ABOKIGINAL AMEKTCAX HARPOONS. 2l9 



tho lino not only coniu'cts tirrowhoufl and iirn)w shaft, but its other 

 (Mid is held Hrmly in the hands of the Indian, who now easily hauls 

 the fish on to the rock. Sometimes, instead of waiting on a rock, in 

 his eagerness he stands in the midst of the almost overwhelmino- rush 

 of the water, stooping-, the better to resist its force. In either case, 

 if he is skillful, he gets a large number of tish. Im Thurn saw 15 

 pacu, averaging about 7 or S jiounds in weight, shot l)v one man in 

 twenty minutes. When enough have been taken the Indian loads 

 his canoe and returns to his temporary camp. The fish are then cut 

 oj)en and cleaned, their sides are slit again and again, salt is rubbed 

 in. and they are put on the rocks to dry in the sun. 



It is not, however, only in the falls that the Indian shoots fish, though 

 he rarely gets pacu elsewhere. In the smooth reaches of tlie river he 

 shoots others of various kinds. Indeed, he can almost always and Qvevy- 

 where find tish to shoot, and he seldom fails to hit them when the}' are 

 once seen. When the water is snu)oth two other fish arrows are used. 

 Of these one^ difi'ers from the harpoon before mentioned in that a 

 short line connects only the head — which in this case also is slipped 

 on to the shaft — and the shaft, instead of l)eing carried on the arm of 

 the shooter. The struggles of the fish when hit immediately cause 

 the shaft to slip out of the head, and the former, which is very long 

 and light, floats on the top of the water, but remains connected with 

 the fish l)y the line, and so serves as a buoy and marks the position of 

 the fish." 



NORTH AMERICAN HARPOONS. 



Between the northern and the southern continents of the Western 

 Hemisphere the mode of communication was by land or by water. 

 By land the dividing line between North and South America Mas very 

 near the route of the projected Nicaraguan Canal. The gold-working 

 Chibchas of British Columl)ia had as their northern t)Oundary the San 

 Juan River. By water there was no partition between the continents. 

 The Caribian and the Araw\akan tribes encountered by Spanish explor- 

 ers all aV)out the Cari})bean Sea were also found away southward in the 

 Orinoco drainage and farther. There will be no surprise, therefore, 

 on finding the same devices of capture widely distributed. The same 

 animal will be killed in many places with smiilar harpoons^ because 

 in the struggle for survival among weapons this or that form proved 

 the fittest; also ))ecause of that subtle, imaginary kinship ))etween men 

 and animals of prey which encourages the man to follow animals of 

 particular species. The barbed head, with tang fitting into a .socket at 

 the end of the shaft, and the socketed head, whose cup-shaped base fits 

 on to a pointed foreshaft, continue to exist with little change until 



' Iiii Thurn, Among the Indiana of British Guiana, 1883, p. 235, fig. 96. 

 ^Idem., pp. 235-237. 



