POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
293 
causing the shell to move as if inhabited by a fish. This 
jerking motion is called tootoofe^ the name of the singu¬ 
lar contrivance. 
The cuttle-fish, attracted, it is supposed, by the appear¬ 
ance of the cowrie, (for no bait is used,) darts out one of its 
arms or rays, which it winds round the shell, and fastens 
among the openings between the plates. The fisherman 
continues jerking the line, and the fish puts forth another 
and another arm or ray, till it has quite fastened itself to 
the shells, when it is drawn up into the canoe, and 
secured. 
They use the hook and line both in the smooth water 
within the reef, and in the open sea; and in different modes 
display great skill. In this department they seldom 
have any bait, excepting a small kind of oohu, a black 
fresh-water fish, which they employ when catching albi- 
cores and bonitos. Their hooks usually answer the 
double purpose of hook and bait. Their lines are made 
with the tough elastic romaha, or flax, twisted by the 
hand. 
In no part of the world, perhaps, are the inhabitants 
better fishermen; and, considering their former entire 
destitution of iron, their variety of fishing apparatus is 
astonishing. Their hooks were of every form and size, 
and made of wood, shell, or bone, frequently human 
bone. This was considered the most offensive use to 
which the bones of an enemy could be applied: and one 
of the most sanguinary modern wars in Tahiti originated 
in a declaration made by a fisherman of one party, that 
he had a hook made with the bone of a rival chief who 
had been slain in a former war. 
The hooks made with wood were curious ; some were 
exceedingly small, not more than two or three inches 
