288 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



will beare 40 men, but the most ordinary are smaller, and will beare 10, 20, or 



30, according to their bignesse. In stead of Oares, they vse Paddles and stickes, 

 with which they will row faster than our Barges. Betwixt their hands and 

 thighes, their women vse to spin, the barkes of trees, Deere sinews, or a kinde of 

 grasse they call Pemmenaw, of these they make a thread very even and readily. 

 This thread serveth for many vses. As about their housing, apparell, as also 

 they make nets for fishing, for the quantitie as formally braded as ours. They 

 make also with it lines for angles. Their hookes are either a bone grated as 

 they noch their arrowes in the forme of a crooked pinne or fish-hooke, or of the 

 splinter of a bone tyed to the clift of a little sticke, and with the end of the line, 

 they tie on the bait. They vse also long arrowes tyed in a line, wherewith they 

 shoote at fish in the rivers. But they of Accawmack vse staues like vnto laue- 

 lins headed with bone. With these they dart fish swimming in the water. They 

 haue also many artificiall wires, in which they get abundance of fish." (Page 



31, etc.). 



(Beverly [Bobert]): The History of Virginia, in Four Parts ; London, 1722. 

 " Before the Arrival of the English there, the Indians had Fish in such vast 

 Plenty, that the Boys and Girls would take a pointed Stick, and strike the lesser 

 sort, as they swam upon the Flats. The larger Fish, that kept in deeper Water, 

 they were put to a little more Difficulty to take ; But for these they made Weirs ; 

 that is, a Hedge of small riv'd Sticks, or Reeds, of the Thickness of a Man's 

 Finger, these they wove together in a Row, with Straps of Green Oak, or other 

 tough Wood, so close that the small Fish cou'd not pass through. Upon High- 

 Water Mark, they pitched one End of this Hedge, and the other they extended 

 into the River, to the Depth of eight or ten Foot, fastening it with Stakes, 

 making Cods out from the Hedge on one side, almost at the End, and leaving a 

 Gap for the Fish to go into them, which were contrived so, that the Fish could 

 easily find their Passage into those Cods, when they were at the Gap, but not 

 see their Way out again, when they were in : Thus if they offered to pass through, 

 they were taken. 



"Sometimes they made such a Hedge as this, quite across a Creek at High- 

 Water, and at Low would go into the Run, then contracted into a narrow Stream, 

 and take out what Fish they pleased. 



"At the Falls of the Rivers, where the Water is shallow, and the Current 

 strong, the Indians use another kind of Weir, thus made : They make a Dam of 

 loose Stone, whereof there is Plenty at hand, quite a-cross the River, leaving 

 one, two, or more Spaces or Trunnels, for the Water to pass thro' ; at the Mouth 

 of which they set a Pot of Reeds, wove in Form of a Cone, whose Base is about 

 three Foot, and perpendicular ten, into which the Swiftness of the Current 

 carries the Fish, and there lodges them. 



