EXTRACTS. 291 



this manner, which they sometimes do in the Day ; how dexterous they are in 

 striking, is admirable, and the great quantities they kill by this Method." 

 (Page 365).* 



Adair (James): The History of the American Indians; particularly those 

 Nations adjoining the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and 

 North Carolina, and Virginia, etc.; London, 1775. " Their method of fishing may 

 be placed among their diversions, but this is of the profitable kind. When they 

 see large fish near the surface of the water, they fire directly upon them, some- 

 times only with powder, which noise and surprize however so stupifies them, 

 that they instantly turn up their bellies and float a top, when the fisherman 

 secures them. If they shoot at fish not deep in the water, either with an arrow 

 or bullet, they aim at the lower part of the belly, if they are near ; and lower, 

 in like manner, according to the distance, which seldom fails of killing. In a 

 dry summer season, they gather horse chesnuts, and different sorts of roots, 

 which having pounded pretty fine, and steeped a while in a trough, they scatter 

 this mixture over the surface of a middle-sized pond, and stir it about with poles, 

 till the water is sufficiently impregnated with the intoxicating bittern. The fish 

 are soon inebriated, and make to the surface of the water, with their bellies 

 uppermost. The fishers gather them in baskets, and barbicue the largest, cover- 

 ing them carefully over at night to preserve them from the supposed putrifying' 

 influence of the moon. It seems, that fish catched in this manner, are not 

 poisoned, but only stupified ; for they prove very wholesome food to us, who fre- 

 quently use them. By experiments, when they are speedily moved into good 

 water, they revive in a few minutes. 



" The Indians have the art of catching fish in long crails, made with canes 

 and hiccory splinters, tapering to a point. They lay these at a fall of water, 

 where stones are placed in two sloping lines from each bank, till they meet 

 together in the middle of the rapid stream, where the entangled fish are soon 

 drowned. Above such a place, I have known them to fasten a wreath of long 

 grape vines together, to reach across the river, with stones fastened at proper 

 distances to rake the bottom ; they will swim a mile with it whooping, and 

 plunging all the way, driving the fish before them into their large cane pots. 

 With this draught, which is a very heavy one, they make a town feast, or feast 

 of love, of which every one partakes in the most social manner, and afterward 

 they dance together, singing Halelu-yah, and the rest of their usual praises to 

 the divine essence, for his bountiful gifts to the beloved people. Those Indians 

 who are unacquainted with the use of barbed irons, are very expert in striking 

 large fish out of their canoes, with long sharp pointed green canes, which are 



* The remainder of Brickell's account of Indian fishing in North Carolina is almost literally taken from 

 Lawson's " History of Carolina." 



