122 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



hardened wood. They also use a barbed spear of which 

 the head becomes detached from the shaft, when it 

 becomes fixed in a fish ; a hght Hne connecting the shaft 

 with the head causes the shaft to act as a drag on 

 the movements of the fish, which can easily be followed ^ 

 up and killed ; this kind of spear is only used for the 

 larger fish, saw-fish and the like, but I never saw it in 

 use. Considering the enormous number of fish that 

 there are — at the mouth of the river the water is some- 

 times seen to be seething with large fish — it cannot 

 be said that the men are very clever with their spears. 



They also shoot fish, using single- or three-pointed 

 arrows ; you may see a man standing quietly in a pool 

 of water like a heron waiting for the fish to come up to 

 him, or stalking a shoal of fish stealthily from the 

 bank ; in either case he will probably shoot arrow after 

 arrow without effect, for they are absurdly indifferent 

 marksmen with the bow. 



The most primitive methods of all of catching fish 

 I saw practised one day coming down from Obota. 

 A native paddling in the bow of my canoe saw a large 

 fish near the bank, towards which he steered the canoe. 

 When he judged that he was near enough to it, he 

 hurled himself flat on to the water with a resounding 

 splash that drenched everything in the boat, and a 

 thud that would have stunned the fish at once had it 

 not darted off an instant earlier. 

 ., The sight of a fish, however small it is, always 

 ^ rouses a Papuan to action. When we were travelling 

 with natives, we sometimes came to pools where small 

 fish had been left by some receding flood. Instantly 



