SWANTON] INlDIAJSTS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 341 



They have a surprising method of fishing under the edges of rocks, that 

 stand over deep places of a river. There, they pull off their red breeches, or 

 their long slip of Stroud cloth, and wrapping it round their arm, so as to reach 

 to the lower part of the palm of their right hand, they dive under the rock 

 where the large cat-fish lie to shelter themselves from the scorching beams of 

 the sun, and to watch for prey : as soon as those fierce aquatic animals see that 

 tempting bait, they immediately seize it with the greatest violence, in order to 

 swallow it. Then is the time for the diver to improve the favourable oppor- 

 tunity : he accordingly opens his hand, seizes the voracious fish by his tender 

 parts, hath a sharp struggle with it against the crevices of the rock, and at last 

 brings it safe ashore. (Adair, 1775, p. 404.) 



At the falls of the Chattahoochee River near Columbus there were 

 two fisheries, an eastern and a western, controlled respectively by the 

 Lower Creek towns of Kasihta and Coweta. 



In middle and late summer when many of the streams were par- 

 tially dried up, leaving a succession of pools into which the aquatic 

 population of the river was largely concentrated, there was oppor- 

 tunity for fishing on a wholesale pattern open to most of the inland 

 people. Then it was that various devices were resorted to to stupefy 

 the fish and harvest them while they were in that condition. As is 

 so often the case, Adair is our best early authority : 



Their method of fishing may be placed among their diversions, but this is of 

 the profitable kind. When they see large fish near the surface of the water, 

 they fire directly upon them, sometimes only with powder, which noise and 

 surprise however so stupifies them, that they instantly turn up their bellies 

 and fioat a top, when the fisherman secures them. ... In a dry summer season, 

 they gather horse chestnuts, and different sorts of roots, which having pounded 

 pretty fine, and steeped a while in a trough, they scatter this mixture over 

 the surface of a middle-sized pond, and stir it about with poles, till the water 

 is sufficiently impregnated with the intoxicating bittern. The fish are soon 

 inebriated, and make to the surface of the water, with their bellies uppermost. 

 The fishers gather them in baskets, and barbicue the largest, covering them 

 carefully over at night to preserve them from the supposed putrifyiug influence 

 of the moon. It seems, that fish catched in this manner, are not poisoned, 

 but only stupified; for they prove very wholesome food for us, who frequently 

 use them. By experiments, when they are speedily moved into good water, 

 they revive in a few minutes. (Adair, 1775, pp. 402-403.) 



Speck has the following description of this custom among the 

 Yuchi: 



During the months of July and August many families gather at the banks 

 of some convenient creek for the purpose of securing quantities of fish and, to 

 a certain extent, of intermingling socially for a short time. A large stock of 

 roots are thrown in and the people enter the water to stir it up. This has 

 the effect of causing the fish, when the poison has had time to act, to rise to 

 the surface, bellies up, seemingly dead. They are then gathered by both men 

 and women and carried away in baskets to be dried for future use, or con- 

 sumed in a feast which ends the event. The catch is equally divided among 

 those present. Upon such an occasion, as soon as the fish appear floating on 

 the surface of the water, the Indians leap, yell and set to dancing in exuber- 



