24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.60. 



most primitive method of fishing is hand capture. Clubs for strik- 

 ing, nets and weirs for entangling, and poison for asphyxiating are 

 all found among the instruments employed in this art; but the 

 pointed implement is most common and has had varied differentia- 

 tion. In this exhibit are shown four illustrative series — harpoon 

 barbs, harpoon toggles, fishhooks, and sinkers. In the progress of 

 invention the classes become intermingled. The first hooks or spears 

 were very simple affairs. Aquatic animals, useful to men, were 

 abundant and unwary. The increase of demand through enlarge- 

 ment of population rendered the animals more difficult to take, and 

 the natural tendency of all peoples to accomplish the same end with 

 less effort tended toward the improvement of the hook and the 

 spear. So the efficiency of the hook, the length of the line, and the 

 complication of the barb and the toggle have been modified and im- 

 proved as culture advanced. 



SERIES 1. HAKPOON BAKB. 



Plate 24. 



The barbed harpoon (series 1) retrieves the animal by hooking 

 into its skin or flesh. Its parts are the shaft or manual portion, 

 and the head or working portion. In some examples the tang of the 

 head is driven into the end of the shaft, in which case the imple- 

 ment is generally termed a spear; in other cases the butt end fits 

 loosely into the shaft, so as to be easily withdrawn; it is then a 

 harpoon. A short piece of line or rawhide is tied around a knob or 

 through a hole in the head, and at the other end is fastened to the 

 shaft. When the animal is struck the barb becomes hooked under the 

 skin of the game, whose motions withdraw the head from the shaft, 

 so that it is not broken. The line enables the hunter to retrieve. 

 This type of apparatus begins with a natural object, which may 

 have spines upon it, and passes through a refinement of the various 

 portions of the structure in adapting it to animals of different sizes 

 and habits. In fresh water the retriever is little more than a hand 

 device for seizing, but among the Polynesians the handles to barbed 

 spears used in sea fishing are 20 feet long. The Fuegians use a 

 barbed head on a shaft quite as long, and the two parts are united 

 by means of a short line. 

 No. 1. Bone head for small barbed harpoon ; barb cut on one side. Heads of 



this kind are driven into the end of a shaft 100,583 



No. 2. Patagonian harpoon head with one large barb. This head fits loosely 



into the end of a long shaft and is attached by a short line 131,217 



No. 3. Patagonian harpoon head with 21 barbs, all on one side. Fits loosely 



in the end of the shaft 131,219 



No. 4. Patagonian harpoon heads, arrow-shaped ; tang fitting in a socket at the 



end of the shaft ; attached to the shaft by short line__ 131,218, 129,488 



