214 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



repeatedly mentioned by them ; Cortes himself, in one of his letters to the em- 

 peror Charles the Fifth, speaks of these tanks. He also states there that great 

 quantities of fish — fresh, salt, uncooked, and cooked — were sold in the market of 

 Tenochtitlan.* Montezuma's table, it is even said, was frequently provided v.'ith 

 fish from the Gulf of Mexico, brought to the capital by runners, twenty -four 

 hours after their capture. The name of Michoacan, one of the Mexican pro- 

 vinces, means " the place where possessors of fish live." Opochtli received 

 homage as the patron of Mexican fishermen. " The god Opochtli," says Saha- 

 gun, " was placed among the number of the Tlaloques, which signifies inhabi- 

 tants of the terrestrial paradise ; yet people generally were convinced that he 

 was only a man. They ascribed to him the invention of fishing-nets and of an 

 implement called minacachalli, used in killing fish, and resembling a fork armed 

 with three prongs, like a trident. It was also used in hunting birds. He had 

 likewise invented bird-snares and paddles.f According to the Abbe Clavigero, 

 it appears that he was known under dififerent names. " In Cuitlahuac, a city 

 upon a little island in the lake of Chalco," says that author, " there was a god 

 of fishing highly honored, named Amimitl, who probably differed from Opochtli 

 no otherwise than in name. "J 



Notwithstanding these different data evidencing the importance of fishing 

 among the Mexicans, I have in the course of my reading found but little that 

 would serve to elucidate the methods employed by them in that pursuit. Clavi- 

 gero, a comparatively recent, but acknowledged, authority, confines himself to 

 the observation that they commonly made use of nets in fishing, but that they 

 also employed hooks, harpoons, and weirs. § 



Some designs in the collection of Mexican pictographs, called the Mendoza 

 Codex, show that the male youth in Mexico received at an etirly age instruction 

 in fishing. These pictures were executed by native artists shortly after the con- 

 quest, during the administration of the viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, and sent 

 by him, with interpretations in Aztec and Spanish, as a present to the emperor 

 Charles the Fifth. A copy of this codex in the Bodleian Library at Oxford has 

 been reproduced in the first volume of Lord Kingsborough's " Mexican Antiqui- 

 ties " (London, 1831). The codex consists of three parts, treating, respectively, 



* " Vendcn miicho pescado fresco, y salado, crudo, y guisado. " — Lorenznna : Historia de Mejico, escriia por su 

 Esclarecido Conquistador, Hernan Cortes; New York, 1828; p. 150. 



f Sahagun : Histoire Generale des Glioses de la Nouvelle-Espagne ; traduite et annotee par D. Jourdanet et 

 Eemi Simeon ; Paris, 1880; p. 36. — Bernardino de Sahagun, a Prancisan, came to Me.xico in 1529 and died there 

 in 1590. He is the chief authority on Mexican mythology. 



X Clavigero: The History of Mexico; translated by Charles CuUen ; Philadelphia, 1817; Vol. II, p. 22.— 

 The Italian original of Clavigero's work was published at Gesena, in 1780. 



§Ibid.; Vol. II; p. 187. 



