270 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



resembling our barbel, and about a foot and a half or a little less in- length : this 

 fish serves to give taste to their sagamite* during winter. 



" In another season they catch with the seine a certain kind of fish, which 

 seem to correspond to our smallest herrings, and which they eat fresh or buc- 



caned. They also catch several other species of fish ; but as they are 



unknown to us, and as similar ones are not found in our rivers, I make no men- 

 tion of them. 



" Eel in the proper season is an invaluable article to our Montagnais. I 

 have admired the extreme abundance of this fish in some of the rivers of our 

 Canada, where every year uncountable hundreds are caught. They come just in 

 time, for, were it not for this succor, one would be greatly embarrassed, more 

 especially in some months of the year ; the savages and the members of our 

 orders use them as meat sent by Heaven for their relief and solace. They catch 

 them in two ways : with a wicker basket, or with a harpoon during night by the 

 light of fire. They construct with some ingenuity wicker baskets, long and wide, 

 and large enough to hold five or six eels. When the sea is low, they deposit 

 them on the sand in a suitable remote place, securing them in a manner that the 

 tide cannot carry them off. At both sides they heap up stones, which extend 

 like a chain or small wall on both sides, in order that the fish, which always 

 seeks the bottom, in encountering this obstacle, may glide slowly toward the 

 aperture of the basket to which the stones lead. When the sea has risen, it 

 covers the baskets ; and after it has subsided again, they are examined. Some- 

 times hundred or two hundred eels are found at one tide; sometimes more, and 

 occasionally none at all, according to wind and weather. When the sea is 

 agitated, many are caught ; when it is calm, few or none ; but then they have 

 recourse to their harpoons.f 



" The savages cure fish in the following manner : they let them drip a little, 

 and then cut off the heads and tails ; they open them at the back, and having 

 emptied them, they make incisions, to allow the smoke to penetrate them thor- 

 oughly ; the perches in their huts are all loaded with them. When they are well 

 buccaned, they bring them together, and make them into packages, each contain- 

 ing about a hundred." (Vol. Ill, page 693, etc.).J 



* Previously mentioned in Sagard's work. It was maize parched in the ashes and pounded, for making pulse. 



f This account of eel-fishing and the succeeding description of fish-drying correspond almost literally with 

 those given by Father Le Jeune in his " Relation " (published in 1635), from which the extract following next 

 is made. Concerning the eel-traps, however, Father Le Jeune states they were large enough to hold five or six 

 hundred eels (capable* de tenir cinq et six cens anguilles), while Sagard speaks only of five or six (capables de con- 

 itnir cinq ff six anguilles). 



J " Pour ce qui est des poissons qui so retrouuent dans les riuieres & lacs au pais de nos Hurons, & particu- 

 lierement a la mer douce, les principaux sont 1'Assihendo, duquel nous auons parlo ailleurs, & des Truictes, qu'ils 

 appcllent Ahouyoche, lesquelles sont de desmesuree grandeur pour la pluspart, & n'y en ay veu aucune qui no soit 

 plus grosse quo les plus grandes quo nous ayons par deca: leur chair est communemcnt rouge, sinon a quelqu'unes 

 qu'elle se voit iaune ou orangee, mais excellemment bonne. 



