This artefact is a (Herero) hunting spear made of wood with barbs on one side. It was used for hunting birds and soft-skinned small animals and for fishing. fishing. Because of their design, some consider these arrows more suitable for for fishing rather than bird hunting, as the pierced fish is held on the spear by the barbs. barbs on the spear. It is also noteworthy that that some (preserved) Ovambo arrows from the 19th and 20th centuries are are designed in the same way (see Allan, Bradfield & Lombard 2016). The basic Ovambo arrow shape was already well established before their well established before their arrival in Namibia and was also influenced by contact with with earlier cultures in Namibia such as the Hai‖om (Allan, Bradfield & Lombard significantly influenced (Allan, Bradfield & Lombard 2016). It is possible that the other cultures in Namibia were influenced by the construction of the Ovambo weapons, so that they adopted this arrow shape for a spear. spear. As the object has no visible book marks on the end of the object, it can be ruled out that it is an arrow arrow whose nock has been lost due to age and/or handling. The collector and the exact circumstances of the acquisition circumstances of acquisition remain unclear so far (processing status: 2023). Due to the presumed colonial context of the collection, the object should still be categorised as sensitive.