FISH-HOOKS. 
145 
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 depart¬ 
ment they seldom have any bait, excepting a small 
kind of oobu, a black fresh-water fish, which they 
employ when catching albicores 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 in¬ 
habitants 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 in length, but remarkably strong ; 
others were large. The wooden hooks were never 
barbed, but simply pointed, usually curved inwards 
at the point, but sometimes standing out very 
wide, occasionally armed at the point with a piece 
of bone. The best were hooks ingeniously made 
with the small roots of the aito tree, casuarina, or 
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