— 
An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 181 
Some of the implements mentioned were only used during the 
winter, and on the ice; but most of them were used during both winter 
and summer, although with somewhat different methods of hunting. 
Some of the methods of procuring a livelihood were so easy that they 
could be carried out by women, children and old men, but they are 
not of particular interest here. Among these, for example, were the 
catching of hares and other small mammals in snares and traps, and 
also certain methods of fishing. To these also belongs the fishing method 
well known from the Eskimo, which consisted in blocking up a stream 
with an arrangement of stones or with a row of stakes, which were placed 
so close together that salmon and sturgeon could only pass through a 
single opening when on their way to their spawning ground. Here the 
fisherman placed himself with his fishing-spear or bag-net, or put a net 
or a kind of trap platted from willow branches in front of the opening. 
On the other hand it is the man’s work to take charge of the hunting 
of big game, as also the more difficult task of fishing from the canoe. 
Each little fishing canoe holds two men; at the stern a paddler, and 
in the stem a fisherman who stands up spying for the fish, which, as 
quick as lightening, he strikes with his fishing spear or catches with 
his bag-net. On lakes and quiet rivers the fishing spear is the most com- 
mon implement, and by signs and signals the fisherman causes the canoe 
to be guided in such a way as will enable him to strike the fish with 
his spear. At night the fishing is carried out in the same way by the 
light from a torch, which is placed on a pole above the fisherman’s 
head}. 
One can get a better idea of this kind of fishing by reading a descrip- 
tion by H. Y. Hrnp? who has travelled amongst Ojibways and Algon- 
quin Labrador tribes where he has had opportunity to observe fishing 
in quiet waters by torchlight as well as fishing at the foot of rapids; 
I shall be content, however, to refer to Hrp’s descriptions. 
It was particularly with the fishing of sturgeon that a fishing spear 
with a line was used, which line was held in the hand or was tied to the 
stem of the canoe. When the sturgeon was struck it fled through the 
water dragging the canoe with it, until it became exhausted.* Biespy* 
relates that on one journey up a river he saw a long upright spear rushing 
through the water, and the next moment saw a canoe dart round a 
curve, with an Ojibway Indian standing erect in the stem, and another 
pits, used both by Eskimo and Indians, at the most northern Rapid of 
the Coppermine River, Bloody Fall, call to mind forms from the European- 
Asiatic bronze age; cf. C. WaiTNney’s figures on p. 264, 
1 Scnootcrart, Vol. II, p. 52, Vol. VI, plate 8; Henry, p. 61; Mc. Kenney, 
p. 193; Kane, p. 31; Kont, Vol. II, pp. 144—45, 150. 
* Hinp, Vol. II, pp. 98 sqq. 
5 Faraup, pp. 310—11. 
4 Biessy, p. 2658. 
