BULL. 30] 



FISHING 



461 



increasing wariness. The material used 

 for liooks by the Indians was wood, bone, 

 shell, stone, antl copper. The Mohave 

 eniplo3'ed the recurved spines of certain 

 species of cactus, which are natural hooks. 

 Data on the arche- 

 ology of the fish- 

 hook have been 

 gathered from the 

 Ohio mounds and 

 the shell-heaps of 

 Santa Barbara, Cal. , 

 unbarbed hooks of 

 bone having been 

 found on a number 

 of Ohio sites and 

 gorge hooks atSanta 

 Barl)ara. The fish- 

 hook of recent times 

 may be best studied 

 among the x. Pa- 

 cific tribes and the 

 Eskimo of Alaska. The INIakah of Wash- 

 ington have a modified form of the gorge 

 hook, consisting of a sharpened spine of 

 bone attached with a ]>ine-root lash to a 

 whalebone. British Columbian and s. 

 Alaskan tribes used either 

 a simple hook of bent 

 wood having a barb lashed 

 to a point, or a compound 

 hook consistingof a shank 

 of wood, a splint of pine- 

 root lashed at an angle of 

 45° to its lower end, and 

 a simple or barbed spike 

 of bone, wood, iron, or 

 copper lashed or set on 

 the outer end of the splint. 

 Eskimo hooks consisted 

 frequently of a shank of 

 bone with a curved, sharpened spike of 

 metal set in the lower end, or several 

 spikes were set in, forming a gig. Usu- 

 ally, however, the Eskimo hook had the 

 upper half of its shank made of stone and 

 the lower half of ivory, in 

 which the unbarbed curved 

 spike of metal was 

 set, the parts being 

 fastened together 

 by lashings of split 

 quill. A leader of 

 quill was attached 

 to the hook and a 

 bait of cral> carapace 

 was hung above the 

 spike. This is the 

 most complex hook 

 known in aboriginal 

 America. 



Lines and poles 

 varied like the hook 

 with the customs of the fishermen, the 

 habits of the fish, and the environment. 

 The Eskimo used lines of knotted lengths 

 of whalebone quill, hair, or sinew; the n. 



HOOK; Arkan- 

 sas; Actual 

 Size, (hau) 



(rau) 



Pacific tribes, lines of twisted bark, pine 

 root, and kelp; and other tribes lines 

 of twisted fiber. Short poles or none 

 were used by the p]skimo and x. Pacific 

 tribes. In other regions it is probable 

 that long poles of cane or saplings were 

 used. In some regions, as on the N. 

 \V. coast, a trawl, consisting of a series of 

 hooks attached by leaders to a line, was 

 used for taking certain species of fish. 

 The Haida, according to Swanton, made 

 a snap hook, consisting of a hoop of wood, 

 the ends of which were held apart by a 

 wooden peg. This jieg was displaced l^y 

 the fish on taking the bait, and the ends 

 of the hoop snapped together, holding 

 the fish b-< the jaw. (See FisJiing.) 



Consult' Boas in 6th Rep. B. A. E., 1888; 

 Goddard in Univ. Cal. Publ., Am. 

 Archfeol. and EthroL, i, 1903; Hoffman 

 in 14th Rep. B. A. E. pt 2, 1896; Holmes 

 in 2d Rep. B. A. E., 1883; Mills (1) in 

 Ohio Archaeol. and Hist. Quar., ix, no. 4, 

 1901, (2) ibid., xv, no. 1, 1906; Moore (1) 

 in Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., xi, 1899, 

 (2) ibid., XII, 1903, (3) ibid., xiii, 1905; 

 Murdoch in 9th Rep. B. A. E., 1892; 

 Nelson in 18th Rep. B. A. E., pt 1, 1899; 

 Niblack in Rep. Nat. Mus. 1888, 1890; 

 Palmer in Am. Nat., xii, no. 6, 1878; Put- 

 nam in Wheeler Surv. Rep., vii, 1879; Rau 

 in Smithson. Cont., xxv, 1884; Teit in 

 Mem. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., ii, Anthrop. 

 I, 1900; Turner in 11th Rep. B. A. E., 

 1894. (w. H.) 



Fishing. At the first coming of the 

 Europeans the waters of this continent 

 were found teeming with food fish, the 

 great abundance of which quickly attract- 

 ed fleets of fishermen from all civilized 

 parts of the Old World. The list of spe- 

 cies living in American waters utilized by 

 the Indians would fill a volume. The 

 abundance or scarcity of this food on the 

 Atlantic coast varied with the season. In 

 epring the fish made their appearance in 

 vast shoals in the spawning beds of the 

 coast and in the bays and rivers. Capt. 

 John Smith relates, in his History of 

 Virginia, early in the 17th century, "that 

 on one occasion fish were encountered in 

 such numbers in the Potomac as to im- 

 pede landing from his boat. The annual 

 spring run of herring above Washington 

 is still almost great enough to warrant the 

 assertion. Fish life varied with locality 

 and season. On the northern and east- 

 ern coasts the fish disappeared to a great 

 extent when the waters became cold at the 

 approach of winter, and many northern 

 fishes went to more southerly waters. 

 Among the better known food i3roducts 

 furnished by the waters of the country 

 may be mentioned the whale, sea lion, 

 seal, otter, swordfish, sturgeon, porpoise, 

 cod, haddock, halibut, pollock, salmon, 

 trout, herring, shad, perch, bass, mack- 



