298 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



each other's ears. After the great copper globe of the sun burns into the ocean, 

 bivouac fires spring up along the sand among the enormous redwood drift-logs, 

 and families hover around them to roast the evening repast. The squaws bustle 

 about the fires while the weary smelt-fishermen, in their nude and savage 

 strength, are grouped together squatting or leaning about, with their smooth, 

 dark, clean-moulded linabs in statuesque attitudes of repose. Dozens of canoes 

 laden with bushels on bushels of the little silver fishes, shove ofi^ and move 

 silently away u}) the darkling river." (Page 47, etc.). 



[The Henaggi ; Smith River]. " The Ilenaggi deserve special mention on 

 account of the handsome canoes which they fashion out of redwood. I saw one 

 on Humboldt Hay, which had been launched by them on Smith River, and which 

 had therefore demonstrated its sea-worthiness by a voyage of over a hundred 

 miles. It was forty-two feet long and eight feet four inches wide, and capable 

 of carrying twenty-four men or five tons of freight. It was ' a thing of beauty,' 

 sitting plumb and lightly on the sea, smoothly polished, and so symmetrical that 

 a pound's weight on either side would throw it slightly out of trim. Twenty -four 

 tall, swarthy boatmen, naked e.xcept around the loins, standing erect in it, as 

 their habit is, and with their narrow paddles measuring off" the blue waters with 

 long, even sweeps, must have been a fine spectacle." (Page 69). 



[The Viard or Wiyot ; Humboldt Bay, Eel River]. "Like all coast tribes 

 the Viard depended largely on fishing for a subsistence, and the lower waters of 

 Eel River yielded them a wonderful amount of rich and oleaginous eels. To 

 capture these they constructed a funnel-shajied trap of sj^lints, with a funnel- 

 shaped entrance at the large end, through which the creature could wriggle, but 

 which closed on him and detained him inside. Traps of this kind tliey weighted 

 down so that they floated mostly below the surface of the water, and then tied 

 them to stakes planted in the river bottom. Thus they turned about with the 

 swash of the tide, keeping the large ends always against the current, that the 

 eels might slip in readily." (Page 103). 



[The Wailakki ; western slope of the Shasta Mountains]. " In the hot and 

 sweltering interior of the State the Indians generally leave their warm winter 

 lodges as soon as the dry season is well established, and camp for the summer 

 in light, open wickiups of brushwood, which they sometimes abandon two or 

 three times during the summer for convenience in fishing, etc. Immediately on 

 the coast this is scarcely done at all, because not necessary ; but the Wailakki 

 generally go higher uj) the little streams in the heated term, roaming and camp- 

 ing along where the salmon trout {Sahno Masoni) and the Coast Range trout 

 {Salmo irideus) most abound. They capture those and other minnows in a rather 

 ignominious and un-Waltonian fashion. When the summer heat dries up the 

 streams to stagnant pools, they rub the poisonous soap-root in the water until 



