FISHING METHODS Primitive fishing methods consist merely in the collecting; the fish are caught by hand, speared or shot with bow and arrow. The Australians catch catfish with their feet, or stirring up the water, hit or spear the fish coming to the surface. The Bushmen spread grass on the surface of a pool, then, wading in, push the grass and fish into the shallows where they are easily caught. Further north, near Stanley pool, as the river shrinks in the dry season, fish are scooped out of pockets in the rocks with gourds, a pint or more at a dip. And when the sukai, the "fish of fishes" (Onchorynchus) are crowding up the Fraser river to spawn, "so that it is almost possible to cross the river upon their backs" or the oolichan (Thaleichthys pacificus) chokes the river in a plenti ful run, the Salish Indians spear them in hundreds or scoop them up in buckets.
Spears, bows and arrows are the principal weapons for fishing as for hunting, to which may be added harpoons for larger fish and sea mammals; nets are fairly general, from the small hand nets, mainly used by women and children in shallow water and at low tide, to enormous seine or drag nets stretching right across reaches of the rivers or shallows of the sea; but the use of hook and line, though found among many primitive fishers, is not universal. The Andamanese, most skilful fishermen, use no hook or line; the central Australians had no hooks before the coming of the white man, and neither nets nor hook and line were known to the Tasmanians. The Bushmen have barbed harpoons for fish ing, but rely on baskets instead of nets. In Torres straits the Murray islanders wade into the sea with conical baskets to scoop up the sardine-like shoals of top. In central Australia nets made of rushes, without floats or sinkers, are stretched from tree to tree or stakes, and left there. If a man wants some fish, he swims out and helps himself.
Fire is here man's ally, as in hunting, and fish are everywhere lured to destruction by the light of a torch. Poison is also commonly used. In Africa circles of Euphorbia stakes are planted in a river, and the fish become entangled and stupefied ; or bruised stems of poisonous plants are thrown in, and the helpless fish float to the surface. The Polynesians mix Tephrosia piscatoris or Barringtonia speciosa with taro as a poison bait and catch the fish by hand.
The dog is occasionally used to drive fish (Fuegians, Ainu, and not unknown in England and Ireland) as otters are trained on the Yangtse ; while in Chinese lakes and canals cormorants dive for fish, with a cord round their necks to prevent the catch from being swallowed. In Australia and Torres straits, as in Central America, sucker-fish (Echeneis naucrates or remora) are used for catching small turtle. The fish is thrown out of the canoe with a line attached to the tail, and, attaches itself to the turtle. The line may then be drawn in, together with the turtle, or it acts as a guide to a man who swims down and gives it a finishing blow.
Kite-fishing is found sporadically from the Malay region to Santa Cruz island in Melanesia.
The recognition of definite rights over hunting grounds or fishing waters is usually clearly established and poach ing vigorously resented by the rightful owners, who are some times, however, placated by a share of the spoil. The Eskimo form an exception to this rule, for it is recorded that they have no strict divisions of hunting territory, holding that food belongs to everyone. The rights of the individual or the hunting group over the game killed were sometimes definitely fixed. Usually the man whose arrow first struck the animal, or first struck it in a vital part, had first claim. In the Andaman islands a pig belongs to the man whose arrow first strikes it, but a bachelor must be content to see it distributed by one of the older men, all the best parts going to his seniors, while he and his contemporaries have to be satisfied with the inferior parts.
Magic.—Magic plays a very important part in primitive hunt ing and fishing, and a man relies for his success as much on super natural as on natural means, while ill-success is ascribed less to lack of skill and inadequate weapons, than to failure in some pre liminary ritual, or to the stronger magic of some rival force. Sir J. G. Frazer in the Golden Bough describes the sympathetic magic worked by the Indians of British Columbia, the Australians and the hunters and fishers of the East Indian archipelago, with paral lel examples from Cambodia and the Scottish Highlands; and illustrations can be collected from all over the world.
T. Mason, Origins of Invention (1895) ; Sir Bibliography.-O. T. Mason, Origins of Invention (1895) ; Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (1907-15) ; Ellen Churchill Semple, Influences of Geographical Environment (191I) ; H. Balfour, "Kite Fishing," Essays and Studies presented to William Ridgeway (ed. E. C. Quiggin, Cambridge, 1913) ; A. R. Brown, The Andaman Islanders (Cambridge, 1922) ; Clark Wissler, The American Indian (2nd ed., 1922) ; W. J. Sollas, Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representatives (3rd ed., 1924) ; V. Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimos (New ed., 1924) ; S. S. Dornan, Pygmies and Bushmen of the Kalahari (1925) ; Sir W. B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Arunta (1927). (A. H. Q.)
