Hi Katana,
You're absolutely right about lathes. The point is that one wouldn't expect that an australian aboriginal stick (at least an old-fashioned one) would be turned on a lathe. They were all hand carved--basically, nulla nullas are clubs of no definite shape (pointed or not) often used by women for hunting, fighting, throwing, etc.
I think we're agreed that this is African. I'm still wondering whether it's not the center piece of something like a samburu spear. I'm only familiar with samburus from the modern version sold by
Cold Steel (not an endorsement, merely an observation), but this one looks like it could easily fit a socketed spear head on one end, and a socketed spike butt on the other.
Neat piece, whatever it is.
F