24 INTRODUCTION 



massive tomes of Ancient Peruvian Art by A. Baessler, nor 

 The Fish in Peruvian Art by Charles W. Mead vouchsafe it. 



To the absence among the ancient Peruvians of any written 

 language Mead attributes the very early arrival of conventional- 

 ism in art. In consequence of conventionalism, fish at the period 

 reached are merely rendered as various designs, notably that 

 of the " interlocked fishes," i.e. a pattern of parts of two fish 

 turned in opposite directions, a curious example of which may 

 be found in Mead, Plate I. fig. 9. The mythological monster, 

 part fish part man, in Plate II. fig. 13, compares and con- 

 trasts with similar Assyrian representations. 



The tomes of The Necropolis of Ancon fail also to aid us. 

 Among the hundreds of objects of Inca civilization depicted, 

 nothing piscatorial, except some copper fishing hooks and a 

 few spears, comes to view.i Joyce, however, gives a fishing 

 scene depicted on a pot from the Truxillo district of the coast, 

 which the author dates pre-Inca, or anywhere between 200 b.c, 

 and A.D.2 



From his book emerge two interesting points of comparative 

 mythology. The first — which compares with Assyrian and 

 other similar legends ^ — the tradition that culture was first 

 brought to Ecuador by men of great stature coming from the 

 sea, who lived by fishing with nets ; the second — which 

 compares with the Egyptian practice — the custom among 

 certain primitive coast tribes of placing provisions, among 

 which were fish, in the graves of the dead.'* 



Other races of the world present many points of similarity 

 to the French cave men. The Bushmen of Africa, and the 

 Bushmen of Austraha, inter alios, exemplify this. Banfield, in 

 dealing with the drawings or so-called frescoes of men, animals, 

 and fish on Dunk Island, vouches for the latter as "of talent, 



^ Baessler translated by A. H. Keane (Asher & Co.), London, 1902-3. 

 Mead's monograph is in the Putnam Anniversary Volume. New York, 1909. 

 The Necropolis of Ancon, by Reiss and Stiibel. translated by A. H. Keane, 

 Berlin, 1880-87. 



^ T. A. Joyce, South American ArchcBology, London, 1912, p. 126. 



^ See infra, p. 371. 



* Indian Notes and Monographs, published by the Heye Foundation, 

 New York, 1919, p. 56, show in the tombs of Cayuga fish-hooks, harpoons, and 

 fish-bones, " most of which objects are unique or unusual as grave finds." 



