64 FISHERMEN OF THE UNITED STATES. 



wise" observers may not always be able to explain the relation between the "signs" and the 

 changes which they predict. 



Superstitious usages. — Some fishermen will not have their hair cut except when the moon 

 is increasing in size, fearing that otherwise their hair will fall out. This idea, which is akin to the 

 common one found throughout the rural districts of the Eastern and Middle States that animals 

 killed in the waning of the moon will shrink when cooked, is by no means peculiar to the fisher- 

 men. The fishermen of former days, like other sea-faring men, were accustomed to wear ear rings 

 to improve their eye sight; but this custom is almost, if not entirely, extinct among the American- 

 born fishermen. Once in a while a veteran is still to be found with the picturesque old ear-rings 

 in his ears. The European fishermen of California and the Southern States still adhere to this 

 practice. Some fishermen carry potatoes in their pockets as a preventive of rheumatism, and wear 

 nutmegs round their necks to cure scrofulous or other humors. These usages are also shared by hun- 

 dreds of thousands of our shore population, who carry in their pockets the "lucky-bones" of fishes, 

 certain bones of animals, as well as horse-chestnuts and other vegetable products as prophylactics. 

 Many of the Roman Catholics among the fishermen of course wear amulets as personal safeguards. 

 A fisherman who has wounded his finger with a fish hook will immediately stick the hook into a 

 piece of pine wood, thinking that he thus may hasten the cure of his wound. Warts are supposed to 

 be removed by counting them and pronouncing over them a certain formula of words. In dressing 

 codfish, some fishermen always save the largest fish to dress last. It is a very common custom 

 to nail a horse-shoe on the end of the bowsprit for good luck. Among the French Canadians em- 

 ployed on our fishing vessels there are a few who still retain their ancestral belief in spirits and 

 fairies ; and the Scotch and Scandinavians and others have brought over with them the folk-lore 

 of their fatherland. They soon become ashamed of talking about such beliefs. Whatever their 

 private opinions may be, they seldom refer to them after having been associated for a few years 

 with their unpoetical and skeptical shipmates. 



A curious custom is found on many of the cod vessels, especially those of Cape Cod, connected 

 with the process of dressing the fish. After a fish has been decapitated, its body is passed by the 

 header to the splitter. If the body still exhibits signs of life, the splitter will usually ask the 

 header to kill the fish, which he does by a blow upon the back of the skull. This act, performed 

 upon the severed head, is supposed to have an immediate effect upon the body, which is in the 

 hands of another man. A Gloucester fishing captain of thirty years' experience, who sits near us 

 while we write, remarks: "It is a singular thing, but it is surely true, that when the head is treated 

 in this manner the body always straightens out." 



37. DIALECT. 



PECULIARITIES OF DIALECT. — Among the native-born fishermen of New England, particu- 

 larly those of the rural districts of Cape Cod and Maine, a very pure, forcible English dialect is 

 spoken. The inhabitants of this region retain the peculiar modes of expression in use among their 

 English ancestors, who came to this country two hundred years or more ago. It is estimated that 

 .SO per cent, of the inhabitants Of Cape Cod at the present (lay are lineal descendants of English 

 ancestors who settled the tow ns of that district between 1620 and 1750, and the percentage is 

 probably equally as great, if not larger, on the coast of Maine. As is well known, very many of the 

 English immigrants to these regions were men of education and good family. As a consequence 

 the English of the shore populations and of the fishermen belonging to those districts is pure, 



idiomatic, and strong. Many provincial words, or words which were in common use in England 

 two centuries ago and are now marked as obsolete in the dictionaries, are still iu use among 



