528 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 97. 



rivers, where, making racks across the stream, they 

 would spear and hook up great quantities as the fish 

 came down after spawning. They made nets of cedar 

 and basswood bark, and from the sinews of animals. 

 The ribs of the moose and buffalo made materials for 

 their knives. A stone tied to the end of a stick, with 

 which they broke sticks and branches, served the 

 purpose of an ax. . . . Bows of wood, stone-headed 

 arrows, and spear-heads made of bone, formed their 

 implements of hunting and war." 



Ojibwa gill-nets. — The nets used by the 

 Red-Lakers are exclusively of the pattern 

 known as gill-nets. When set, the apparatus 

 depends like a perpendicular curtain from one 

 of its longer margins, which is buoyed at the 

 surface of the water hy a succession of wooden 

 floats (see fig. 1) tied to it at regular intervals 



ur. 



Fig. 1. — Net-float, 30| inches long. 



of a few feet with bits of grass, rush, bark, 

 or of the material of which the nets are manu- 

 factured. 



The net-appendages of stone are of two 

 sorts. First, there are small manageable peb- 

 bles, or rough bits of rock, which, at intervals 

 corresponding to those between the floats, are 

 fastened along the under margin of the net, to 

 hold it perpendicular in the water. These net- 

 weights weigh a few ounces each, and are 



v 



:,,..- 



Fig. 2. — Net-weights, one-half natural size. 



never notched (see fig. 2) . They are simply 

 tied about the middle with the bit of grass, 

 etc., by which they are hung to the net. 



Second, there are heavier stone anchors 



weighing from three or four to six and eight 

 pounds each, which are suspended from the 

 lower corners of the net to prevent it from 

 drifting out of position. Sometimes one of 

 these is also hung midway between the others. 

 The net-anchor is also a mere unwrought block 

 of stone of convenient size and shape. To 

 prepare it for use, it is wound about and 

 knotted in repeatedly with long, strong 

 strips of bark, which, perfectly serving the 

 purpose of cordage, enclose it in a rude kind 

 of tackle. A lighter or heavier set of anchors 

 is attached to a net according to existing con- 

 ditions of wind and wave. The necessary 

 anchors, with their bark investitures, are con- 

 ve3 7 ed to the fishing-grounds before being hung 

 in place, while the net-weights proper are more 

 permanent fixtures. Indeed, I have seen the 

 floats and stone-weights put upon the net as 

 the work of manufacturing it went on. 



Gill-nets being designed to insnare by the 

 gills, they are adapted in size to the partic- 

 ular species of prey to be captured. Thus 

 a famil} 7 often employs a set of nets of different 

 meshes. For example : Mrs. Dick Big-Bird, 

 a Red-Lake woman of a thrifty turn of mind, 

 keeps in stock four nets, ranging in point of 

 mesh from small to great, and of such a length, 

 that, when they are extended to the utmost 

 longitudinally, they have a measurement of 

 eighteen arm-stretches, — an arm-stretch equal- 

 ling the spread of the two arms. 

 Lost net-weights, tied up in 

 their little grass fastenings, occur 

 most abundantly where they have 

 become detached in dragging the 

 fishing-apparatus over the ground, 

 and likewise in spots where the 

 women are accustomed to mend 

 their nets and to spread them for 

 drying. Of course, great num- 

 bers of these objects are also lost 

 in the water from being washed 

 * out of their lashings. If we allow 



S'^S to a single outfit a complement of 



from twenty to thirty weights, 

 with a varying equipment of 

 anchors, we find that prodigious 

 quantities of these stone bits must 

 be used at one time and another, 

 at every considerable fishing-sta- 

 tion. The weights described 

 would not, it is true, be recog- 

 nizable in the future as remains, 

 since they are wholly unwrought ; but it is 

 easy to imagine conditions which would neces- 

 sitate the notching of these fragments, and 

 thus render them subject to identification. 



