138 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
earth by the strength of the hands and arms. 
The making and repairing fences also occupies much 
of the time of those engaged in the cultivation 
of the soil. According to one of their legends, 
Matabu-fenua was the god of agriculturists. 
The peculiar situation of the islanders, and 
their amphibious habits, lead them to seek a great 
part of their subsistence from the ocean that sur¬ 
rounds them. Many are fishermen by profession. 
Their methods of fishing are numerous, some of 
them rude, others remarkably ingenious. In the 
shallow parts of their lakes they erect enclosures 
of stones for taking a number of small and 
middling-sized fish. This enclosure they call a 
aua ia, a fish fence. 
A circular space, nine or twelve feet in dia¬ 
meter, is enclosed with a stone wall, built up 
from the bottom of the lake, to the edge of the 
water. An opening, four or six inches deep, 
and a foot or two wide, is left in the upper 
part of the wall. From each side of this open¬ 
ing, a wall of stone is raised to the edge of the 
water, extending fifty or a hundred yards, and 
diverging from the aperture, so that the wall 
leaves a space of water within, of the shape of a 
wedge, the point of which terminates in the cir¬ 
cular enclosure. These walls diverge in a direc¬ 
tion from the sea, so that the fish which enter the 
lake are intercepted only in their return. They 
are so numerous through the whole extent of the 
shallow parts of the lake, that it seems scarcely 
possible for a fish to escape. These enclosures are 
valuable; fish are usually found in them every 
morning, which furnish a means of subsistence to 
the proprietors, who have no other trouble than 
simply to take them out with a hand-net. They 
