METHODS OF FISHING 27 
voracious ways of certain fishes, the lifetime of a fishook is brief. McGovern, 
however, page 234, finds the inhabitants of the Uaupés using bone hooks made in 
evident imitation of the metal ones; Orton found hooks used to some extent (page 
478). André describes an implement known as the robador. It was a weighted 
line, with a row of bare hooks. Thrown among a school of fishes, one or more of 
the hooks would meet with its prey a sufficiently large number of times. 
Harpooning is practised in this as in other parts of the world. I was interested 
to observe three modifications of the method. The first was a homemade ‘‘gig’’, 
three stout wires sharpened and bound to a pole in the Neptunian manner. Such 
an implement was seen in use both in the Titicaca region, and on Chinchaycocha, 
where it was a frogging rather than a fishing weapon. Neither the tines nor the 
pole are native products of the highlands, and must be gotten through trade. In 
one of the best early accounts, however, Bandelier (page 48) quotes Father Cobo, 
as early as 1683, Historia del Mundo Nuevo, II, 227, as to the use of the fisga. 
This was then a three-pronged harpoon, which they ‘‘used in the right hand while 
swimming in pursuit of the fish with the left’’. Bandelier justly remarks that 
swimming in these waters for as much as fifteen minutes would be impossible. 
I never observed anyone swimming in or about the lake, even for a moment, nor 
wading longer than necessary. 
A second type of harpoon was a two-pronged iron javelin with a shaft consisting 
of the stem of a cane, of considerable strength, and extreme lightness, used for 
fishes of moderate size, thrown, not jJabbed. 
The third type, however, was a much heavier one, with a wooden shaft of some 
eight feet in length, capable of floating. A detachable, barbed iron head with a 
length of cord completed it. Its special usefulness was in taking the larger Pime- 
lodids and the piraruci. Orton (page 478) alludes to the spearing of such fishes. 
André (page 75) found a combination of gigging of mullet with the luring by torch- 
light, about the mangroves of Guiana. 
Various forms of trapping are practised. Whitney gives a photograph of a 
type having numerous variants (opp. page 116). It consists of bamboo canes, 
lashed together, and brought toward a point, like a funnel. Staked in the riffles 
of a stream, it 1s capable of retaining small fishes unable to make way against a 
strong current. (Fig. 11). Elsewhere Whitney (page 95) describes a triangular 
trap made of slats of cakouri palm, such as I frequently saw used for floors. The 
fishes are taken out of it by hand. MacCreagh (opp. page 369) also figures such a 
trap used in the Rio Negro region. Tolten (page 235) refers to a wicker basket- 
trap for “‘bony-scaled”’ catfish, and others refer to basket traps set in waterfalls. 
An interesting trap was being used on the eastern shore of Lake Titicaca. 
Made of wicker, its warp was a rope of plaited, native 7chu-grass. A cord of the 
same material was used to lower the device from a buoy. Its bottom consisted of a 
funnel-shaped lead-in for the entrance of the victim. 
Roth (page 15, fig. 10 and page 16, fig. 11) and (Kahn, page 88) describe 
spring-traps intended to be baited, and as a refinement of the principle, a spring- 
basket trap. 
