[Native Australian: see quot. 1878.] An Australian toy (see quot. 1878), contrived to be capable of being thrown to a great distance.
1878. R. B. Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, I. 352. The plaything (Fig. 170) called by the natives of the Yarra Wi-tch-wi-tch, We-a-witcht, Weet-weet, or Wa-voit, is one of the most extraordinary instruments used by savages…. The head—in shape like two cones placed base to base—is about four inches and a half in length and one inch in diameter; and the stem, not quite two-tenths of an inch in diameter, is about twenty-one inches in length.
1886. Daily News, 20 Dec., 5/3. The Australian toy called the weet-weet which can be thrown for several hundred yards, bounding off the ground at frequent intervals all the way.
1910. T. A. Joyce, Handbk. Ethnogr. Coll. Brit. Mus., 117. A peculiar toy is the weet-weet or ‘kangaroo-rat,’ which the practised player can throw to enormous distances.
