BLACKS AS FISHERMEN 



"For I tell you, scholar, fishing is an art, or at least it is an art 

 to catch fish." — Izaak Walton. 



Along the coast of North Queensland evidence may 

 still be obtained, though it ever becomes more difficult 

 to secure practical demonstration, of several novel 

 methods of killing fish in vogue among the blacks prior 

 to the advent of civilisation. In many parts, indeed, 

 the presence of the white man has swept away not only 

 the use of decent, if trivial, pursuits and handicrafts, 

 but the knowledge also that they ever existed. 



The few facts here presented are, with some slight 

 reservations, drawn from actual observation. No doubt 

 the well-informed on such subjects will have plenary 

 reasons — if ever these lines are honoured by perusal 

 of the class — for the accusation that there is nothing 

 in them having the virtue of newness or novelty. But 

 I am not a professor with a mind like a warehouse, rich 

 with the spoils of time, but a mere peddler, conscious 

 of the janglings of an ill-sorted, ill-packed knapsack of 

 unconsidered trifles. 



Some pioneers know more about the acts of the past 

 than the best informed of the younger blacks, who 

 look with wonder and unconstrained doubt when shown 

 articles similar to those which their grandfathers must 

 have used almost every day. 



Though the blacks of the past had but casual know- 



l8o 



