340 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



The stems were neatly tapered toward the upper ends, which terminated in 

 slight knobs, and to these, lines — so fine that only traces of them could be re- 

 covered — were tied by half-hitches, like the turns of a bow string. Little plug- 

 shaped floats of gumbo-limbo wood, and sinkers made from the short thick colu- 

 mellae of turbinella shells — not shaped and polished like the highly finished 

 plummet-shaped pendants we secured in great numbers, but with the whorls 

 merely battered off — seemed to have been used with these hooks and lines. That 

 they were designed for deep-sea fishing was indicated by the occurrence of 

 flat reels or spools shaped precisely like fine-toothed combs divested of their inner 

 teeth. There were also shuttles or skein-holders of hard wood, six or seven 

 inches long, with wide semicircular crotches at the ends. But these may have 

 served in connection with a double kind of barb, made from two notched or 

 hooked crochet-like points or prongs of deer bone, that we found attached with 

 fibre cords to a concave round-ended plate, an inch wide and three inches long, 

 made from the pearly nacre of a pinna shell. Since several of these shining, 

 ovoid plates were procured, I regarded them as possibly "baiting-spoons," and 

 this one with the barbed contrivance, as some kind of trolling gear, though it 

 may, as the sailors thought, have been a "pair of grains," or may, like the hook 

 proper, have been used for deep-sea fishing. (Gushing, 1902, p. 367.) 



Coming to more recent times, we find the following in Speck's 

 account of the Yuchi Indians : 



Gaff-hooks for fishing do not seem to have been used, according to the older 

 men, until they obtained pins from the whites, when the Yuchi learned how 

 to make fish hooks of them. Prior to this, nevertheless, they had several 

 gorge-hook devices for baiting and snagging fish. A stick with pointed reverse 

 barbs whittled along it near the end was covered with some white meat and 

 drawn, or trolled, rapidly through the water on a line. When a fish swallowed 

 the bait the angler gave the line a tug and the barbs caught the fish in the 

 stomach. Another method was to tie together the ends of a springy, sharp- 

 pointed splinter and cover the whole with meat for bait. When this gorge 

 device was swallowed the binding soon disintegrated, the sharp ends being 

 released killed the fish and held it fast. Lines thus baited were set in numbers 

 along the banks of streams and visited regularly by fishermen. (Speck, 1909, 

 p. 25.) 



Employment of what is called a trot or trat line is described by 

 Penicaut when he was living with the Acolapissa and Natchitoches: 



After dining we went to see their fisheries. They drew from the lake their 

 nets which were filled with fishes of all sizes. These nets are really only lines 

 about six fathoms long. A number of small lines are fastened to these a foot 

 apart. At the end of each line is a fish-hook where they put a little piece 

 of hominy dough or a little piece of meat. With that they do not fail to take 

 fishes weighing more than fifteen to twenty pounds. The end of each line is 

 attached to a canoe. They draw them in two or three times a day, and many 

 fish are always taken when they draw them. (Penicaut in Margry, 1875-86, vol. 

 5, p. 466.) 



Fish were sometimes caught with the naked hands or by "grab- 

 bling," as it is called in western North Carolina, where the practice 

 is still found among the white population (Rights, 1928, pp. 8, 19). 

 That it is Indian in origin is proved by Adair, who says regarding 

 this: 



