268 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



naturally the brightest, is put behind. To these hooks a tuft of 

 white dog's or hog's hair is fixed so as somewhat to resemble the 

 tail of a fish ; these implements, therefore, are both hook and bait, 

 and are used with a rod of bamboo and line of ' erowa,' [a kind 

 of nettle which grows in the mountains]. The fisher, to secure 

 his success, watches, the flight of the birds, which constantly attend 

 the Bonetas when they swim in shoals, by which he directs his 

 canoe, and when he has the advantage of these guides, he seldom 

 returns without a prize." 



This sport is thus vividly described from another island by 

 W. T. Pritchard*: " Bonita fishing is, perhaps, the most risky of 

 all Samoan adventures. The natives start off at the dawn of day, 

 and paddle far out to sea in the calm of the morning, and there 

 trail their hooks behind the canoes, heedless of the brewing storm, 

 and trusting to the strength of their arms and the fleetness of 

 their skiffs, to reach the shore before its full force overtakes them. 

 The bonita are found in ' shoals/ with birds hovering over them ; 

 and when these birds are still further out to sea, the fishermen 

 bend to their paddles, and the canoes skim over the waves until 

 in the midst of the ' igafo,' as the shoal is called. There the hook, 

 still trailing from a long bamboo rod over the stern, is played to 

 and fro, and as the bonita bites at it with a spring and a splash, 

 he is tossed up with a jerk, and landed in the canoe with a shout 

 and a cheer." 



The bamboo does not grow in Funafuti, where the fishing-rods 

 are chosen from the " miro," Thespesia populnea (p. 37). In Tahiti, 

 the rod has bunches of feathers to imitate birds, f In action the 

 rod butt fits into a rope eye slung from the aftermost thwart 

 (like a sprit-yard when it is shipped in an eye slung from the 

 mast), it reclines in a raised rest carved on the after-decking of a 

 Funafuti canoe (Plate xv.) At Simbo, in the Solomons, Mr. 

 Hardy tells me that a bamboo scoop is drawn through the water 

 to attract the bonito. 



The shank " ba," of the hook is carved 

 from an Avicula valve, so that a slice from 

 the thinner part of the valve is attached to 

 a thicker ridge from the hinge. A valve of 

 A. cumingii, from which a hook had been 

 cut, or rather I presume sawn along the 

 sides and snapped off at the tail, which I 

 procured on Nukulailai is figured (fig. 33) 

 Fig. 33. to illustrate the mode of manufacture. In 



one hook from Funafuti (fig. 34) the shank 



* Pritchard Polynesian Reminiscences, 1866, p. 175 ; see also Wilkes 

 op. cit., v., p. 11. 



t Ellis loc. cit., i., p. 148. 



