1918.] jST. Annandale: Fhh of the Inle Lake. 5? 



Both these tables refer to the whole of the Yawnghwe State and 

 no separate statistics are available for the Inle Lake ; but the lake 

 fisheries are of very much greater importance than those of streams, 

 swamps and rice-fields. 



The names of fishing apparatus given in the second table are not 

 in all cases intelligible even to a Burmese scholar, for many of them 

 are strictly local. I have to thank Mr. G. deP. Cotter of the Geolo- 

 gical Survey of India for elucidating some of them. They are not in 

 most cases the same as those I obtained myself from the Intha fisher- 

 men in reference to specimens collected. It may be remembered, how- 

 ever, that the word Hmyon means a basket or basket-work trap of any 

 kind, Hmya a hook, Khayin a fish-spear and Pailx a net. Nga means 

 fish. The specific Intha names of different species of fish will be found 

 on pp. 24, 25. Nga-Yan is Ophiocephalus striatus, Nga-Pein or Hpein 

 the true Carp, Nga-Kon-Ma the Burmese Eed-finned Barbel {Barbus 

 sarana caudimarginatus) . 



Fishing Boats. 



The Intha ('' Sons of the Lake "") are great boat-builders and boat- 

 men, very fond of boatracing. All their boats are, however, of one 

 type. They are long and narrow, almost flat-bottomed and with very 

 little freeboard. The two ends of the boat are identical, each is raised 

 and bifurcated at the tip and a Httle widened so that a rope passed 

 over it does not sHp. The bottom of the boat is built of the outer 

 sections of several tree-trunks laid end to end, and its size is measured 

 by the number of logs thus used. Planks are built up above the logs 

 and the whole is covered with a thick layer of thitsi varnish composed 

 of wood-oil from the tree Melanorrhoea usitata mixed with daniar resin. 

 Broken shells of Gastropod molluscs from the lake are sometimes mixed 

 with the varnish and applied on the raised ends of the boat to give 

 the boatmen foot-hold. 



The boats are rowed by means of paddles with fairly long blades. 

 The Intha as a rule row standing and use their legs as well as their 

 arms in rowing. The leg is hooked round the outside of the paddle in 

 such a way that the two first toes touch and sometimes grasp the shaft 

 from behind above the top of the blade. The position is shown very 

 well in the photograph on pi. V, fig. 1. It is not uncommon to see a 

 man rowing with his right arm and right leg, standing on his left leg 

 and wielding a fish-spear with his left arm (pi. VI, fig. 2). Women 

 also row in the same fashion. The right and left arms and legs are 

 used indiscriminately. When a man is fishing in a boat by himself he 

 often uses a simple contrivance to keep it steady while he is spearing 

 fish or otherwise employed. The contrivance of two fiat, more 

 or less paddle-shaped pieces of wood tied together by a piece of string, 

 which is laid across the boat near one end and is sufficiently long to 

 allow the two boards to hang into the water one on each side (pi. VI, 

 fig. 2). 



Sails are not very often employed and the Intha are not skilled in 

 their use. A single mast is, however, sometimes fixed in a block fas- 

 tened to a cross-bar near one end of the boat and a narrow oblong sail 

 of cloth hoisted on it. A much commoner practice is the use of a large 



