49. A Fish Trap from Northern Arakan. 



By I. H. BuRKiLL. 



The Chins of Northern Arakan have a way of catching fish 

 which apparently has never been described. Thej set the trap 

 figured above in a rapid with the mouth down stream, and a bait 

 in the narrow end. The fish caught are hooked and held by the 



barbs inside. 



The traps seen by me are of one size, viz,, about 20 inches 

 long and 6 inches across the mouth. They are all made in 

 exactly the same way. A joint of bamboo — the common bamboo 

 of the deserted provision grounds of Northern Arakan — is slit into 

 seven or eight strips to the node and a little bit of basket plaiting 

 done towards the node with a single strip of the same bamboo. 

 Then inside each rib a piece of the barbed rhachis of a Oalantus 

 or Dsemonorop^' is placed and bound, as the drawing shows, with 

 strips of a different rattan, not with bamboo. Lastly, a bamboo 

 pole is taken and pointed, for fixing into the river-shingle, and 

 a stone is taken for a weight to hold the trap down. With one 



