Weet weet

This article is about the children's game. For the bird call, see Common chaffinch.

Weet weet (also called wit-wit or throwing the play stick) is an Australian Aboriginal children's throwing game popular in some parts of Australia.^[1] Weet weet is also the traditional name of the object that is thrown, but it is also called a "kangaroo rat". A traditional weet weet it is difficult to recreate, so a club can be used and small children can play the game using a tennis ball placed in a stocking. The winner is the person to throw the weet weet the furthest or most accurately.^[2]

Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain and weet-weet

The famous writer Mark Twain as an example of wit and intelligence of the Australian Aboriginal people wrote a chapter in his book Following the Equator about the weet-weet (or kangaroo-rat)^[3] But the mentioned chapter is not a simple description of an exotic toy, it is a blunt and critical summary of the white man's genocide actions against indigenous.^[3]

In the past Aboriginal Australians used weet weets for hunting.^[4]

References

1. Claudia Haagen (1994). Bush Toys: Aboriginal Children at Play. Aboriginal Studies Press. pp. 78–. ISBN 978-0-85575-245-3. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
2. "Weet weet" (PDF). Australian Sports Commission. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
3. Following the Equator, Chapter XXI; Mark Twain.
4. "Weet weet". Culture Victoria. Retrieved 17 November 2012.