MISCELLANEOUS FISHERIES 



193* 



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one of the batf5. The condition of the I'eniains and the various indica- 

 tions connected witli the rancheria corroborated the tradition that the 

 gjreat creature had afforded unlimited and acceptable food for many 

 moons; and various expressions of the tradition indicated that the 

 event, though the most memorable of its class, was not unique in Seri 

 lore. 



A few bones and fragments of skin of the seal were found iu and 

 about the rancherias on Isla Tiburon, and an old basket rebottoraed 

 with sealskin was picked up in a recently abandoned jacal on Rada 

 Ballena; a few bones provisionally identified with the porpoise (which 

 haunts Boco Inflerno in shoals) were also found amid 

 the refuse about the old rancheria at the base of the 

 long sand-spit terminating in Punta Tornieuta; but 

 nothing was learned specifically concerning the chase 

 and consumption either of these animals or of the abun- 

 dant sharks from which the island is named. 



Among the exceedingly limited food supplies brought 

 from the coast by the Seri group at Costa Itica in 1894, 

 were rank remnants of partly desiccated fish, usually 

 gnawed down to heads and tails; and Masht'-m and 

 others spoke of fish as a habitual food, while Sehor 

 Encinas regarded it as the principal element of the 

 tribal dietary. The harder bones and heavier scales of 

 several varieties of flsh were also found abundantly 

 among the middens of both mainland and Tiburon 

 shores in 1895. jSTone of the remains bore noticeable 

 traces of lire; and all observations, including those of 

 Sefior Encinas, indicate that the smaller varieties of flsh 

 are habitually eaten raw, either fresh or jmrtially dried, 

 according to the state of appetite at the time of taking — 

 or the condition of finding when picked up as beach 

 flotsam. But a single piscatorial device was observed, 

 i. e., the barbed point and foreshaft, shown in figure 21 — 

 the iron point being, of course, accultural, and probably 

 obtained surreptitiously. This harpoon, which measures 

 6 inches in length over all, is designed for use in con- 

 nection with the main shaft of a turtle-catching tackle; and it is 

 evidently intended for the larger varieties, perhaps porpoises or sharks. 

 In 1827 Hardy observed a related device: 



They have a curious weapon which they employ for catching iish. It is a spear 

 with a double point, forming an angle of about 5°. The iusides of these two points, 

 which are 6 inches long, are jagged, so that when the body of a fish is forced 

 between them, it can not get away on account of the teeth.' 



Don Andres Noriega, of Costa Eica, described repeatedly and cir- 

 cumstantially a method of obtaining fish by aid of pelicans, in which a 



17 ETH- 



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' Travels, p. 290. 



