FISHING AND HUNTING TALES FROM 



BRAZIL 



By Dewey Austin Cobb 



BRAZIL is certainly the lazy fisher- 

 man's paradise. In common with 

 many readers and travelers, I 

 had heard a great deal about a way the 

 natives of tropical America have of 

 catching fish with poison which does not 

 unfit them for food. It is one of the 

 things that they do not explain to stran- 

 gers, however, perhaps because it is for- 

 bidden by law to use this method in the 

 streams, and partly because the Tupuya 

 Indians, among whom it is chiefly prac- 

 ticed, seldom tell white folks anything 

 useful if they can help it ; consequently 

 it was only after two years' residence 

 among this secretive people that I was 

 reluctantly taken into their confidence 

 sufficiently to be permitted to join them 

 on one of their fishing excursions. 



Just as we were sitting down to din- 

 ner one day, a party of Indians, men, 

 women, and children, straggled up to 

 the house, every one carrying a bag or 

 basket, in which some part of a week's 

 outfit for camping in the woods was con- 

 tained. They had walked out that morn- 

 ing from Santarem, seven miles distant, 

 and were going to spend a week in fish- 

 ing on the stream which operated my 

 friends' sawmill. Every caller expects 

 and gets a lunch among these people, 

 and my host fed them according to 

 custom. 



After some hesitation they consented 

 to let me join them. We followed the 

 stream for half a mile or so, to where it 

 spread out into a pool, perhaps fifty feet 

 across ; there they hung their hammocks 

 and built a fire. The men then divided 

 into two parties, one going up and the 

 other down the stream a few rods, then, 

 stripping to the skin, entered the stream, 

 and, thrashing the water with their feet 

 and with sticks, returned to the pool driv- 

 ing all the fish before them to the pool. 

 One man remained at the outlet and one 

 at the inlet, while the others dressed and 

 climbed out. 



Meantime one of the women had taken 

 from one of their bags the dried tongue 

 of a pira-rucu (red fish), which serves 

 almost universally as the family grater 

 for both whites and Indians, oeing 

 thickly covered with minute, horny 

 spines, turned backward to enable the 

 fish to hold its prey. From another 

 bag she produced the mysterious "bar- 

 basco" roots, which resembled rather 

 stocky horseradish roots, and grated 

 them into about two quarts of water. 



This mixture was thrown by dipper- 

 fuls into the pool at various points ; then 

 we all sat down to await results. In 

 about two minutes we began to see 

 minute fish come to the surface, belly up, 

 remain a few seconds, then with a flirt 

 disappear, to return again a moment later 

 and remain longer. At the end of ten 

 minutes all the small fry in the pond 

 were on the surface, apparently dead, 

 while larger and larger ones began to go 

 through the same performance. 



After watching this fantastic perform- 

 ance for twenty minutes or so our leader 

 rigged a long-handled scoop-net, and' 

 fishing began. By this time fish from 

 eight to twelve inches long remained on 

 the surface long enough to be easily cap- 

 tured with the net and were put in a 

 bushel basket, which was nearly filled in 

 half an hour. There were half a dozen 

 varieties, but the greater part were a 

 species of catfish. A few resembled 

 bass, but were much lighter in color. 

 Most of them were entirely new to north- 

 ern eyes. 



After some of them were broiled, the 

 man who seemed to direct operations, 

 noticing that I did not join in the feast 

 and surmising the reason, took several 

 spoonfuls of the poisoned water and, 

 mixing it with a dipperful of water, 

 drank it down. It had not the slightest 

 effect upon him, and, fully reassured, I 

 ate the fish heartily with the rest, and 

 never did I enjoy broiled fish more. 



