Description: Primitive Speargun From East Timor
A speargun, from the estate of an Australian collector who specialized in artifacts from New Guinea and Indonesia, was reportedly collected in East Timor during the 1950s and is thought to be very old; however its age is not verified at this time.
John Warren's Review:
(John Warren is a United States based vintage speargun aficionado)
(click on photos for details)
This speargun was reportedly from 'TIMOR', an island in lower Indonesia.
 
On the top of the gun body there is a rectangular cutout.
I have referred to the top as dorsal (like a fish). All of your interpretations may be different than mine, but these images suggest certain functionality of the gun's features to me.
First of all, I am calling this carved wooden device a real speargun.
As you know, a crossbow could probably shoot an arrow underwater, but the water's resistance would slow the transverse bowstring. A typical rubber band powered speargun has the bands stretched in-line with the arrow. When shot, the band reduces in length and is not appreciably slowed by water. I suppose this might be a way to define a speargun as opposed to a crossbow, spear (in general) or bow. I noticed that on this gun body, there is NO obvious attachment for a crossbow or bowstring.
The mechanism is very much like some of the other true spearguns we have seen in the past.
Please note the nose has a very large opening. This suggests that a pole, probably a wooden spear shaft was inserted and used.
The spear itself is absent, but we can safely guess that it was a wooden pole. Also note that there is metal on this gun. I guess that the spear itself (which is absent) had some kind of terminal steel or forged iron point. Exactly what it was is unknown.
The mechanism for driving the spear is very interesting. It appears to be a close-fitting wooden block, which rides inside the large opening of the speargun body. Transverse to this block is driven an iron nail or rod. This rod is bent backward on both sides and is intended to hold bands on each side of the gun body.
Please note the close-up images. They show what appears to be a nail head on one side only of this rod. It appears to be a hand-forged nail.
The bent iron rod travels down the gun body through the slots on each side of the gun body when the gun is shot. At the end of the nose, the slot is reduced in size, but probably has split due to use. I tend to believe this slot originally stopped before the end of the nose.
Ron and I managed to free up the trigger mechanism so the block was actuated. The trigger appears to be of the same basic type as some of the traditional Philippine mechanisms. http://rocknfish.com/Horalan_speargun_details.jpg
It is an S-shaped bent steel rod. The point of this rod protrudes into a hole drilled in the wooden block. We could not actually see this hole, but we know it's there. The trigger mechanism is pointed, like a nail, not flat on the end. You may even be able to see this feature in one of the images. There is an iron pin which is visible that forms the pivot for this S-shaped piece of metal. Ron and I also noticed there is an additional block of wood inside the trigger box which seems to wedge the steel trigger in place. Not sure if this shows in images.
Please note the decorative bright metal detail work, which surrounds the dorsal and trigger areas. It appears this metal may be tin. We are reluctant to guess but it is not oxidized. This decorative banding is original with the gun.
More research on what this metal is composed of need to be done.
The band of this gun is loosely tied with a hand-twisted hemp fiber or some other native raw fiber twine. The bands are obviously cut from rubber tire inner tube. There is some tie wrapping on the end of the band with monofilament line.
There is also a small external black rubber band, which acts as a spring on the trigger mechanism, keeping the trigger in a forward, 'latched' position (a feature we have recently seen on the small Japanese rollerguns). It's my opinion that the fiber, which holds the rubber bands, is a recent addition and was not the original band material of the gun. I also suspect there was some metallic banding which was placed around the nose of the gun, like around the trigger mechanism areas.
The function of the box shaped dorsal hole is a mystery to me. It is there for a reason, but not easy to figure out. You can look down this opening and see the wooden block covering the trigger when the gun is cocked. Perhaps this window functioned somehow as a line release?
My original opinion was this gun was very old, much older than the 1950s. I still believe this to be true, but now believe the metal may provide the ultimate method to date the gun. It is a very primitive gun as it is made by native technology, but it is also extremely advanced in some aspects of it's own design. I have seen decorative metalwork like this on handcrafted items from India.
John Warren
http://rocknfish.com/Vintage.html
Peter Currer's Review:
(Peter Currer is an Australia based vintage speargun aficionado)
This gun appears to be a melding of technologies, or should I say a melding of gunsmithing practices. The metal inlays are reminiscent of the decorative work on early muskets and rifles, the Spanish are very fond of such embellishments, ditto for the Portuguese. At first I thought someone had grabbed a musket stock and done a conversion job on it, but now with John's photos this is not so clear.
The gun is what today we would call a "closed track" gun, the spear being propelled by a sliding carrier driven by rubber band loops on the sides. This is also the format of some of the first band spearguns from Europe, as no one knew how to make a wishbone, i.e. a direct spear attachment that did not tear the rubber band. The other "open track" approach, the crossbow style arbalete, only really got going when the wishbone drive problem was solved. It was solved in some places much earlier than in others.
This Timor speargun takes the side-slotted, pusher gun concept into the realm of a full wooden barrel, as distinct from the wooden stock, type of speargun. The European side-slotted guns (e.g. Le Prieur), based on firearm thinking, utilized metal barrels, as does the well-known spring gun.
In Timor someone has either seen one of these, or thought of it himself. In this case he has used a wooden guiding barrel of large diameter, however internal barrel wear and thus distance shooting precision characteristics would have suffered. A lot of effort has been put into it, especially the decorative elements which seem out of place on a spearfishing gun as saltwater makes short work of steel and other rapidly corroding alloys.
Could be this Timor speargun was only used partially submerged to administer the "coup de grace" to some monster dragged alongside the boat. An absence of line rigging would suggest this, although many of the first European spearguns shot a bare shaft, relying on shaft weight to overwhelm the generally small fish.
Regards,
Peter
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