216 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



tortillas for a meal. In the other group (Fig. 359 on the j^receding page) a 

 father superintends the fishing of his son of fourteen years, who stands in the 

 canoe, dropping into it a fish, or fishes, caught with a scoop-net. The meal of the 

 boy still consists of two tortillas. 



Though the boats here figured are unproportionally small, we learn at least 

 how they were shaped. We also become cognizant of the fact that the Aztecs 

 used scoop-nets. 



Some other designs relating to fishing, in the Codex Borgianus (College of 

 the Propaganda at Rome) and the Codex Vatican us, both reproduced in the 

 third volume of Kingsborough's work, are not sufficiently illustrative to warrant 

 reproduction in this place. 



ARTIFICIAL SHELL-DEPOSITS. 



Introductory Notices. — The accummulations of shells owing their origin to 

 human agency, which, as formerly stated, occur in various places on the North 

 American sea-coasts, correspond in many respects to the Danish kjokkenmod- 

 dings described in the first part of this work ; but, while the period of abandon- 

 ment of the latter is lost in the dawn of history, some of those found in this 

 country were doubtless still in the process of formation in recent times ; for 

 modes of life, which had long ago ceased to exist in Europe, continued to prevail 

 among certain tribes of North America. 



Cabeza de Vaca was the first to allude to North American shell-deposits. 

 He sojourned as a prisoner on an island {Isla del Malhado) in the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico, watched by a number of Indians, who, on account of a famine on that island, 

 were compelled to leave it. They proceeded to terra Jirma, visiting the neigh- 

 boring bays, which abounded in oysters. " For three months," the Spanish author 

 says, " they subsist on these shell-fish, and drink very bad water. Wood is there 

 very rare, and the country full of mosquitoes. They construct their cabins of 

 mats, and erect them on heaps of oyster-shells, upon which they sleep naked."* 



The Jesuit missionary, Father Isaac Jogues, refers incidentally to shell- 

 heaps which he noticed in 1643 on Manhattan Island : — " There are some 

 houses built of stone. Lime they make of oyster-shells, great hea^js of which 

 are found here, made formerly by the savages, who subsist in part by that 

 fishery."f 



* Cabeza de Vaca: Naufragios; p. 16. — " Sua Casas son edificadas de Esteras, sobre muchas Cascaras de Hos- 



tiones, i sobre cUos duermen encueros." 



f Jogues : Narrative of a Captivity among the Mohawk Indians, a Description of New Netherland in 1642-3, 

 and other Papers. "With a Memoir of the Author, by John Gilmary Shea; New York, 1857; p. 57. — In the 

 original : — " II y a quelques logis baetys de pierre ; ils font la chaux avec des coquilles d'huistres dont il y a de 

 grans monceaux fails autrefois par les sauvages, qui vivent en partie de cette pesche." 



