FISH POISON 



hunter and tribesman, instead of being only a member of a 

 morose, outcast family, always wandering and always hungry. 



Probably poisons were first used in fishing. Many veget- 

 able drugs, when thrown into pools and lakes, have the 

 property of stupefying or killing the fish. A great many of 

 these fish poisons are known, and it is quite easy to use 

 them. 



Amongst the Dyaks of Borneo, screens of basketwork 

 are placed along a stream to prevent the fish escaping. 

 Then the Dyaks collect along either bank in their canoes. 

 Everybody has a supply of the root of the tubai (Meni- 

 spermum sp.), which they hammer with stones in the water 

 inside the canoe, so as to extract the poison. At a given 

 signal the poisonous stuff is baled into the river, and very 

 soon afterwards a scene of wild excitement begins, for the fish 

 are speared or captured with handnets as they rise, stupefied, 

 to the surface. The women scoop up the small fry in their 

 nets.^ 



Even at the Sea of Galilee, Tristram mentions that Arabs 

 sometimes obtain their fish by poisoned bread-crumbs. In 

 the South Sea Islands, at Tahiti, a poison is obtained from 

 the nuts of a kind of Betonica, and is used to catch the fish 

 among the reefs near shore.^ In West Africa several fish poisons 

 are in use (e.g. seeds of Tephrosia Vogelii), and probably 

 the same methods are used almost everywhere. They are 

 by no means extinct even at home, for the occasional poacher 

 sometimes uses fish poisons. 



Arrow poison is, however, much more important, and is 

 used by a great number of tribes in almost every part of the 



^ Ling Roth, Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. 22, London, 1892 ; and 

 Mason, I.e. 



2 Tristram, Land of Israel ; Mason, Origin of Inventions, p. 298. 



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