91 



COMMONWEALTH OF 



THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS 



Statement of Jesus C. Borja 



June 1, 1995 



Accounts of the intricate fishing techniques and skills of 

 our ancestors are also found in the historical record. Fray Juan 

 Pobre de Zamora, a lay brother of the Franciscans, visited Rota 

 in 1602. He recorded fishing methods and events witnessed by the 

 Spaniard Sancho, a shipwreck survivor. Sancho related how entire 

 villages would fish from many boats for flying fish. He compared 

 the abundant catch to the Spanish sardine harvest. He told of 

 indigenous fishermen sailing far out to sea to catch blue mar- 

 lin. They used flying fish bait and had to battle sharks for 

 their catch. Sancho said the people of the Marianas "use the 

 same kinds of tricks that our people use and many more. . . . 

 [T]hese are the most skilled deepwater fishing people yet to have 

 been discovered . " 



Quoted in J. Amesbury, R. Hunter-Anderson & E. Wells, supra , 

 note 2, at 25, 26 . Another remarkable technique was reported by 

 the French scientific expedition of Louis de Freycinet in 1819. 

 Indigenous fishermen used a device called a poio , a small con- 

 tainer made of a half coconut and weighted by a stone. They 

 baited the poio with masticated coconut, and then lowered it six 

 to eight fathoms to attract bottom fish which fed on the coco- 

 nut. The fish were fed in this manner by refilling the poio all 

 day. This feeding continued each day in the same spot, but each 

 day the poio was lowered to a lesser depth. After as long as two 

 months, the fish were feeding near the surface and could be 

 caught in great numbers with a net. Id. at 26, 27. 



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