, an Indian researcher based in Australia, focused on aboriginals in Australia and tribal people in India. Maybe the statement contains some transcription error... Or maybe it is entirely correct and we would like to see that ; i found nothing for now...  except a joint interview with Roger Perry, where Lily Bhavna Kauler says she has been researching about the Indian boomerang for the last 20 years... so she may have a lot of information to share.

Valari, their flight,  2 types of indian throwing sticks

I had overlooked some of Luc Bordes' papers (on researchgate.net, if you can get there, or on revedeboomerang.fr).

We find, in his Master thesis, 2014, "The prehistoric throwing sticks and their representation" (http://revedeboomerang.free.fr/Master thesis - Throwing sticks -Luc Bordes2014.pdf  or in french  http://revedeboomerang.free.fr/memoire-LucBordes.pdf ) :

2 types of Indian throwing sticks, that the current literature doesn't help much to differentiate :
"The series of Indian artefacts presents two main types of throwing sticks known to this region of the world, with a majority of throwing stick called "Valari" (see Appendix I) from the southern part of the subcontinent. The functional information depend from too general information that does not differentiate symmetrical throwing sticks used in Gujarat by Koles, from the "Valari" used by Tamil, yet a very different type."

The valari should flight straight 
"The Valari belong to the class of asymmetric throwing sticks with broadened blade blade, an optimum shape commonly used also in central Australia. Their distinguishing attribute is a ball-shaped handle which reduces the aerodynamic lift by rotation breaking of the attacking of handling blade aiming to constrain these projectiles to a straight trajectory. The other main type of throwing stick encountered is that used by Koles peoples in Gujarat (Lane Fox, 1868) belonging to truncated crescent-shaped symmetrical class."

We find images of 2 wooden valari reinforced with metal strips, in an article of ExArc (Experimental Archaeology) journal, 2015. The article describes an experimental study of a Gaulish boomerang that also had metal strips. (https://exarc.net/issue-2015-3/ea/gaulish-throwing-stick-discovery-normandy-study-and-throwing-experimentations)

Copy of "Fig 14a and 14b. Example of valari showing the two different types of iron strips encountered: a wide welded iron strip at the short following blade extremity and several narrower repair strips fixed with rings (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford UK)"

Copy of "Fig 13a and 13b. Valari carefully finished with an iron strip at the end of the following blade. Width of strip is 24 mm, thickness 1 mm (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford UK)"

About how to use the weapon (and what it was made of)

2020 07 29 - I read in Castes and Tribes of Southern India, E.Thurston quoting other people.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42991/42991-h/42991-h.htm#xd21e927
[Castes and tribes of southern India, volume 1, preface xxix] :
"Of the so-called boomerangs of Southern India, the Madras Museum possesses three (two ivory, one wooden) from the Tanjore armoury (Pl. II). Concerning them, the Dewān of Pudukkōttai writes to me as follows. “The valari or valai tadi (bent stick) is a short weapon, generally made of some hard-grained wood. It is also sometimes made of iron. It is crescent-shaped, one end being heavier than the other, and the outer end is sharpened."
[made from various materials]


http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42993/42993-h/42993-h.htm#pb71
[Castes and tribes of southern India, volume 3, page 71] :

"Men trained in the use of the weapon hold it by the lighter end, whirl it few times over their shoulders to give it impetus, and then hurl it with great force against the object aimed at. [...] experts [...] could at one stroke despatch small game, and even man.[...]"

[nothing is said about the capacity of making a valari return to the thrower; and the notion of whirling a boomerang a few times to give it impetus is strange... i would say : probably erroneous]

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42995/42995-h/42995-h.htm#pb47
[Castes and tribes of southern India, volume 3, page 47] :

"I had an opportunity of seeing these boomerangs in use near Sivaganga in March, 1883. In the morning I came across many parties, small and large, of men and big boys who were out hare-hunting with a few dogs. The parties straggled over the ground, which was sparsely covered with low scrub jungle. And, whenever an unlucky hare started out near to the hunters, it was greeted with a volley of the boomerangs, so strongly and dexterously thrown that poor puss had little chance of escape. [...] Whether a dexterous Maravar thrower could make his weapon return to him I could not find out. Certainly in none of the throws observed by me was any tendency to a return perceptible. But for simple straight shots these boomerangs answer admirably."

[again, no testimony about the returning capacity; on the contrary : efficient for straight shots]

2020 10 09 - photos of old wooden and iron valari revered in religious setting (if i understand the automatic translation of the text). Found on the facebook page of a "History Museum".

https://www.facebook.com/முத்தரையர்-வரலாறு-ஆய்வுக்கூடம்-827450257628971/photos/pcb.1164856063888387/1164855970555063

another excellent one, looking even older and more primitive

https://www.facebook.com/முத்தரையர்-வரலாறு-ஆய்வுக்கூடம்-827450257628971/photos/pcb.1164856063888387/1164856007221726

iron valari, in the same type of setting

https://www.facebook.com/முத்தரையர்-வரலாறு-ஆய்வுக்கூடம்-827450257628971/photos/pcb.1202098426830817/1202098353497491

2021/04/12 The boomerangs from India do not return... This is the conclusion of an article from S.Davidson : "Is The Boomerang Oriental ?", published in 1935, in the Journal Of The American Oriental Society, Vol.55. See page 174 to 176 in https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.531161/page/n187/mode/2up

In this article, the author cites Hornell (see higher) and Lane Fox; asserting that even Lane Fox (who once wrote that he had made some Indian boomerangs to return) finally recognized in 1883 that the boomerangs from India were not designed to return and did not return.

2021/11/14 

A wooden valari and an iron valari from (?) Tirunelveli district museum, shown on ytb channel MHCRF; interesting particularly, because we see a hand holding those valaris : gives a good estimation for the size. The iron valari seems pretty small... should not prevent it from doing some damages, as a weapon. See the MHCRF's video here : https://youtu.be/r7L6_9DCFi8

2021/11/14 

2500 years old cave art representing a valari, in Aundipatty (Madurai, Tamil Nadu); see the ytb video from Thanti TV, here : https://youtu.be/7NmzBgsdWlE

2021/11/14

ancient stone sculpture representing a warrior with a valari, in E.Kottaipatty, near Usilampatti, Madurai, Tamil Nadu; see the video from ytb channel India 10 news, here https://youtu.be/LMhESMIOGl4 ; and a longer video from ytb channel Mathi Vanan, with explanations (in Tamil) about art and archaeology, here : https://youtu.be/OtCNQsxWgj4