17 



Laau melomelo is another kind of decoy fishing, only in 

 this instance the decoy used is a billet of hard wood something 

 Ike a club, rounded at the ends and one end smaller than the 

 other, with a little ringed knob on the smaller eud to tie a 

 string to. This club when prepared with the proper attention 

 to the usual lucky or unlucky superstitions common to fisher* 

 men, is then slightly charred over a regulation fire. Kukui 

 nut meat and cocoanut in equal quantities are first baked, 

 pounded and tied up in a wrapping of cocoanut fibre (the 

 sheath around the stem of a cocoanut leaf) and the fishermen 

 then start on a canoe for the fishing grounds. This should be 

 in water not deeper than four or five fathoms. Arrived there 

 the laaumeloinelo is then greased with the oily juice of the 

 pounded nuts and dropped over board and allowed to hang 

 suspended a few feet from the bottom. The scent of the baked 

 nut meat diffusing through the water seems ^to have a power- 

 ful attraction for some kinds of fish which surround the stick 

 seeming to smell or nibble at it. After a while the bag net 

 is dropped over with its mouth open towards the stick, when 

 the latter is moved gently into it, the fish still surrounding 

 and following it into the] net. Two persons then dive and 

 approaching the net gently, quickly close its mouth and give 

 the signal to those in the canoe to* haul it up. Some laau- 

 melomelo were more attractive to fish than others, or were 

 more lucky, and this the fishermen ascribed to the more per- 

 fect performance of the incantation made at the cutting of the 

 stick from the tree and its subsequent preparation. 



The hano is a large bag net of very fine mesh with a flaring 

 mouth, used to capture flying, fish. There are two varieties 

 of flying fish here, the large malolo and the small puhikii, en- 

 tirely distinct from each other. The same net and method of 

 capture is also employed for the iheihe, a long thin fish, 

 usually a foot and a half in length with a very sharp-pointed 

 snout that generally arrives here at about the same time as 

 the malolo. The hano is also occasionally employed for the 

 akule, another flsh that arrives in schools. 



For malolo fishing the hano is piled on a double canoe or 



