SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 337 



either till their breath is expended by the want of respiration, or till the net 

 is so ponderous as to force them to exonerate it ashore, or in a basket, flxt in 

 a proper place for that purpose — by removing one hand, the canes instantly 

 spring together. I have been engaged half a day at a time, v^ith the old- 

 friendly Chikkasah, and half drowned in the diversion — when any of us was so 

 unfortunate as to catch water-snakes in our sweep, and emptied them ashore, 

 we had the ranting voice of our friendly posse comitatus, whooping against us, 

 till another party was so unlucky as to meet with the like misfortune. During 

 this exercise, the women are fishing ashore with coarse baskets, to catch the 

 fish that escape our nets. (Adair, 1775, pp. 432-434.) 



At Key Marco, Fla., Gushing found 



nets of tough fibre, both coarse and fine, knitted quite as is the common netting 

 of our own fishermen today, in form of fine-meshed, square dip-nets, and of 

 coarse-meshed, comparatively large and long gill-nets. To the lower edges of 

 these, sinkers made from thick, roughly perforated umboidal bivalves, tied 

 together in bunches, or else from chipped and notched fragments of heavy clam 

 shells, were attached, while to the upper edges, floats made from gourds, held in 

 place by fine net-lashings, or else from long sticks or square-ended blocks, were 

 fastened. Around the avenues of the court I was interested to find netting of 

 coarser cordage weighted with unusually large-sized or else heavily bunched 

 sinkers of shell, and supplied at the upper edges with long, delicately tapered 

 gumbo-limbo float-pegs, those of each set equal in size, each peg thereof partially 

 split at the larger end, so as to clamp double half -turns or ingeniously knotted 

 hitches of the neatly twisted edges-cords with which all were made fast to the 

 nets. Now these float pegs, of which many sets were secured, varying from three 

 and a half to eight inches in length of pegs, were so placed on the nets, that in 

 consequence of their tapering forms they would turn against the current of the 

 tide whichever way it flowed, and would continuously bob up and down on the 

 ripples, however slight these were, in such manner as to frighten the fish that 

 had been driven, or had passed over them at high tide, when, as the tide lowered, 

 they naturally tried to follow it. In connection with these nets we found riven 

 stays, usually of cypress or pine, such as might have been used in holding them 

 upright. Hence I inferred that they had been stretched across the channels not 

 only of the actual water courts of residence, like this, but, probably also, of the 

 surrounding fish-pounds. (Gushing, 1896, pp. 366-367.) 



Spearing, Hariot describes as one of the two methods of fishing in 

 vogue among the Sound Indians of North Carolina : 



They haue likewise a notable way to catche fishe in their Riuers, for whear as 

 they lacke both yron, and Steele, they fasten vnto their Reedes or longe Rodds, 

 the hollowe tayle of a certaine fishe like to a sea crabb in steede of a poynte,^ 

 wherwith by nighte or day they stricke fishes, and take them opp into their boates. 

 They also know how to vse the prickles, and pricks of other fishes. (Hariot, 

 1893, pi. 31.) 



They also did this while wading in the shallows. 



Lawson says that the Hatteras and other coast Indians would run 

 into the sea to strike bluefish, and that the inland tribes were in the 

 habit of "striking sturgeon and rockfish, or bass, when they come up 



^ The tall of the horseshoe crab. The representation of this creature in the accompany- 

 ing cut is the oldest known. — D. I. Bushnell, Jr. 

 464735 — 46 23 



