Indigenous Australian Boomerang. (Gift of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 1981) A wooden boomerang might not possess the many arms of a Swiss army knife, but the uses of this ingenious tool by Australia's First Nations peoples are manifold. This wooden, elbow-shaped instrument is popularly known around the world as an aerodynamic throwing stick. But depending on how the tool is made, it can also be used as a battle club, a digging stick, a hammer, a fire starter, a toy, a musical instrument – and even, it turns out, a sharpener of bone and stone tools. In a new...