THE TAJIN TOTONAC PART 1 — KELLY AND PALERM 



79 



;. mejillon (spiyut) apparently is a fresh-water mussel, 

 which is collected occasionally. It seldom is eaten and 

 most of our friends have not sampled it. 



Fishing techniques are limited and no use is 

 made of traps, spears, or hooks. Although, under 

 certain circumstances, the Totonac are distress- 

 ingly handy with the machete, they do not spear 

 fish with it as do the related Tepehua (Starr, p. 

 265) . Today, fishing techniques are limited to the 

 use of two kinds of nets, to poisons, and to the 

 modern innovation of killing the fish by rockets. 



There seems to be no generic Totonac term for 

 net. The casting net {atarraya, 0a -1) is popular 

 today, but it is said that formerly a small dip net 

 (pukilHai?) (fig. 6) was more common. Other 



Figure 6. — Dip net. Said to have been purchased in 

 Papantla some years ago. Distance from tip of handle 

 to opposite point on frame, 68 cm. 



types of nets are not used, although informants 

 describe seines along the Rio Tecolutla. In fact, 

 it is said that one Ignacio de la Cruz, an old resi- 

 dent of Taj in, now dead, knew how to make them. 

 He used commercial hemp (cdnamo), purchasing 

 both it and the lead weights in Papantla. He made 

 the floats from the wood of the chaca (No. 228) 

 or the cedro (No. 219) ; "they were about the size 

 of a tortilla and about 1.5 cm. thick." Presumably 

 his nets were sold outside of Taj in, for seines are 

 impractical in the local arroyos, which are both 

 small and littered. 



Today, the dip net is so rare that we saw but 

 one in the community (fig. 6), purchased some 

 years before in Papantla. It is small, conical, with 



a single lead weight at the apex. The rim is lashed 

 casually, with commercial string, to a bent stick 

 frame. 



The casting net generally is bought in Papantla, 

 where various persons, particularly inmates of the 

 jail, manufacture nets which sell from $15.00 to 

 $30.00 pesos. In Taj in, netting seems confined 

 to three men : Tirso Mendez, Miguel Aldama, from 

 Chicontla, near Jopala; and Francisco Villa- 

 nueva, a local product, who is a jack-of-all trades, 

 known principally as a carpenter and religious 

 singer {cantor) . Formerly, a local fiber {pita, No. 

 224; cf. Mota y Escobar, p. 233) was used. Now, 

 Don Francisco buys commercial twine; he avoids 

 hemp {cdfiamo), also available commercially, be- 

 lieving it too absorbent. 



A casting net is roughly conical ; when open, the 

 rim is circular. The size is measured from the 

 apex to the rim and is expressed in terms of codos 

 (elbows), the distance from the tip of the middle 

 finger to the elbow. A small net is of 3 codos; a 

 large one, 4 to 5. About the rim of the net is 

 affixed a great number of small, commercial lead 

 weights, purchased in Papantla. 



Roberto Williams accompanied a fishing party 

 to an arroyo near Coatzintla ; the account below is 

 taken from his notes : 



A group of ten left early in the morning, each person 

 carrying a shoulder bag of maguey fiber, which contained 

 food and some old clothing. The party reached the site 

 about 8 o'clock and stopped to eat, taking care to leave half 

 the food for the noon meal. Breakfast past, each fisher- 

 man changed to old clothing, clean, but mended. All put 

 on calzones, pyjama-like pants of white muslin, and one 

 individual wore an old shirt as well. 



The fishermen chose a natural pool, roughly circular, 

 of no great depth, and with virtually no current. Along 

 one side, it was shallow ; along the opposite, it was deeper. 

 The pond was cut off completely downstream, by closing 

 the outlet with the casting nets. They were arranged 

 adjacent to one another, held upright by a series of sticks 

 imbedded in the floor of the stream. 



The men started in the shallow part of the pool, where 

 there were many aquatic plants. Forming a line, they 

 moved from the center of the pond toward the edge, push- 

 ing the plants and refuse in advance. As they went, they 

 removed broken lengths of bamboo from the bottom of the 

 pool, checking each to see if it contained fish or shrimps. 

 Upon reaching the bank, they looked further for fish, 

 among the vegetation along the edges of the pool. Once 

 this section of the pond was thoroughly inspected and 

 freed of rubbish, the whole accumulation of plants and 

 sticks was dragged to the outlet, where the nets were set 

 up, and arranged there as reinforcement. The cleaning 

 of the pool (called sweeping) continued until there was no 



