200 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
elosure that juts out into the river, surrounded by long palisades of 
the manicol tree, tied very closely together by nebis (“ bush rope”). 
In this fence is a large door, which is left open with the flood, and 
shut at high water, to prevent the inclosed fish from escaping (St, 
1, 374). Sometimes the door may be in the form of a “ Venetian 
blind” (XG, 11, 46). On the Orinoco, judging from the descriptions 
left us by Gumilla, some of these fences must have been of consider- 
able size and strength. Being only employed with the receding 
waters to block the fish coming down the stream, they are built 
from bank to bank without any doors or intermediate free spaces. 
The Indians take note of the channels leading from the large lakes 
into the rivers, and block them with thick stakes, crossbeams, and 
supports, the whole village lending assistance with the work. As the 
turtle, lauléo (up to 50 and 75 pounds) and manati (from 500 to 
750 pounds) come down from the lakes, whither, with the rising 
waters, they went in search of fresh food, they are blocked by these 
fences. Notwithstanding the great strength of these structures, it is 
lucky if they have not to be repaired two or three times a year, so 
ereat is the impact of the shoals of fish, turtle, and manati running 
against them (G, 1, 281-282). Similar contrivances (pl. 49 A, B) are 
recorded by Wallace and others (KG, 11, 42-43) from the upper Rio 
Negro, where, among the Uaupes River Indians, the fish weirs were 
known as cacoaris. 
204. Creels, cages.—Cone-shaped wicker baskets, or reels, are met 
with from the Orinoco and Rio Negro into Surinam. Indeed, fish- 
ing with them is said to be practiced along the whole Guiana coast 
(DF, 226). The Adole Indians, some 50 leagues up the Orinoco from 
the River Meta, fix large baskets in places where side streams lead 
from the main channel, etc. These wicker baskets are woven from 
a kind of ozier twig, which is long and flexible and called bejuco, 
making them 2 yards (varas) deep and 13 yards wide at the mouth. 
Attached to them are many strong rope handles in correspondence 
with the weight they have to support and the knocking about to 
which they are exposed (G, 1, 291). The Uanpes River Indians, 
among their many other methods of catching fish, use a small cone 
of wicker, called a matapi, which is placed in some little current 
in the gap6. The larger end is entirely open. . . . Other matapis 
are larger and more cylindrical, with a reversed conical mouth, as 
in our wire rat traps (sec. 421), to prevent the return of the fish 
(ARW, 339-340). Illustrations of these creels or weir baskets 
(KG, 1, 41) are furnished (pls. 50 A, B; 108 A). As already men- 
tioned, the simpler forms are generally employed in connection with 
weirs or fences stretched across the creeks, being fixed over the gaps 
left here and there in the fencing (AK, 277). Those that are con- 
structed with noninclosed smaller ends are stuffed with leaves, etc., 
