THE USE OF FISH POISONS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



By Eluswouth P. Kilop, United States National Museum, aiul Ai.ueut C. 

 Smith, Xctc York Botanical Garden 



[With 5 plates] 



The Indians who live along the Amazon Kiver and its numerous 

 tributaries have many ways of capturing lish, one of their staple 

 foods. Some of these are ancient methods, handed down from gen- 

 eration to generation; others have come from recent contacts with 

 civilization. There is still-fishing, the natives fashioning hooks 

 from the thorns of plants and from bones, or when tlie white man's 

 jjroducts have reached them, using manufactured steel hooks. Nets 

 of various kinds are much employed, some 1-man circular affairs that 

 require great dexterity to cast, others rectangular nets drawn through 

 the water by several men. Some times the fish are shot with arrows 

 or are speared. Along the lower Amazon, where the tide reaches 

 up from the Atlantic, enclosures are constructed of palm stems, 

 within which the fish are stranded as the tide ebbs. A most modern 

 method is used in regions lying in close contact with the commerce 

 of the world; dynamite is hurled into quiet pools, the natives tlien 

 diving after the stunned fish or retrieving them downstream by 

 forming a human barricade at a shallow stretch. 



But perhai)s the most interesting type of fishing is the old native 

 custom of throwing portions of plants into the water to stupefy 

 the fish, a procedure practiced since earliest times by primitive 

 people tliroughout the world and often mentioned by early exi)lorers 

 of the Americas. AVith the spread of civilizatioji, the area of this 

 usage is becoming more and more limited. So great is the destruc- 

 tion of fish, small as well as large, that decrees proliibitiug the 

 " j)oisoning " of streams have been ])ronmlgated, and where the ad- 

 ministrative authority has been sufficiently strong tliis method has 

 been abandoned. Therefore, to observe this curious method of fish- 

 ing with plants, to sec the plants actually being cultivated for this 

 l^urpose, and to make a thorough study of these materials, one nmst 

 penetrate into tlie more remote parts of the world. 



Ample opportunity was had to carry on such investigations by 

 members of a botanical expedition recentlyl sent by the Smithsonian 

 Institution to northeastern Peru and Amazoiiian Brazil. Reports 

 on the general botanical work accompiislu-d on t!ie trip have been 



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