6 



leave them for a day or two, and if the place is good fishing 

 ground the basket will be full by the time they come for it. 

 The Uiui basket is shallow, of about the same size as the above 

 but wider mouthed, used in deep water for catching a small 

 fiat fish called uiui that makes its appearance at intervals of 

 from ten, fifteen to twenty years. Whenever it appears it is 

 taken by fishermen and people generally as a sure precursor 

 of the death of a very high chief. At the Jast appearance of 

 the uiui, the imported marketing baskets were generally used 

 by those who could not obtain the old-fashioned kind, as any 

 old cast-away basket would do, with a little patching, occupy- 

 ing perhaps, five minutes, and two sticks bent over the mouth 

 or opening from side to side, and at right angles to each other 

 for a handle to which to tie the draw string. It should be 

 twisted round and round above the jointure with a little of 

 the sea convolvulus, (pohuehue), with the leaves on, so as to 

 throw a little shade in the basket to keep the fish from being 

 drawn up to the surface of the water. In these baskets cooked 

 pumpkins, half roasted sweet potatoes, or raw ripe papayas 

 were placed for bait. The canoes thus provided would sail 

 right into the midst of a school of these fish; the basket being 

 lowered a few feet into the sea, the fish being attracted by the 

 scent of the bait, would rush into the baskets .and feed 

 greedily. As soon as the baskets were full of fish they would 

 be drawn up and emptied into the canoe and then lowered 

 again, with more bait if necessary, and this would go on till 

 the canoe was loaded or the fisherman was tired. These fish 

 are very good eating when they first arrive, as they are fat, 

 with liver very much enlarged; after a month they become 

 thinner, not perhaps procuring their proper food here, and then 

 taste strong and rank. 



The Ie kala basket is the largest kind of basket used in 

 fishing by the Hawaiians. These are round, rather flat, baskets 

 four to five feet in diameter by two and a half to three in 

 depth, and about one and a half across the mouth. A small 

 cylinder or cone of wicker is attached by the large end to the 

 mouth and turned inwards towards the bottom of the basket. 



