408 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
BASKETS. 
With the exception of baskets (hinau) used in catching opai (shrimps) 
the natives do not do much in this line, the South Sea Islanders being 
the principal users of this form of apparatus. 
In opai fishing two varieties of baskets are used. One, the hinai 
opai, sometimes called apua opai, looks somewhat like the coa!-scuttle 
bonnets in vogue some years ago. It is woven from the air roots of 
the ieie (Freycinetia arborea). This is employed when shrimping in 
the mountain streams, and the work is generally done by the women. 
When fishing the women hold the basket in one hand, a short stick in 
the other, and moving in a crouching position through the water, they 
drive the opai from under the rocks, etc., to a suitable spot, which is 
always some place where the grass, ferns, or branches of trees droop 


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Basket for Catching Opai. 
over on the water. The opai take refuge in or under these and the fish- 
erwoman, placing her basket under the leaves, lifts them out of the 
water, when the opai drop off into the basket, from whence they are 
removed to a gourd, with a small mouth, which the woman has been 
dragging pena Here in the water by a string tied to her waist. 
Another method of fishing in the streams is to take a fairly deep 
basket with a large mouth, and putting this in a favorable spot in the 
water, build a mud wall on both sides of it and extending out a short 
distance. The fisherwoman then goes a little ways upstream and by 
beating the water drives the opai into the basket, which she removes 
and empties, going on to another place and repeating the operation. 
When fishing for opai in salt and brackish water a basket is used 
with a wide abe mouth, graduaily sloping toward the center, a few 
inches from which it suddenly branches off into what looks like a long 
circular spout inclosed at the extreme end. These baskets vary in 
size and are usualiy operated by women. Holding the basket in the 
left hand they wade out in an almost nude condition to a suitable spot, 
