MEXICO 21 



To any claim for precedence of the former over the latter, a 

 champion of the Net demurs on the ground of climatic 

 conditions, which he not unreasonably urges prevent any 

 proper analogy in this respect being drawn between them and 

 our Cave Men. 



Touching the similarity of the Tasmanian to the Troglodyte, 

 Ling Roth ampHfies, especially as regards the material, etc. 

 of the Spear, the evidence contained in Tylor's already quoted 

 sentence. This in conjunction with Captain Cook's earUer 

 statement that the Tasmanians, while experts with the Spear, 

 were ignorant of the use of a Hook, and, according to Went- 

 worth, of a Net, would have gone far in helping our quest and 

 in estabHshing the precedence of the Spear. 



Unfortunately the evidence of Lloyd and others that these 

 aborigines speared fish as a pastime, coupled with the fact 

 that while they consumed crustacccB they abstained (probably 

 from reasons of tabu or totem) from eating scaled fish, sharply 

 differentiates their Kultur from that of our prehistoric fisher- 

 men " at whose bellies hunger was gnawing." i 



From Mexico, and especially from the representations in 

 Yucatan, I had hoped for new factors helping to solve our 

 problem. First, because these had so far escaped the meticu- 

 lous examination of the Madelainian, and second, because 

 they were the product of an ancient people, the Mayas, who 

 ranked fish as an important item of their diet, and pursued 

 fishing with the Spear and the Net. 2 



With the Aztecs, who in the thirteenth century inherited 

 the Maya culture, now dated as regards their architecture back 

 to the first three centuries a.d.,3 the hook arrives, or rather 

 appears. Aztec skill in fishing stands well attested. Their 

 artificial fishponds or vivaria, and the importance which they 



1 Cook's Third Voyage, Bk. I. ch. vi. W. C. Wentworth, A Statistical, 

 etc., Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, London, 1S19, 

 p. 115 : " They have no knowledge whatever of the art of fishing " ; the only 

 fishing was done by women diving for shell-fish. G. T. Lloyd, Thirty-three 

 Years in Tasmania and Victoria, London, 1862, pp. 50-52. Ling Roth, 

 op.cit., p. 75. 



2 No Maya hook has as yet been brought to light, although this was 

 employed by practically all the races aboriginal or other from Alaska to 

 Peru. 



^ Cf. T. A. Joyce. Mexican Archceology, London, 1914. 



