THE FISHERIES OF WEST-CENTRAL SOUTH AMERICA 
The streams of South America are unparalleled for length, width, depth, 
volume, number and variety of tributaries, and for the intricate network of half- 
explored backwater channels—unequalled therefore in the opportunity they have 
presented to the ichthyfauna for the evolution of species and of populations. The 
part that fishes have played in the daily lives of the human population is con- 
sequently very large. This is true chiefly as a source of food, but also in a variety 
of other ways, such as the handicrafts, folklore, and religion. Travelers have 
sometimes reported that this is true, but have brought back little circumstantial 
information. Few books deal with fishes or fisheries to greater length than a 
paragraph or as much as a few pages. 
Beals uses the word fish at least six times (1934) but makes no mention of 
fishes. Koebel, writing from the economic point of view, makes the scantiest 
mention of fisheries and the possibility of their development. He says naively 
(1915, 233), writing of the native dependence on fish as food: ‘‘it is said that the 
Amazon contains a freshwater replica of every salt water fish from the whale 
downwards... the manatee of a size to be hunted by the Indian with the harpoon 
... but with the growth of inland communications it is possible that the demand 
will spring up, in which case no doubt the neglected industry of fish will gain a 
much-needed impetus.”’ 
Enoch, trained observer, student of natural resources, hasn’t so much as a line 
on this particular resource, while Domville-Fife in a book on the economic life of 
Brazil, gives one brief paragraph to the fisheries of Uruguay, including fresh- 
water and marine. 
Whitbeck (1926, 233) in an economic geography, finds room for an account of 
the vanishing and picturesque vicuna, but makes only passing mention of the fish- 
eries of the coast, none of those of the interior. He discusses the oft-described 
Sunday market of Huancayo, but hasn’t a word for the shopping habits of all 
Amazonia; gives all the credit for the production of guano to the birds, none to the 
fishes who sacrifice their all. 
Those pioneer students of natural resources, Herndon and Gibbon, make 
numerous allusions to fishing, few to fisheries, and as to fishes, they only repeat a 
few matters told them by the natives. For example, Gibbon thus reports nine 
kinds found at the outlet of Lake Titicaca and absent at Puno; that there are more 
kinds in the limpid east side than in the shallow northwest corner. 
Squier (146, 148, and 173) says “‘the waters of Titicaca hide a variety of strange 
fishes which contribute to support a population necessarily scanty”. Conversely 
Bandelier (page 48) reports the Indian population of Titicaca Island not much 
addicted to fishing. He mentions the occurrence of twelve kinds including bogas 
and suchis. Means (page 134) gives weight to Penalosa’s account (1586) of the 
Uru tribe and its dependence on fish and ‘roots of wild plants’? (no doubt the 
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