PRIMITIVE INVENTIVENESS Hunting Methods.—Methods of hunting vary with the nature of the country and of the animal hunted, the ingenuity and inven tiveness of the hunters and the materials at their disposal. The Australians have few and plain weapons : their traps and snares are, for the most part, simple and obvious. They depend on their stone or bone-tipped spears, wooden clubs and missile club or boomerang. They stalk both emus and kangaroos, use pituri plant decoctions to stupefy emus at waterholes, and exploit the curiosity of the bird by luring it on to a pitfall in which it is speared. The Bushman of the Kalahari will run an unwounded springbok to a standstill in the hottest part of the day, keeping the animal constantly on the move, preventing it from lying down, until, by reason of the hot sand getting between its hoofs, it sinks exhausted to the ground. The Eskimo pursue sea-birds in their kayaks, following them by the bubbles when they rise, and, by tiring them out, catch them by hand. They also run down fawns in the spring, driving them into deep snow, a method used by the Plains Indians for killing the floundering bison.
Patience and cunning of a higher order are seen in the devices by which the hunter conceals his approach and the various nooses, snares, nets, traps, game-pits and decoys, found almost universally among primitive hunters. The Australian covers his head with water-weeds as he swims after water-fowl, or approaches the emu carrying a leafy branch to prevent the bird noticing him. The Bushman scatters a handful of dust over his head to make himself the same colour as the dry grass, or plaits a kind of saddle of grass, sticks some ostrich feathers in it and places it on his shoulders, holding up a long stick with the head curved to look like an ostrich. He imitates the actions of the bird, feeding, running, preening its feathers, and, always moving up wind, contrives to get as near as possible to the flock before discharging his poisoned arrow. Sometimes the imi tation is too realistic, and the cock bird, resenting the advances of a rival, attacks the little hunter. The Navaho hunter stalks deer disguised in a deer skin, and the Blackfoot puts on a bison skin when stalking bison. Nooses, snares, traps and pitfalls are very varied and the peculiarities of the animal to be lured are care fully studied, human ingenuity being pitted against animal cunning.
Firing the bush or prairie is a common method of startling game, which can easily be trapped or knocked over in terrified flight. Fire is used by the Zande for elephant hunting. When a herd is discovered a large circle surrounding it is fired simul taneously, and the entrapped animals, crowded together, bewil dered by the flames and blinded by the smoke, are unable to defend themselves and not a single beast escapes.
Any stick or stone can be picked up at random to knock over birds and small game, but specially shaped clubs or throwing sticks are common, such as the African knobkerry and the Australian waddy, which have developed into the more specialized trombash of the Upper Nile or the Australian boome rang (q.v.). The Australian spear is often only a stick, with its end hardened in the fire, though barbs may be added, or stone heads fixed in with "gum." The knife is a sharpened stone or made of the leg bone of the emu. In Australia, as in Arctic America, the spear is propelled by the spear-thrower to give greater range. Except in Australia bows and arrows are the universal weapons of primitive hunters, varying according to the skill of the maker, the materials at his disposal and the prospective victims. (See Bows AND ARROWS.) The blow-pipe or blow-gun (q.v.) is more silent than bow and arrow and, with its poisoned darts, is one of the deadliest weapons in the hands of the primitive hunter.
Poisons are both animal and vegetable, and consist of many ingredients which are mixed with secrecy and magic. The central Australians catch emu by pounding up pituri (Duboisia Hopwoodii) leaves with water as a bait ; the bird be comes stupefied and is easily speared. In parts of the Amazon region the poison is assaca sap, and all the hunters carry with them little bags of salt, which acts as an antidote. The Macusi of British Guiana make their famous curare ("urali") poison from the climbing Strychnos toxi f era, mixed with other plants, adding black and red ants, and the poison fangs of snakes. The Punan poison in Borneo is the dried juice of the upas tree. The Bushmen of South Africa have a wide range of vegetable poisons, using, as well as Strychnos, Eupliorbia, Digitalis, Stro phanthus and the "Bushman poison bush," Acocanthera venenata. They add snake poison glands, poisonous spiders and scorpions, and in particular the little and specially deadly caterpillar called
" Dogs.—Dogs are used to smell out, track, beat up and chase game, and their remains are found in deposits of Neolithic and earlier ages, though the Australian never trained the native dingo to help him catch his prey. The hunting dogs of the Lillooet of British Columbia were carefully trained and treated ; one good dog was worth a large dressed elk skin. As a rule the treatment of dogs by Indians compares very unfavourably with that of the Eskimo. Among the Eskimo seal-hunting would be scarcely possible without the help of dogs, who smell out the breathing holes under the snow. Dogs help the Labrador Eskimo in hunt ing the polar bear. Among the Gilyaks of the Amur river the dog is held in high esteem for at death the soul of the hunter passes into his favourite dog, which is fed with choice food and finally sacrificed on his master's grave. The Nagas of Manipur hunt in large numbers while the dogs drive out the game. Custom provides for the dogs (or owners of the dogs) a share of the quarry which is known as the dog's share. The "dog's share" is a recognized part of the spoil in Africa and in Melanesia. Lean, half-starved and savage tempered Bushman dogs accompany their masters : they attack leopard or hyena with courage born of hunger. The little yellow hunting dogs of central Africa are trained as beaters in the Congo. Some lc) or 12 men or boys go out to hunt duiker (antelope) and small game in the Ituri forest, armed with spears and two or three savage little prick-eared long tailed pit-dogs of a peculiar breed.
Fishing is commonly accessory to hunting and as widely distributed, but more restricted in its range, since purely fishing peoples are found only on the banks of large rivers or lakes or on sea coasts. Here, however, if the fish are abundant, fishers are able to maintain a more settled life than hunters on land, supporting themselves entirely on their catch, for food and trade. They are also less isolated than hunting peoples. Fish are not easily exterminated, and large groups can live in fishing villages, while the water provides a means of intercommunication.
There are whole tribes among whom fish forms the staple food all the year round. The Indians on the banks of the great rivers of north-west America where sturgeon grow to an ex traordinary size, could catch and dry enough fish to last from one season to the next, and if not, there is scarcely a month in which some species of "salmon" cannot be caught. The Eskimo are great fishermen and in the winter live mainly on sea or river produce. In the summer the women fish while the men hunt, and dried or frozen fish and seal meat form the winter provisions. At the other extremity of the continent the Fuegians, a sea-shore people, fish from their frail boats made of bark and train their dogs to assist them by plunging into the water and driving the fish. Fishing is important on all the great rivers of Siberia, where people without reindeer are dependent on natural resources. The Gilyaks and Golds of the Amur river live entirely on fish and on the bears which crowd down to join in the fishing, when the salmon "run." Transparent fish skin supplies the windows for the half-underground houses, and, in former days, the clothing was of salmon skin, ornamented with carp skin, a fashion now abandoned, though fish skin shoes are commonly worn in the summer.
Many people are mainly if not entirely dependent on fishing in Africa, living on the banks of the great rivers or on the shores of the great lakes. With the negroes of Melanesia and through out the islands of the Pacific, fish, dugong and turtle are especially welcome as a change in the ordinary vegetable diet. In some islands anything connected with fishing is too sacred to be touched by women, and all but certain fish are tabu to them. In Samoa the men take their netting with them to the council meet ing, and in New Zealand no woman may approach a net-maker. In south-eastern Asia, in the Malay archipelago and on the Chinese coast, are families and groups of families who seldom land on shore and never settle there for any length of time. Their homes are their boats, and fishing is their livelihood, supple mented by trade, or by piracy. The peaceful Mawken of the Mergui archipelago are almost entirely self-supporting, trading their surplus fish, trepang and other sea produce, to the Chinese, in exchange for a little grain or spirit, or cloth; the boat is the house, with convenient notches for the children to clamber in and out, and if obliged by storm to take refuge on land, the deck awning forms the temporary hut.
