362 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 33 



the point where the fisherman stood. Kolupan had speared fish both 

 ways. 



When water was low enough for persons to walk in the stream with 

 ease, men and women fished jointly. They entered the stream in 

 semicircular arrangement, elbow to elbow, near the affluence of two 

 rivers or of a river and a lake, and proceeded upstream. Each man 

 held before him in the water a container, either an open sack of hide 

 or a homewoven rug shaped like a receptacle, and each woman held a 

 piece of chamall (homewoven cloth). As the men and women moved 

 forward, fish were trapped in the containers. If the catch was big, 

 the women often sorted out the small fish and dropped them into their 

 blouses ; large fish were thrown onto the shore to be picked up later. 

 Before setting out to fish a prayer was said — a short one if only a few 

 fish were to be caught. My informant recited the following short one 

 in Araucanian : "My God, help us to catch fish. We are leaving home 

 now to catch fish. May God help us." "If we went for a big haul 

 we said a much longer prayer." 



It sometimes happened that there were too few men and women 

 for a close semicircular formation. In that event the men made a 

 trap by attaching a piece of woven material, known as matra, length- 

 wise to a long colihiie stalk. Several men held both ends of the stalk 

 slightly above water, bending it somewhat to form a semicircle ; other 

 men walked immediately behind so as to keep the matra in vertical 

 position. The women and any men not needed at the trap had in the 

 meantime walked some distance upstream, on the shore. They now 

 walked slowly downstream in the water making a slight noise, thus 

 causing the fish to swim downstream toward the trap. When a goodly 

 number of fish had collected close to the matra, the men behind it 

 lifted the bottom of it forward, forming a bowl-shaped trap in which 

 the fish were caught and lifted out of the water. The matra was then 

 carried ashore and emptied. If the catch was too small the trapping 

 was repeated. 



If only a small number of fish was desired two men walked up- 

 stream, each grasping the shorter end of a matra that was weighted 

 down with stones attached at intervals. As fish approached the matra, 

 the men caught them by hand and threw them onto the shore. Matras 

 used in fishing were usually from 4 to 6 yards in length and 4 feet in 

 width. Sometimes several women just out for a walk along a stream 

 would catch by hand any fish that swam their way, and carry them 

 home in their blouses. Fish were never anesthetized. 



At no time were small children allowed around where elders were 

 fishing. "The less noise there was, the tamer the fish behaved." 



