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FISHING FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
[Illustration: THE FISH-AVATAR OF VISHNU, WITH SCENES ILLUSTRATING THE
LIFE OF KRISHNA.]
FISHING FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
by
WILLIAM RADCLIFFE
Sometime of Balliol College, Oxford
With Illustrations
[Illustration: THE OLDEST REPRESENTATION (BUT ONE) OF ANGLING,
_c._ 1400 B.C.]
London
John Murray, Albemarle Street, W.
1921
All rights reserved
_TO
MY FISHING HOSTS AND FISHING FRIENDS
IN AFRICA, AUSTRALASIA, AMERICA,
THE WEST INDIES, AND EUROPE._
_UPON THEM, UPON ME MAY THE GODS BESTOW
THE BOON CRAVED BY MR. ANDREW LANG!_
“_Within the streams, Pausanias saith,
That down Cocytus valley flow,
Girdling the grey domain of Death,
The spectral fishes come and go;
The ghosts of trout fly to and fro,
Persephone, fulfil my wish,
And grant that in the shades below
My ghost may land the ghosts of fish!_”
PREFACE
Despite Francis Bacon’s dictum that “prefaces are great wastes of
time, and, though they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery,”
I hazard a few words as to this book, which, like Topsy, “growed, I
’spects,” from a chance request for a quotation from Homer on Fishing
with a Rod for my sister’s game-book.
It is, as far as I can discover, the first attempt to examine classical
and other ancient writers on Fishing from the standpoint of one who has
not only been a practical Pisciculturist for many years and an Angler
all his life, but has also been taught (though somewhat forgotten) his
Greek and Latin.
If my work, in the main, is necessarily based on the compilations of
others, it yet by serendipity (to adopt Horace Walpole’s mintage) has
unearthed some rare authors, who, judging from lack of mention, were
unknown to previous writers on the subject. It contains also—if I may
venture a “bravery”—several points which are apparently original.
Instances of these are:—
(1) The definite establishment of Aristotle as our first,
if through lack of microscope primitive, scale-reader;
(2) The acquittal without a stain on his character of
Plutarch from the charge, under which he has lain for
centuries, of libelling and contemning Fishing;
(3) The discussion by whom, Martial or Ælian, was the use
of (_a_) the natural, or (_b_) the artificial fly first
suggested or implied;
(4) The examination whether the _crescens harundo_ of
Martial was a jointed Rod, somewhat like our own;
(5) The conclusion that the Rod was apparently never
employed by the Ancient Assyrians or the Israelites, despite
their long connection with Egypt, where as early as _c._ 2000
B.C. it is depicted in actual use;
(6) The point which, if not original, is rarely made or
insufficiently pressed, that the Line of both the ancients
and moderns down till the seventeenth century was a _tight_,
as opposed to a _running_ Line.
May I, as a last “bravery,” state that apart from articles in Magazines
and Encyclopædias, I do not know, with the exception of Bates’s
_Ancient Egyptian Fishing_, of any work in English on _Fishing_, not
Fish, in ancient Egypt, Assyria, Palestine, or China, nor, with the
exception of Mainzer’s magazine article on Jewish Fishing, have I come
across one in French or German?
If any object that I have cast my net too wide and enclosed a few
things that are neither Fish nor Fishing, I must insist that as these
waters are not, as yet, adequately charted, it is well-nigh impossible
to avoid some infringement of the three miles’ territorial limit. To
drop metaphor, in the present state of archæological research, it
is notorious that no one subject can be fully investigated without
trenching here and there on allied topics. This indeed is not merely
necessary, but desirable, unless important side-lights are simply to be
ignored.
Moreover, every good Waltonian prefers the discursive to the cursive
style, and would rather take part in a leisurely exploration of his
preserves than skim the surface in a manner hasty and in-_Compleat_.
Whatever the demerits of my volume, written at intervals between
war-work and illness, I do trust that of the three counts of the
indictment brought against Nicander’s _Theriaca_, “longa, incondita,
et nullius farrago fidei,” the verdict of my readers will, at any rate
as regards the last, be “Not Guilty,” for on this head I have stoutly
striven to avoid conviction.
Reference to aid from any book or person is usually set forth in my
pages; but here and at once I acknowledge with glad gratitude the
debt I owe for counsel and help to certain of my friends, whose
names I yet hesitate to state, “pour ne point leur donner une part de
responsabilité dans les fautes que je suis seul coupable d’avoir laissé
subsister.”
They are: Mr. A. B. Cook, Reader in Classical Archæology at Cambridge;
Dr. Bernard Grenfell, Professor of Papyrology at Oxford; Dr. A. R. S.
Kennedy, Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages at Edinburgh; the
late, alas! Dr. Leonard W. King, of the Assyrian Department of the
British Museum; Dr. S. Langdon, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford; Dr.
J. W. Mackail; Dr. A. Shewan; and last, but very far from least, Mr. H.
T. Sheringham.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION 3
GREEK AND ROMAN FISHING
CHAPTER
I. HOMER. POSITION OF FISHERMEN 63
II. HOMER. METHODS OF FISHING 74
III. CONTEST BETWEEN HOMER AND HESIOD. HOMER’S DEATH 86
IV. THE DOLPHIN. HERODOTUS. THE ICHTHYOPHAGI. THE
TUNNY 90
V. PLATO. ARISTOTLE THE FIRST SCALE READER. SENSES OF
FISH 106
VI. CHARACTERISTICS OF FISHERMEN IN GREECE AND ROME.
DEITIES OF FISHING 116
VII. THEOCRITUS. THE GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTS 133
VIII. THE TWO PLINYS. MARTIAL. WAS THE ROD JOINTED? 141
IX. THE FIRST MENTION OF A FLY 152
X. THE SCARUS. THE FIRST NOTICE, “FISHING PROHIBITED” 159
XI. PLUTARCH: CHARGE AGAINST HIM OF CONTEMNING FISHING
FALSE. CLEOPATRA’S FISHING. OPPIAN. THE TORPEDO
FOR GOUT. ATHENÆUS 169
XII. ÆLIAN. THE MACEDONIAN INVENTION, OR THE FIRST
MENTION OF AN ARTIFICIAL FLY 185
XIII. AUSONIUS. SALMO. SALAR AND FARIO. FIRST MENTION OF
THE PIKE IN CLASSICAL LITERATURE 194
XIV. INFATUATION FOR FISH. EXTRAVAGANT PRICES. COSTLY
ENTERTAINMENTS. VITELLIUS. CLEOPATRA. APICIUS.
COOKS. SAUCES 201
XV. FISH IN SACRIFICES. PICKLED FISH. _Vivaria._
OYSTERS. ARCHIMEDES 215
XVI. LEGAL REGULATIONS OF ROME AS REGARDS FISHING 231
XVII. TACKLE. CURIOUS METHODS OF FISHING FOR THE
_Sargus_, THE SKATE, THE _Silurus_, AND THE
EEL. WHAT WAS THE _Silurus?_ WILD THEORIES AS
TO THE PROPAGATION OF EELS 235
XVIII. THE NINE FISH MOST HIGHLY PRIZED 254
XIX. FISH IN MYTHS, SYMBOLS, DIET, AND MEDICINE 270
XX. DIOCLETIAN’S EDICT, 301 A.D. PRICES OF FISH AND
OTHER ARTICLES THEN AND NOW 285
XXI. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROMAN AND MODERN PISCICULTURE 289
XXII. THE RING OF HELEN 295
EGYPTIAN FISHING
XXIII. “THE NILE IS EGYPT” 301
XXIV. TACKLE 307
XXV. ABSTENTION FROM FISH 319
XXVI. SACRED FISH 327
XXVII. FISHERIES. ATTEMPTED CORRELATION OF THE PRICE
OF FISH THEN AND NOW. SPAWNING 333
XXVIII. FISHING WITH THE HAIR OF THE DEAD 340
XXIX. THE RING OF POLYCRATES 344
ASSYRIAN FISHING
XXX. NO ROD, ALTHOUGH CLOSE INTERCOURSE WITH EGYPT 349
XXXI. FISHING METHODS 355
XXXII. THE EARLIEST RECORDED CONTRACT OF FISHING 360
XXXIII. FISH-GODS. DAGON 363
XXXIV. THE LEGENDS OF ADAPA, AND OF THE FLOOD 369
XXXV. FISH. _Vivaria._ THE FIRST INSTANCE OF
POACHING 373
XXXVI. FISH IN OFFERINGS, MAGIC AUGURIES 382
XXXVII. THE FIGHT BETWEEN MARDUK AND TIĀMAT 391
JEWISH FISHING
XXXVIII. ROD NOT EMPLOYED IN SPITE OF CLOSE INTERCOURSE
WITH EGYPT. REASONS SUGGESTED FOR ABSENCE 397
XXXIX. FISH WITH AND WITHOUT SCALES. METHODS OF FISHING.
_Vivaria_ 414
XL. ICHTHYOLATRY IMPROBABLE. FISH NOT IN SACRIFICES
OR AUGURIES 424
XLI. THE FISH OF TOBIAS. DEMONIC POSSESSION 431
XLII. THE FISH OF MOSES. JONAH. SOLOMON’S RING 438
CHINESE FISHING
XLIII. “PLUS UN PAYS PRODUIT DES POISSONS, PLUS IL PRODUIT
D’HOMMES” 449
INDEX 470
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE FISH AVATAR OF VISHNU, WITH SCENES
ILLUSTRATING LIFE OF KRISHNA _Frontispiece_
THE OLDEST (SAVE ONE) REPRESENTATION OF
ANGLING, _c._ 1400 B.C. _Title page_
POSEIDON, HERACLES, AND HERMES FISHING 11
AZTEC FISHING 22
AZTEC BOATING 23
PALÆOLITHIC ENGRAVINGS: SEALS, DEAD TROUT, AND (?) EELS 26
ALASKAN HOOK WITH A WIZARD’S HEAD 28
BONE GORGES 32
(1) THE _Eurycantha latro_.
(2) HOOK MADE FROM ITS LEG JOINTS _facing_ 34
BARBED HARPOONS 37
BROKEN HARPOON FROM KENT’S CAVE 37
FISHING NET SPUN BY SPIDERS _facing_ 42
FISHERMEN ON THE VASE OF PHYLAKOPI ” 63
“IN AT THE DEATH” ” 72
METHODS OF FISHING, FROM ROMAN MOSAIC 75
MR. MINCHIN’S EXPLANATION OF _κέρας_ 83
THE DOLPHIN AND THE BOY OF IASOS 96
CUTTING UP THE TUNNY 100
ARTEMIS WITH A LARGE FISH PAINTED ON HER DRESS 127
“THE HAPPY FISHERMAN” 131
THE FOWLER’S ROD 149
VENUS AND CUPID ANGLING 168
TORPEDO FISH _facing_ 180
(1) FISHERMAN AND SON.
(2) SON SALUTING WAYSIDE HERMES 186
THE NAKED FISHERMAN OF THE VATICAN _facing_ 201
TWO MEN FISHING 220
ARETHUSA 221
A GREEK ANGLER _facing_ 235
MYCENÆAN HOOKS 238
ANGLING WITH WINE, FROM A MOSAIC AT MELOS _facing_ 240
FISH ON A POMPEIAN MOSAIC IN THE NAPLES MUSEUM ” 254
HEAD OF TIBERIUS. TEMPLE WITH TWO COLUMNS IN SHAPE OF
FISH, FROM A COIN OF ABDERA 273
THE RAPE OF HELEN, FROM A FIFTH CENTURY B.C. _Scyphos_ 294
THE RETURN OF HELEN ” ” ” ” 296
EGYPTIANS CARRYING A LARGE FISH 300
EARLY HARPOONS 308
AN EGYPTIAN REEL _facing_ 309
SPEARING FISH ” 309
SENBI SPEARING FISH 310
THE EARLIEST REPRESENTATION OF ANGLING AND
HAND-LINING _facing_ 314
A FISHING SCENE ” 318
THE OXYRHYNCUS TAKING THE PLACE OF THE BIRD SOUL 328
FISHERMAN WADING WITH CREEL ROUND NECK _facing_ 349
MEN FISHING ASTRIDE GOATSKINS ” 355
THE NET OF NINGIRSU (SO-CALLED) ” 358
FISH-GOD 365
GILGAMESH CARRYING FISH 367
THE DEMON OF THE SOUTH-WEST WIND 370
THE FIGHT BETWEEN MARDUK AND TIĀMAT _facing_ 392
TOBIAS, IN _La Madonna del Pesce,_ BY RAPHAEL ” 397
A PRE-INCA FISHING SCENE 399
ATARGATIS, FROM A COIN OF HIERAPOLIS 426
JONAH ENTERING THE WHALE’S MOUTH, FROM A 14TH CENTURY MS. 439
JONAH LEAVING ” ” ” ” ” 442
CHINESE ANGLING _facing_ 449
CHINESE FISHING ” 458
ANCIENT FISHING
INTRODUCTION
PART I
“_And first for the Antiquity of_ Angling, _I shall not say much; but
onely this: Some say, it is as ancient as_ Deucalion’s _Floud: and
others (which I like better) say that_ Belus _(who was the inventer
of godly and vertuous Recreations) was the Inventer of it: and some
others say (for former times have had their Disquisitions about it)
that_ Seth, _one of the sons of_ Adam, _taught it to his sons, and
that by them it was derived to Posterity. Others say, that he left it
engraven on those Pillars, which hee erected to preserve the knowledge
of_ Mathematicks, Musick, _and the rest of those precious Arts, which
by God’s appointment or allowance, and his noble industry were thereby
preserved from perishing in Noah’s Floud_.”—ISAAK WALTON, The Compleat
Angler.
“_You see the way the Fisherman doth take
To catch the Fish; what Engins doth he make?
Behold how he ingageth all his wits,
Also his Snares, Lines, Angles, Hooks, and Nets.
Yet fish there be, that neither Hook, nor Line,
Nor Snare, nor Net, nor Engin can make thine;
They must be grop’t for, and be tickled too,
Or they will not be catch’t, whate’er you do._”
JOHN BUNYAN, The Pilgrim’s Progress.
(The Author’s Apology for his book.)
“_Elle extend ses filets, elle invente de nouveaux moyens de succès,
elle s’attache un plus grand nombre d’hommes. Elle pénètre dans les
profondeurs des abîmes, elle arrache aux angles les plus secrets, elle
poursuit jusqu’aux extrémités du globe les objets de sa constante
recherche._”—G. E. LACÈPÉDE, Hist. Nat. des poissons.
“_What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed, when he
hid himself among women, though puzzling questions are not beyond all
Conjecture._”—SIR THOMAS BROWNE, Urne-Buriall.
* * * * *
The craft of Fishing possesses an ancestry so ancient, or according
to a Polynesian legend so literally abysmal, that for those who have
their business on the waters, deep or shallow, it is but seemly, it is
certainly of interest, to essay the tracing of its pedigree, and the
linking of the generations of its far-flung lineage.
What were, and whence came its first forbears, and of what manner and
of what matter were the original parents of its devices are questions
which should appeal to the large majority of its followers. The
_sansculottes_, however stalwart, who does not in his heart of hearts
rejoice in owning, or claiming, some genealogical garments, wherein to
hide his nakedness, is rare and abnormal.
The pedigree is like and unlike its celebrated Urquhart brother. Like
in the gaps in generations, which in his endeavour directly to deduce
his family from Adam even Sir Thomas’s ingenuity failed to bridge,
despite the prolongation when necessary of the lives of his ancestors
to ten times the allotted span. Unlike in antiquity, since it stretches
far, very far beyond “Deucalion’s Floud” and Adam’s Paradise.
Angling, despite wide ramifications, has perhaps stamped its stock more
vividly and has bred truer to original type than its elder brother
Hunting. The variance of a repeating rifle from what some hold to be
their common first sire, a sharpened pole, is larger and more marked
than that of our most up-to-date Rod.
The riddle, as in other cases of disputed succession, of identifying
the first real head of the family or the earliest begetter of the
race is rendered more complex by wide geographical dispersion. It is
possibly insoluble.
Nevertheless to this labour of love I now address myself.
The question of priority of the implement used for catching fish has
been often moot, sometimes acute, for, in Walton’s words, “former times
have had their Disquisitions about it.”
How did the earliest fisherman secure his prey? Was it by means of the
Spear, under which term I include harpoons and barbed fishing spears of
any kind, the Net, or the Line? None of these has lacked its champions,
of whom the Line has attracted the fewest, the Spear the most.
Uncertainty as to the order of precedence was not really remarkable.
We lacked even as late as the beginning of the last century both the
data as to Egyptian and Assyrian fishing, which the discovery of the
key to the hieroglyphs by Champollion and to the cuneiform by Rawlinson
has laid bare, and the data as to the fishing of the Troglodytes which
scientific examination of the caves of France and Spain has revealed.
The outlook of our forefathers was necessarily limited, indeed
monotopical. No big maps of the archæological world widened their
vision. Some sectional sketches, and these badly charted, obscured
their perspective.
The priority of the Net at one time probably enrolled the majority of
adherents. Nor can we wonder, when we realise that in the case of a
country so ancient as India we light on no method of fishing other than
Netting—and even that till the post-Vedic literature after 200 B.C.
most rarely—in Sanskrit or Pāli literature before 400 A.D.[1] Hence
came the deduction, not unnatural but illogical, since it stresses too
strongly the argument of silence or omission—_i.e._ because no specimen
or representation of a thing exists the thing itself never existed—that
the Net must have been the first implement.
And even now after many years of exploration in Mesopotamia a champion
of the Net or of the Line, if he similarly disregarded logic and
all save Assyrian remains, might not unreasonably proclaim their
antecedence to the Spear, of which no mention or representation as a
method of fishing has yet been unearthed.
In the case of Egypt the advocate either of the Spear or Net has
not as strong, certainly not so clear, a case. Although examples of
the first have been discovered in prehistoric graves, the Net finds
representation earlier than the Spear. Be this how it may, the Spear,
Net, Line, Rod flourish synchronously in the XIIth Dynasty _c._ 2000,
or according to Petrie’s chronology about 3500 B.C.
In China, unless the sentence of the quite modern _I shih chi shih_,
that in the reign of the legendary Emperor who first taught the use of
fire, “fishermen used the silk of the cocoons for their lines, a piece
of sharpened iron for their hooks, thorn-sticks for their rods, and
split grain for their bait,” be potent enough to produce a protagonist
for the priority of the Rod, the boldest advocate would shrink from
championing either the Spear or Net. The first mention _c._ 900 B.C. (I
know of none actually written before this date[2]), shows them, and the
Rod, in general and simultaneous operation.
From Crete shines out no guiding light. The _débris_ recovered from
centres of the ‘Minoan’ civilisation yields frequent and in the main
vivid pictures of fish, _e.g._ those on the Phaistos Disc (which is
considered the earliest instance of printing in Europe at any rate)
and the flying fish on glazed pottery from Knossos. But unfortunately
neither in the Annual Reports of Sir Arthur Evans to the British School
at Athens nor (he tells me) in his forthcoming book do _modi piscandi_
obtain notice.
In Greece, a champion of any single method would be sadly to seek.
The Spear, the Net, the Line, and the Rod all occur in our earliest
authority, Homer, and, curious to note, as a rule in similes. From the
fact that the Spear finds mention but once, the Net twice, and the Line
(with or without the Rod) thrice, a real enthusiast has deduced an
argument for the priority of the last two over the Spear!
This short survey forces the conclusion that we cannot fix definitely
which was the method adopted by the earliest historical fishermen.
Before proceeding on our search for further data two points should be
emphasised. First, the period covered even by the longest historical
or semi-historical record counts but as a fraction of the time since
geology and archæology prove Man to have existed on earth.
Grant, if you will, the demand of the most exacting Egyptologists or
Sumerologists, to whom a thousand years are as nothing; concede their
postulated five or six thousand years; of what account is one lustrum
of millenniums when compared with the years—not less than two million
according to some geologists[3]—which have elapsed since Man first came
on the scene?
Second, all the above nations possessed an advanced civilisation.
Neither civilisation nor fishing is a Jovelike creation, springing into
existence armed _cap-à-pie_. Both, like our friend Topsy, “growed,”
and both demanded long periods for growth and development from their
primitive origin.
In fishing these were retarded by the innate conservatism of the
followers of the cult. The psychology of the faithful is an odd blend
of dogged, perhaps unconscious, adherence to the olden ways and of an
almost Athenian curiosity about “any new thing,” which as often as not
sees itself discarded in favour of the ancient devices.
Even in this year of our Lord a cousin of mine, who Ulysses-like many
rivers has known, much tackle tested, habitually (influenced no doubt
by the recipe for the line given by Plutarch and passed on by Dame
Juliana Berners) inserts between his line and his gut some eighteen
inches of horse hair! But even in him the law of development works,
for he does not Pharisaically adhere to the strict letter of the text,
and insist that the hair comes only from the tail of a stallion or
gelding![4]
Then, again, not less than two thousand odd years were needed for the
Rod and the Line of Ælian’s Macedonian angler to take unto themselves
a cubit or so more of length than their Egyptian predecessors.[5] The
latter may, however, have been rendered shorter than actually used from
the regard paid to artistic convention by the craftsman of Beni-Hasan.
But the connection of the line to the rod furnishes the most arresting
instance of conservatism or slow development. Progress from the
Egyptian method, which made fast the line to the top of the rod,[6]
to a “running line” took, so far as discoverable records show, no
less a period than that between _c._ 2000 B.C. and our sixteenth or
seventeenth century, _i.e._ some 3600, or (according to Petrie) over
5000, years!
The Reel, which, however rude, would appear a much more complicated
device than other conceivable methods of a running line, seems yet to
be mentioned first. The earliest description occurs in _The Art of
Angling_, by T. Barker, 1651, the first propagator of the heresy of
the salmon roe, and according to Dr. Turrell “the father of poachers.”
The earliest picture figures in his enlarged edition of 1657. The Reel
affords another instance of slow growth. Its employment except with
salmon or big pike only coincides with the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
The development to the more subtle method of play by means of spare
line can only be conjectured.
It was obviously invented somewhere between 1496 (_The Boke of St.
Albans_, where we are expressly told to “dubbe the lyne and frette it
fast in ẏ toppe with a bowe to fasten on your lyne”) and 1651, when
Barker mentions the “wind” (which was set in a hole two feet or so from
the bottom of the rod) as a device employed by a namesake of his own,
and presumably by few beside at that time.
Walton four years later, but anticipating Barker by two as to its
employment in _salmon_ fishing, writes of the “wheele” about the
middle of the rod or nearer the hand as evidently an uncommon device,
“which is to be observed better by seeing one of them than by a large
demonstration of words.”
Focussing a perplexed eye on the picture vouchsafed by Barker in his
enlarged edition of 1657, we are impressed by the wisdom of Father
Izaak. Frankly it is not easy to discern from it what Barker’s “wind”
was intended to be or what the method of working. Apparently he had in
mind two distinct implements, a “wheele” similar to Walton’s (such
perhaps as is figured in the title page of _The Experienced Angler_
by their contemporary Venables) and a crude winder, such as survives
to-day in our sea-fishing, but intended as an attachment to a Rod.[7]
This marks a logical and likely step in evolution. It is inconceivable
that invention should have soared to a Reel without there having been
some intermediate stage between it and the “tight” line. The advantage
of extra line for emergencies must have been recognised pretty early,
and a wire ring at the top of the Rod, through which the line could
run, naturally resulted from such recognition.
The method of disposing of the “spare” line may be presumed from
survival of primitive practice. Not many years ago pike fishers in
rustic parts of England often dispensed with a reel. They either let
their spare with a cork at its end trail behind on the ground, or wound
it on a bobbin or a piece of wood, stowed away in a pocket. Nicholas
explains Walton’s (chap. v.) “running line, that is to say, when you
fish for a trout by hand at the ground” as “a line, so called, because
it runs along the ground.”
It seems impossible to fix with certainty the period at which fishing
with a running line made its first appearance. No early data exist, nor
do the few early pictures of mediæval rods indicate the presence of a
wire top ring. I had a lively hope, when I recalled its many plates and
figures, of extracting some guidance from the most important French
work of early date (1660) dealing with fishing, _Les Ruses Innocentes_,
which may be described (_mutatis mutandis_) as the counterpart of _The
Boke of St. Albans_.
The first four books are concerned with “divers methods” (of most of
which the author, _à la_ Barker, claims the invention) for the making
and the using of all kinds of nets for the capture of birds, both of
passage and indigenous, and of many kinds of animals.
The fifth confides to us “les plus beaux secrets de la pêche dans
les Rivières ou dans les Etangs.” As the secrets are concerned
almost entirely with Net fishing, little light reaches us. Both the
instructions and illustrations in chap. xxvi., _Invention pour prendre
les Brochets à la ligne volante_, show that the line after being
attached about the middle of the pole was twisted round and round till
made fast at the end of the pole, from which depended some eighteen
feet of line.[8]
Setting conjecture aside and faced by the fact that the Egyptian line
was certainly made fast at the top and that neither illustrations nor
writings (so far as I have been able to discover) indicate any other
condition, we are driven by a mass of evidence, negative though it be,
to the conclusion that the ancients[9] and the moderns down to some
date between 1496 and 1651 fished with “tight” lines.
[Illustration: POSEIDON, HERACLES, AND HERMES FISHING.
Figured from a _lethykos_ (_c._ 550 B.C.) in the Hope Collection (Sale
Cat. No. 22). See note 2, p. 10.]
These were either fastened to the Rod whip-fashion, or possibly looped
to it. The distinction is only important in so far as a horse-hair
loop at the end of the Rod may have developed into a top ring of wire,
which must not be confused with rings fixed _along_ the Rod, which R.
Howlett, in _The Angler’s Sure Guide_, 1706, seems the first to note.
Why the Greeks or Romans should not have emancipated themselves from
the _tight_ line of Egypt and evolved the _running_ line by the mere
force of their inventive genius causes much astonishment. This grows
acute when we remember that they knew a fish whose properties and
predatory endowments furnished an ideal example of the advantages of
the _running_ line.
Of the angler fish and its methods of securing food Aristotle,
Plutarch, and Ælian are eloquent.[10] From Plutarch we learn that “the
cuttle fish useth likewise the same craft as the fishing-frog doth. His
manner is to hang down, as if it were an angle line, a certain small
string or gut from about his neck, which is of that nature that he can
let out in length a great way, when it is loose, and draw it in close
together very quickly when he listeth. Now when he perceiveth some
small fish near unto him,” he forthwith plies his nature-given tackle.
With the _tight_ line play can only be given to a fish by craft of
hand and rod. Anglers know to their sorrow that although much may be
thus accomplished, occasions too frequently arise when the most expert
handling can avail naught.
In Walton’s time the custom, as indeed it was the only present help,
in the event of a big fish being hooked was to throw the Rod into the
water and await its retrieval, if the deities of fishing so willed,
till such time as the fish by pulling it all over the water had played
himself out.
But the existence of some method of releasing line rather earlier than
Barker and Walton may perhaps be inferred from the following passage
in William Browne’s _Britannia’s Pastorals_ (Fifth Song), published
1613-16:—
“He, knowing it a fish of stubborn sway,
Puls up his rod, but soft: (as having skill)
Wherewith the hooke fast holds the fishe’s gill.
Then all his line he freely yeeldeth him,
Whilst furiously all up and downe doth swimme
Th’ insnared fish....
By this the pike, cleane wearied, underneath
A willow lyes and pants (if fishes breathe):
Wherewith the fisher gently puls him to him,
And, least his haste might happen to undo him,
Lays down his rod, then takes his line in hand,
And by degrees getting the fish to land,
Walkes to another poole.”
A few years suffice to span the interval between William Browne and
Barker, whereas between Theocritus and Barker a great gulf of time
yawns unbridged. Thus we have renderings of the former (Idyll XXI.) and
of other classical authors by translators (more especially when they
happen to be also anglers!) which demonstrate ignorance or ignoring of
the fixity of line and the absence of reel.
These, if not palpably anachronous, afford at any rate evidence of
incuriosity concerning facts. Their “then I gave him slack” and other
similar expressions, true enough of our present line, can be no way
applicable to the conditions of ancient Angling, unless the words
mean—and then only by strained construing—that their “slack” was given
by depression of Rod rather than by lengthening of line.
With the hook also we are confronted with a similar slowness of
development. This is so well attested that we need more than even
the authority of Butcher and Lang to establish what their slip in
translating γναμπτὰ ἂγκιστρα as _bent hooks_ in _Odyssey_ IV., 369,
and as _barbed hooks_ in _Odyssey_ XII., 332, would suggest, viz. a
synonymous form of a synchronous invention.
Since it is impossible to fix the length of time, if any, which
separates the New Stone from the Copper Age, we can make no adequate
guess as to how many generations of men and how many centuries of
time were needed to transform the bent into the barbed hook. Perhaps
Æneolithic experts can.
Extant examples from Egypt of both furnish, however, some chronological
data. If the argument from silence, or rather from non-survival in one
particular country, be not pressed unduly, these tend to prove that so
far from their being twin brethren, the birth of the bent anteceded
that of the barbed hook by at any rate the number of years which
separated the Ist from the XVIIIth Dynasty, before which the occurrence
of a barbed hook is rare.
The first implement of fishing, be it what you please, was no
split-cane Rod, nor the “town-like Net” of Oppian, but some simple
device created by the insistent necessity of procuring food. With our
primitive ancestors, as with the companions of Menelaus, often “was
hunger gnawing at their bellies,” a hunger accentuated at one period
by the retreat further into the primeval forests or at another by the
actual decrease of the animals, which had hitherto furnished the staple
of Man’s sustenance.
Fortunately other data more ancient and more authoritative than the
Egyptian or Sumerian as to priority of implement help the quest of
Archæologists.
Blazing their trail backwards in the half-light of non-historical
forests, they hap on many a _cache_ of ancient devices in the
settlements of the New Stone Man. Pausing merely to examine these, they
cut their way through yet denser and darker timber, until eventually
they emerge at an opening wherein once stood the ultimate if scarcely
the original storehouse, whence Neolithic Man drew and in the course of
long travel bettered his materials—the dwelling place of the Old Stone
Man.
To this storehouse we too must press, tarrying only at the _caches_ to
note cursorily Neolithic betterment or invention. The dwelling place is
one of many mansions, or rather of many rude caverns dotted over Europe.
Of such are Kent’s Cave near Torquay (which from its remains of animals
may have been a mansion, or technically a “station,” as early as any),
the Kesserloch in Switzerland, the shelters, or _cavernes_, in Southern
France, of which La Madelaine in Dordogne, earliest to be discovered,
ranks still the most famous, and a score or so of stations in Spain—not
limited we now realise to its north-west corner—of which Altamira, not
far from Santander, stands out pre-eminent.
With their exploration a remoter vista has opened out in recent
years; a wholly new standpoint has been gained from which to review
the early history of the human race. A brilliant band of prehistoric
archæologists has brought together such a mass of striking materials as
to place the evolution of human art and appliances in the Quaternary
Period on a level far higher than had been previously ever suspected.
The investigations of Lartet, Cartailhac, Piette, Breuil, Obermaier,
etc., have revolutionised our knowledge of a phase of human culture
which goes so far back beyond the limits of any continuous story that
it may well be said to belong to an older world.
These sentences of Sir Arthur Evans[11] gain further emphasis from
Professor Boyd-Dawkins: “It is not too much to state that the frescoed
caves in Southern France and Northern Spain throw as much light on
the life of those times as the Egyptian tombs do on the daily life of
Egypt, or the walls of the Minoan palace on the luxury of Crete, before
the Achæan conquest.”
The picture of Palæolithic life revealed by these dwelling places
attracts from every point of view. But as our last is fish and fishing,
to fish and fishing we must stick. I shall therefore limit myself
to the caves which furnish specimens or representations of ichthyic
interest, with the one exception of “marvellous Altamira,” which,
though it unfortunately yields us no portrayals of fishing, from every
other aspect compels mention.
So astonishing was the discovery of this cave with its whole galleries
of _painted_ designs on the walls and ceilings that it required a
quarter of a century and the corroboration of repeated finds on the
French side of the Pyrenees for general recognition that these rock
paintings were of the Palæolithic age, and that features, which had
been hitherto reckoned as exclusively belonging to the New Stone Man,
can now be classed as the original property of the Man of the Old Stone
Age in the final production of his evolution.
These primeval frescoes in their most developed state (Evans, _ibid._,
tells us) show not only a consummate mastery of natural design, but
also an extraordinary technical resource. Apart from the charcoal used
in certain outlines, the chief colouring matter was red and yellow
ochre, mortars and palettes for the preparation of which have come to
light. In single animals the tints are varied from black to dark and
ruddy brown or brilliant orange, and so by fine gradations to paler
_nuances_, obtained by scraping and washing.
The greatest marvel is that such polychrome masterpieces as the bisons
standing and couchant or with limbs huddled together were executed on
the ceilings of inner vaults and galleries, where the light of day
never penetrated. Nowhere does smoke blur their outlines, probably (as
Parkyn[12] suggests) because of long oxidisation. The art of artificial
illumination had evidently progressed far. We now, indeed, know that
stone lamps, decorated in one case with the head of an ibex, already
existed.
“_Les extremes se touchent_” was here aptly exemplified, for to a very
young child was it reserved to discover the very oldest art gallery in
the world. In 1879 Señor de Santuola chanced to be digging in a cave on
his property, when he heard his little daughter cry, “Toros, toros!”
Realising quickly that this was no warning of an impending charge by
bulls, he followed her gaze to the vaulted ceiling, where his eyes
there espied “the finest expression of Palæolithic art extant.”
This little Spanish girl was the first for many, many thousands of
years to behold a collection of pictures, which demonstrate not only
the high point of excellence to which the art of the Troglodytes had
attained, but also, from the absence of perspective and of decorative
as compared with pictorial composition, indicate how long is probably
the interval and how far is the separation between them and the Men of
the Neolithic Age.
Not only in the character of their Art, which if more specialised
in subjects was superior in representative quality, but also in the
substance and in the method of fashioning their fishing and hunting
implements, the separation between the Old Stone and the New Stone Man
is very marked.
The former for their stone implements almost always used flint. They
worked it to shape merely by flaking or chipping. The latter employed
also diorite, quartzite, etc., and in addition to flaking fashioned
them by grinding and polishing.[13]
It must, I fear, be acknowledged that the _caches_ of the New Stone
Age fail to give us the help expected towards settling what was the
first implement employed. It is true that they yield hooks, nets,
net-sinkers, which may have been merely developments of Troglodyte
tackle, but, judging from the absence of any surviving Palæolithic
example, were more probably new inventions.
But neither these nor the implements of succeeding Ages furnish us with
evidence sufficient to decide the tackle first employed by the earliest
fisherman, or even by the Old Stone Man, for, as Cartailhac truly warns
us, “Ce n’est pas, comme on l’a dit à tort, le début de l’art que nous
découvrons. L’art de l’âge du renne est beaucoup trop ancien.”[14]
And here it may well be objected, if the New Stone Age does not
disclose any priority of implement, why further pursue what thus must
be the insoluble? Why, indeed, especially if it be true that their
tackle with some additional devices merely shows up as a development
and improvement of that of their predecessors, to whom in point of time
they surely stand nearer than any other known race?
The objection is pertinent. But, startling as the statement may seem,
there now exist, or have within the last century existed, races, who
_in the actual material, and in the mode of fashioning, of their
weapons_ are, in the opinion of experts, nearer akin to and resemble
more closely Palæolithic than did Neolithic man.
Speaking of the Eskimos, Cartailhac simply summarises the evidence of
many authorities, when he writes “the likenesses in the above points
are so striking that one sees in them the true descendants of the
Troglodytes of Perigord.”
Professor Boyd-Dawkins goes farther. He finds the Eskimos so intimately
connected with the Cave Men in their manners and customs, in their
art, especially in their method of representing animals, and in their
implements and weapons, that “the only possible explanation is that
they belong to the same race: that they are representatives of the
Troglodytes, protected within the Arctic circle from those causes by
which their forbears had been driven from Europe and Asia. They stand
at the present day wholly apart from other living races, and are cut
off from all by the philologer and the craniologist.”[15]
Food supply probably effected the migration of the Eskimos, or rather
of their ancestors from Europe.[16] At the close of the last ice age,
as the ice cap retreated Northwards, the reindeer followed the ice, and
the Eskimo followed the reindeer.
Of the aborigines of Tasmania Professor E. B. Tylor testifies: “If
there have remained anywhere up to modern times men, whose condition
has changed little since the early Stone Age, the Tasmanians seem such
a people. Many tribes of the late Stone Age have lasted on into modern
times, but it appears that the Tasmanians by the workmanship of their
stone implements represent rather the condition of Palæolithic man.”[17]
Sollas goes even farther: “The Tasmanians, however, though recent were
at the same time a Palæolithic or even, it has been suggested, an
Eolithic race: they thus afford us an opportunity of interpreting the
past by the present—a saving procedure in a subject where fantasy is
only too likely to play a leading part.”[18] But their usual technique
is against Eolithicism.
If these authoritative statements be accurate, can we not hazard
a shrewd conjecture from examination of the implements and of the
methods prevalent amongst the backward or uncivilised tribes closely
resembling our Cave Dwellers, as to which was probably the first
implement or method employed for catching fish? Can we, in fact, from
the data available from the Eskimos, Tasmanians, and other similar
races so reconstruct our men of Dordogne and elsewhere as to adjudge
approximately whether first in their hands at any rate was the Spear,
the Hook, or the Net?
Such a quest seems one of the incidental motives of G. de Mortillet
in _Les Origines de la Chasse et de la Pêche_, 1890, which modifies
in several particulars his earlier _Les Origines de la Pêche et de
la Navigation_, 1867. We find from his pages and those of Rau’s
_Prehistoric Fishing_ (1884), and of Parkyn’s _Prehistoric Art_ (1916),
that a comparative examination of the above races, as it ramifies,
discloses not only a close resemblance to Palæolithic Man in the
material, nature, and fashioning of their tackle, but also in their art
and method of expressing their art.
Such similarity of art, evident in the Eskimos, stands revealed by
the Bushmen of Africa (especially in the caves formerly used for
habitations by the tribes of the Madobo range) in no less obvious or
striking degree. “The nearest parallels to the finer class of rock
carvings in the Dordogne are in fact to be found among the more
ancient specimens of similar work in South Africa, while the rock
paintings of Spain find their best analogies among the Bushmen.”[19]
The Africans, it is true, perfected their engravings on the surface of
the rocks more frequently by “pecking.” But both they and Palæolithic
man make free and successful use of colours, of which the African
possesses six as against the three or four of his European brethren.
Each race depicts fish and animals so life-like as to be easily
identifiable.
What evidence as to priority do the Eskimo methods of to-day yield us?
Cartailhac but echoes Rau, Salomon Reinach, and Hoffmann[20] in his
assertion that the prehistoric Reindeer Age compares practically with
the actual age of the Eskimos. Their fishing spears in material, shape,
and barb resemble the Palæolithic.
Their carvings and engravings of fishing and whaling scenes on bone and
ivory show clear kinship to the Dordognese.
Hoffmann’s able study of the Eskimos not only brings out these
similarities, but also specially notes the closeness with which
they observe and the exactitude with which they render anatomical
peculiarities of fish and animals. As portrayers of the human form, on
the other hand, they must be reckoned far from expert. The caves of
France and those of Spain in general, although the _paintings_ of the
human form at Calapata and other places are far more finished and far
more frequent than the French drawings, disclose curiously the same
power and the same deficiency as characteristic of Troglodyte art.[21]
No race probably in the world depends so greatly on fishing for a
livelihood as the Eskimos. From them, if from any, we should derive
most light and leading. With them the Spear and the Hook form the
chief, and till recently probably the only, tackle. Nets, on account
of the ice, play little part. To any claim for precedence of the former
over the latter, a champion of the Net demurs on the ground of climatic
conditions, which he not unreasonably urges prevent any proper analogy
in this respect being drawn between them and our Cave Men.
Touching the similarity of the Tasmanian to the Troglodyte, Ling Roth
amplifies, especially as regards the material, etc. of the Spear,
the evidence contained in Tylor’s already quoted sentence. This in
conjunction with Captain Cook’s earlier statement that the Tasmanians,
while experts with the Spear, were ignorant of the use of a Hook, and,
according to Wentworth, of a Net, would have gone far in helping our
quest and in establishing the precedence of the Spear.
Unfortunately the evidence of Lloyd and others that these aborigines
speared fish as a pastime, coupled with the fact that while they
consumed _crustaceæ_ they abstained (probably from reasons of tabu or
totem) from eating scaled fish, sharply differentiates their _Kultur_
from that of our prehistoric fishermen “at whose bellies hunger was
gnawing.”[22]
From Mexico, and especially from the representations in Yucatan, I had
hoped for new factors helping to solve our problem. First, because
these had so far escaped the meticulous examination of the Madelainian,
and second, because they were the product of an ancient people, the
Mayas, who ranked fish as an important item of their diet, and pursued
fishing with the Spear and the Net.[23]
With the Aztecs, who in the thirteenth century inherited the Maya
culture, now dated as regards their architecture back to the first
three centuries A.D.,[24] the hook arrives, or rather appears. Aztec
skill in fishing stands well attested. Their artificial fishponds or
_vivaria_, and the importance which they attached to fish as a food
extract favourable comment from Cortez.[25]
In spite of the pictographs, known as the Mendoza Codex,[26] being
executed several centuries after the date I have roughly allotted
myself, _viz._ 500 A.D., I cannot resist inserting two of these on
account of their fourfold interest.
[Illustration: AZTEC FISHING.
From the _Mendoza Codex_, vol. i. pl. 61, fig. 4.]
They show first, that Mexican lads received early in their teens
education in fishing. Second, that the Aztecs were familiar with
scoop nets. Third—and this surely will go to the heart of our Food
Controller—that food was rationed. From the circles or dots we learn
that the age of one youth depicted was thirteen, and from the two
connected ovals marked with small dashes that his allowance of food
consisted of two cakes or _tortillas_ a meal. Fourth, by the symbol
before his mouth, that the father is speaking. The symbol very roughly
reminds us of the Assyrian system of signs which determine the nature
or subject of a word, as the two hundred odd fish mentioned in
Asur-bani-pal’s library at Nineveh signify.
[Illustration: AZTEC BOATING.
From the _Mendoza Codex_, vol. i. pl. 61, fig. 3.]
But Mexico as a staff in our quest of priority breaks in our hands. The
Museo Nacional a few years ago contained nothing of prehistoric fishing
interest except perhaps a notched stone sinker. Greater disappointment
still, the wealth of ancient Maya information from the monuments of
Merida yields us sometimes fish, but never fishing scenes.[27]
From ancient Peru I had hoped help, but neither the four massive tomes
of _Ancient Peruvian Art_ by A. Baessler, nor _The Fish in Peruvian
Art_ by Charles W. Mead vouchsafe it.
To the absence among the ancient Peruvians of any written language
Mead attributes the very early arrival of conventionalism in art. In
consequence of conventionalism, fish at the period reached are merely
rendered as various designs, notably that of the “interlocked fishes,”
_i.e._ a pattern of parts of two fish turned in opposite directions,
a curious example of which may be found in Mead, Plate I. fig. 9.
The mythological monster, part fish part man, in Plate II. fig. 13,
compares and contrasts with similar Assyrian representations.
The tomes of _The Necropolis of Ancon_ fail also to aid us. Among the
hundreds of objects of Inca civilization depicted, nothing piscatorial,
except some copper fishing hooks and a few spears, comes to view.[28]
Joyce, however, gives a fishing scene depicted on a pot from the
Truxillo district of the coast, which the author dates pre-Inca, or
anywhere between 200 B.C. and A.D.[29]
From his book emerge two interesting points of comparative
mythology. The first—which compares with Assyrian and other similar
legends[30]—the tradition that culture was first brought to Ecuador by
men of great stature coming from the sea, who lived by fishing with
nets; the second—which compares with the Egyptian practice—the custom
among certain primitive coast tribes of placing provisions, among which
were fish, in the graves of the dead.[31]
Other races of the world present many points of similarity to the
French cave men. The Bushmen of Africa, and the Bushmen of Australia,
_inter alios_, exemplify this. Banfield, in dealing with the drawings
or so-called frescoes of men, animals, and fish on Dunk Island,
vouches for the latter as “of talent, original and academic. Here is
the sheer beginning, the spontaneous germ of art, the labourings of a
savage soul controlled by wilful æsthetic emotions.”[32]
This review of the fishing weapons and methods of the races
cited—especially of the Eskimos and the Tasmanians, the races closest
to the Troglodytes—provides data which make for a plausible conjecture,
but none, owing to differing conditions caused by climate or custom,
which enable a definite decision as to priority of implement.
Let us return from this survey of races to the _cavernes_ and examine
their contents.[33] Their _débris_ (at times ten feet deep and seventy
long) manifests that these _stations_ served as habitations for several
generations of men.
From nearly all the French stations neighbouring the sea or rivers,
bones of fish, especially of salmon, have been recovered. These have
been identified, but not without some dissent, as belonging to the
Tunny, _Labrax lupus_, Eel, Carp, Barbel, Trout, and _Esox lucius_.
The presence of the last, our pike, in this (and again in Neolithic)
_débris_ excites our interest as evidence that the Troglodytes knew
and made use of a fish whose absence, despite its wide geographical
distribution, from all Greek and Latin literature until we reach the
time of Ausonius, Cuvier, or more strictly Valenciennes, notes with
extreme surprise.[34]
While in La Madelaine and elsewhere fish occur abundantly in the
_débris_, at some _cavernes_ in the Vézère Valley, notably Le Moustier,
they cannot be traced. Their absence coupled with the presence of
animal bones has led some archæologists to the conclusion that Le
Moustier and other stations were earlier inhabited than La Madelaine,
at a time, in fact, when according to Paul Broca, “Man hunted the
smaller animals as well as large game, but had not yet learned how to
reach the fish.”
In addition to osseous deposits, numerous ichthyic carvings and
engravings on materials and weapons present themselves. It is curious,
however, to note that (at any rate up to 1915) of all the caves and
grottoes two only, Pindal on the wall, and Niaux (the latest discovered
French cave where black is the solitary colour employed) on the floor,
furnish us with representations of fish on _wall or floor_.
[Illustration: TWO SEALS, DEAD TROUT, AND (?) EELS.
From _Le bâton de bois de renne de Montgaudier_ Museum.]
These Old Stone Men not only observed closely, but portrayed the
results of their observations with remarkable faithfulness. The reliefs
of bisons mounted in clay and the effigies of women carved in ivory,
the paintings of bisons instinct with life and movement, the figures
of two seals (engraved on a _bâton_ from Montgaudier) with a dead
trout,[35] of another seal engraved on a drilled bear’s tooth (from
Duruthy), and of an otter with a fish incised on a reindeer antler from
Laugerie-Basse,[36] evoke the lively admiration of de Mortillet and
Parkyn.
Such is their graphic truthfulness and attention to detail that,
according to the former writer, the trout which the seals have
killed floats, as dead fish do, belly up, and is not only perfectly
characterised in general form, but is rendered with the spots on the
top of the back dotted quite accurately.[37] Not less admirable is the
bas-relief of a fish in reindeer horn from Mas d’Azil, or of another
pierced by a spear.[38]
The frequent engravings of animals and of fish prompt S. Reinach and
others to the interesting surmise that since all or most portray
creatures desired for food by hunters and fishermen, they were
executed not for amusement, “mais sont les talismans de chasseurs qui
craignent de manquer de gibier. L’objet des artistes a été d’exercer
une attraction magique sur les animaux de la même espèce. Les indigènes
de l’Australie Centrale peignent aussi sur les roches ou le sol des
figures des animaux dans le but avoué d’en favoriser par la même
raison, qui dans certaines campagnes fait qu’on évite de prononcer le
nom du loup.”[39]
After pointing out that the representations of the Reindeer epoch
“offrent un caractère analogue,” he continues, “À cette phase très
ancienne d’evolution humaine la religion (au sens moderne de ce mot)
n’existe pas encore, mais la magie joue un rôle considerable et
s’associe à toutes les formes de l’activité.”[40]
Magic, especially imitative magic, according to Frazer and others,
plays a great part in the measures taken by the rude hunter or
fisherman to secure an abundant supply of food. On the principle that
like produces like, many things are done by him or for him by his
friends in deliberate imitation of the result sought.
Confirmatory evidence from races, past and present the world over,
stands ready to call. The Point Barrow Eskimos, when following the
whale, always carry a whale-shaped amulet of stone or wood. The North
African fisherman of the present day, in obedience to an ancient Moslem
work on Magic, fashions a tin image of the fish which he desires,
inscribes it with four mystic letters, and fastens it to his line.
[Illustration: AN ALASKAN HOOK WITH A WIZARD’S HEAD.
From E. Krause’s _Vorgeschichtliche Fischereigeräte_, fig. 345.]
If at the due season fish fail to appear, the Nootka wizard constructs
of wood[41] a fish swimming, and launches it in the direction whence
the schools generally arrive. This simulacrum, plus incantations,
compels the laggards in no time.[42]
In Cambodia, if a netsman be unsuccessful, he strips naked and
withdraws a short distance: then strolling up to the net, as if he saw
it not, he lets himself be caught in the meshes, whereupon he calls
out, “What is this? I fear I am caught.” Such procedure is believed to
attract the fish efficaciously and to ensure a good haul.[43]
Scotland not a century ago witnessed pantomimes of similar character,
according to the Rev. J. Macdonald, minister of Reay. Fishermen, when
dogged by ill luck, threw one of their number overboard and then hauled
him out of the water, exactly as if he were a fish. This Jonah-like
ruse apparently induced appetite, for “soon after trout, or sillock,
would begin to nibble.”
The comparative ethnologist detects in all these cases an attempt to
establish direct relations between the hunter or the fisher and his
quarry. Primitive man in search for food frequently seeks to establish
an impalpable but in his eyes very serviceable connection between
himself and the object of his quest by working a likeness of his
desired prey.
Such a likeness, according to the doctrine that a _simulacrum_ is
actively _en rapport_ with that which it represents, bestows on its
possessor power over the original—“l’auteur ou le possesseur d’une
image peut influencer ce qu’elle représente.”[44] The cases are simply
the commonplaces of homœpathic or imitative magic.[45]
We find that just as the savage attempts to appease the ghosts of men
he has slain, so he essays to propitiate the spirits of the animals
and fish he has killed: for this purpose elaborate ceremonies of
propitiation are widely observed.[46] Of similar character and intent
are the taboos observed by fishermen before the season opens, and the
purifications performed on returning with their booty.
Magic, exercised not so much to propitiate as to avoid offending some
power—in the following instance the element of water—originated the
rule (existent among the Eskimos fifty years ago) that forbade during
the salmon season any water being boiled in a house, because “this is
bad for the fishing.” Frazer suggests that the Commandment in Exodus
xxxiv. 26, “Not to seethe a kid in its mother’s milk,” embodies a like
illustration.[47]
From carvings, whether executed for purposes of amusement or of magic,
and from specimens found in the _débris_ of the stations, we derive our
knowledge of the earliest implements and methods employed in Perigord
and elsewhere for taking fish.
A study of these warrants, to my mind, the conclusion that only two
weapons can be traceably attributed to Palæolithic Man. First and
pre-eminent the Spear (or Harpoon with its various congeners) with
possibly adjustable flint-heads, and second, but to a far less extent,
the Gorge, or as it has been better termed, “the bait-holder.”
Of a Troglodyte Net no representation exists, no specimen survives.
The absence of an actual specimen can perhaps be explained by the
perishable nature of the fibres or wythes used for its construction.
The undeniable survival of pieces of Nets among the lake dwellers seems
somewhat to negative the explanation.[48] But these may have survived
because of the presence, while those of the Palæolithic Age may have
perished because of the absence of some preservative power in the
substance in which they were embedded.
The absence from the latter and the presence in the former _débris_ of
Net sinkers, etc., strongly, if not conclusively, corroborate Broca’s
conclusion that the Cave men of the Vézère Valley and elsewhere were
strangers to the Net.
We possess, in my opinion, no evidence of Hooks (as distinct from
Gorges) or of anything resembling Hooks _proper_—_viz._ hooks made out
of one piece, recurved, and with sharpened ends—being used by the Old
Stone Man.
De Mortillet, it is true, writing in 1867,[49] states that “hooks
belonging to the reindeer epoch have been found in the Caves of
Dordogne. Along with those of the simple form (the gorges) others were
met with of much more perfect shape.” In his later work (_op. cit._) of
1890 he contents himself with claiming the existence of a hook, but of
very primitive type, “a small piece of bone tapered at either end”—in
fact, nothing more than the Gorge.[50]
S. Reinach, again, instances “three fish-hooks,” but whittles them away
till they become “two sharp points more in the nature of a gorge.”[51]
Osborne, commenting on the numerous pigmy flints discovered in the
Tardenoisian _débris_, writes that “it would appear that a large number
of these were adapted for insertion in small harpoons, or that those
of the grooved form might even have been used as fish-hooks.”[52] With
the opinion of Christy (co-explorer with Lartet of La Madelaine) that
those pointed bone rods or gorges “may have formed part of fish-hooks,
having been tied to other bones or sticks obliquely,”[53] the evidence
in favour of the Hook practically finishes.
The case, I venture to maintain, breaks down. And this, too, in
spite of the view expressed and the evidence adduced by so eminent
an authority as Abbé H. Breuil, and in spite of the _gravure de
Fontarnaud figurant un poisson mordant_ (?)—the query is Breuil’s—_à
l’hameçon_. The _gravure_ fails to convince, chiefly because _les
hameçons_ figured do not recurve in the proper sense. They seem to be
more in the nature of _gorges_ curved back and much improved in the
course of generations.[54]
The evolution of the primitive gorge, in particular those with ends
slightly curved, into a double fish-hook was, I suggest, probably an
easy process, more especially with the discovery of the adaptability of
bronze. But these gorges can never be properly termed hooks.
[Illustration: BONE GORGE OR BAITHOLDERS.
1. From La Madelaine. 2. From La Madelaine, grooved for attaching the
line. 3 and 4. From Santa Cruz, California. The slight curving of 3
may be possibly the first step towards the more rounded gorge, and
eventually the bent hook.]
The function of the hook is to establish a hold by penetration, that
of a gorge by resistance—once down, _vestigia nulla retrorsum_. A
shape with some but not too great curvature[55] would increase such
resistance, one with more would possibly give the additional safeguard
of penetration.
Meditation on this duplication of functions might lead an enquiring
mind to conclude that penetration alone might suffice for what was
required. Thus farther curve might be added for this ostensible
purpose, with the result that in time the hook supersedes the gorge, to
which it is superior in several respects, not least in ease and speed
of extraction from a fish when landed.
Small bone rods tapering towards both ends, and sometimes grooved in
the middle probably for attachment of a line, form the gorges of the
Caves. Their descendants or kinsmen found all the world over vary in
shape and material. But whether fashioned of bone, or flake of flint,
or of turtle-shell, with cocoa nut used as trimmers, whether straight
or curved at the ends, the purpose and operation of one and all is the
same—to be swallowed (buried in bait) by the fish _end first_. The
tightening of the line soon alters this position into one crosswise
in the stomach or gullet. Even at the present time in some parts of
England the needle, buried in a worm when “sniggling” for eels, works
successfully in similar fashion.
It is not possible here to discuss fully the various materials and
shapes of the first Hook proper. This (according to my view) Neolithic,
certainly post-Palæolithic,[56] creation developed doubtless from the
over-education of fish, a complaint possibly as rife then as in our own
day.
No writer, despite zealous endeavours, has succeeded in determining
which material—stone (rarely found), bone, shell, or thorn[57]—was
first employed for the purpose. On that which lay readiest would
probably be essayed the prentice hand of each particular race. To
dwellers near the shore the large supply and easy adaptability of
shells would of a surety appeal. These could be fashioned so as to be
used alone, or lashed with fibre to a piece of wood or bone so as to
form the bend, while the wood or bone constituted the shank of the
hook.[58]
Prehistoric Man often with a limited local supply was driven to adopt
and adapt any material which could be forced into his purpose of a
hook. To this cause has been ascribed one of the most extraordinary
hooks on record. This relic, now in the Berlin Museum, of the
lacustrine dwellers is formed out of the upper mandible of an eagle,
notched down to the base.
But the most interesting _natural_ fish-hook known to me (found in
Goodenough Island, New Guinea) is the thick upper joint of the hind
leg of an insect, _Eurycantha latro_, furnished, however, only by the
male, who is endowed with the long, stout recurved spur, suitable for
fishing. The leg joints and therefore the hooks got from them (about
1⅝ inches long) are supplied ready made by Nature: they merely require
to be fastened to a tapered snood of twisted vegetable matter for
immediate employment.[59]
Where flints, shells, and horn were absent or, if present, were not
turned to account, an abundance of thorns with bend and point ready
made and with proved capacities of piercing and holding would attract
the notice and serve the purpose of the New Stone Man. Such later on
was the case in Babylon and Israel (in both of which countries the
primary sense of the word equalling hook seems, according to some
authorities, to have been thorn[60]), and is the case even now with our
fishermen in Essex and the Mohave Indians in Arizona.[61]
[Illustration: THE _Eurycantha latro_.
HOOK READY MADE FROM THE SPUR OF _Eurycantha latro_.
See n. 1, p. 34.]
The suggestion that the choice of material was generally prompted by
abundance or proximity of supply seems reasonable. But it must not be
pushed as far as the assumption (of which a glance at the evidence as
to material adduced by Joyce detects the absurdity) that, because gold
was very abundant in Columbia and because gold fish-hooks have been
unearthed in Cauca and elsewhere, the primitive angler of that country
employed gold as the chief constituent of his hook![62]
Nor, again, is it possible for me to dwell on the evolution or in some
countries the possible _pari passu_ development of the single into the
double hook (mentioned in England first in _The Experienc’d Angler_
of Venables, 1676), nor yet to trace the various stages by which the
simple bone or tusk hook of Wangen or Moosseedorf blossomed out into
the barbed metal hook of the Copper Age.[63]
The Spear-Harpoon and some points of reindeer horn alone remain for
consideration. Opinion is divided as to the nature and use of these
points. Some pronounce them mere arrow heads.[64]
Against this view leans the fact that, while they have been recovered
mainly from the French caves, no real proof as yet exists of
Palæolithic Man north of the Pyrenees being acquainted with the bow.
Paintings discovered in 1910 at Alpera in the south-east of Spain
show, however, men carrying and drawing bows, and arrows with barbed
points and feathered shafts, but no quivers. Northern Man, if he did
not paint, may well have employed, arrows, for hunting scenes, in which
they should figure, as at Minatada and Alpera, are wanting in France.
Other writers maintain that these points were the armatures of hunting
spears, others, arguing from their easy detachment, that they were the
heads of fish-spears or harpoons. But this contrivance seems far too
complicated for our primitive _piscator_. No writer proves conclusively
what was the exact purpose of these points, or whether, in fact, the
fish-spears or harpoons had detachable heads. E. Krause suggests that
as the earliest fish-spears were of wood, they readily lost or broke
their points when striking rocks, etc.; hence came bone and then flint
points.[65]
The Spear-Harpoon stands out as the one fishing weapon whose existence
is undeniable, whose employment is predominant. It is too world-wide
and too well-known to need lengthy description.
Reindeer-horn supplied in general the material of the earlier heads,
stag-horn of the later.[66] The heads tapered (like Eskimo and other
harpoon heads) to a point and were barbed (as the two accompanying
illustrations indicate) on both sides. They have sometimes toward the
lower end little eminences or knobs, and sometimes barbs provided with
incisions or grooves, which some surmise held poison.
[Illustration: BROKEN HARPOON. From Kent’s Cave.
SINGLE BARBED HARPOON (Bruniquel).
DOUBLE BARBED REINDEER HARPOON (La Madelaine).]
[Illustration: DOUBLE BARBED HARPOON. _Neolithic._
From Sutz, Switzerland. Observe the hole for attaching the line.]
The Harpoon makes its appearance in the middle or (according to
Osborne) early Magdalenian deposits. Its crudest form shows a short,
straight piece of bone, deeply grooved on one face, the ridges and
notches along one edge being the only indications of what later
developed into the recurved barbed points of the typical Harpoon. These
barbs or points, retroverted in such a manner as to hold their place
in the flesh of the fish, do not suddenly appear like an inventive
mutation, but very slowly evolve as their usefulness is demonstrated by
practice.
The shaft is very rarely perforated at the base for the attachment
of a line[67]; it is cylindrical (later flat) in form adapted to the
capture of large fish in streams. The harpoons may possibly have been
projected by means of the so-called _propulseurs_ or dart throwers,
which resemble the Eskimo and Australian implements of to-day.
Amidst the clash of opinion as to the exact use and method of use of
these weapons, my conclusion, admittedly incapable of absolute proof,
holds that the Palæolithic fisher owes to the hunter the inception of
the chief weapon of his equipment, the Spear-Harpoon.
Paul Broca’s dictum[68] that Man hunted before he fished seems,
perhaps, despite Dall’s excavation of Eskimo _débris_,[69] to be borne
out by Troglodyte records both positive and negative. The Gorge or
bait-holder was employed by the hunter (according to some) even earlier
than by the fisher. Gorges have been from time immemorial and still are
in vogue in the Untersee for the capture of marine birds, as is the
case to-day with the Eskimos of Norton Sound.
From the chronicles of Rau, H. Philips, and others can be built a Table
of Generations, or the story of how the Hunting Spear begat the Fishing
Spear, which begat the Harpoon unilaterally barbed, which in turn begat
the Harpoon bilaterally barbed, until about the tenth or twentieth
generation—one is appalled at the amount of Succession Duty which such
degrees of descent would now involve!—something begat the Rod.
From this genealogical table I venture to dissent. I claim that the
hunting Spear, Protean in possibilities, was either itself the Rod,
or was, if “matre pulchra filia pulchrior” do not apply, at least the
direct parent of the primitive Rod. In the bigger hunting of our own
sorrowful day the same principle manifests itself, for the British
soldier in France often angled with his line attached to his bayoneted
rifle.
Many writers have attempted, some like de Mortillet with typical
French logic, some with none, to set down the sequential development
of fishing. As the Censor has not as yet banned free expression of
piscatorial opinions, I conclude this chapter with essaying a scheme of
reconstruction of my own.
_First_ came fishing with the hand, _la pêche à la main_, which,
according to Abel Hovelacque, “_est le mode le plus élémentaire et
certainement le moins productif_.”[70] This method we may surmise was
first exercised on fish left half stranded in small pools by the action
of tides or floods, or on fish spawning in the shallow redds.[71]
As _la pêche à la main_ was the first to arrive, so was it the first
to cease from the functions of parentage or of fission, for with
“tickling,” described by Ælian as even in his day an ancient device,
further evolution of this method practically ended.[72]
_Second_ came the hunting Spear, used originally on fish lying
in pools, small of size but of depth sufficient to prevent hand
fishing, and then, later, on fish elsewhere in a river. On the
latter, especially in the case of the salmon—in Pliny’s day still
abundant in Aquitania, which comprised the Loire and many Palæolithic
_cavernes_—the weapon, even if as bident or trident it had added unto
itself a prong or two, would frequently be found ineffective, owing
to lack of prehensility. Hence came about a modification, perhaps due
either to the happy chance of a spear on which a point or thorn had
inadvertently been left, or to the inventive faculty of some Troglodyte
Hardy.
We later reach a Spear Harpoon with barbs on one side only, whence
“line upon line,” or rather barb upon barb, we attain unto the later
type, which had a barbed head so socketed as to come free from the
shaft (when the quarry has been struck) but made fast to the head by
a line for retrieving the fish. In due, if differing, gradation we
ultimately attain either unto the existing device of the aboriginal
Tsuŷ Hwan of Formosa, an arrow shaped like a trident shot from but
attached to a bow, or unto _le dernier cri_, our whaling Harpoon shot
from a gun.[73]
_Third_ comes fishing with a line of some sort. This was devised
doubtless by some hungry but perforce merely meditative Magdalenian
observing how dropped morsels were seized by fish in a pool, whose
depth or environment set at naught both his hand and his spear.
The problem how to reach and how to land them was eventually solved
by the method—happily christened by Sheringham, “Entanglement by
Appetite”—of fastening a gorge through or a thorn holding some kind
of bait to an animal sinew, a wythe, or a hardened thong of one of
the whip-like _algæ_. This wythe or what not in the procession of the
ages was (according to Pepys) to betaper itself into the first English
catgut line of 1667, and (according to _The Compleat Fisherman_,
London, 1724) into the first silkworm line, and eventually into
telerana and similar tenuities of our day.
“Entanglement by Appetite,” of which a primitive form exists among the
Fuegians,[74] did literally “line upon line,” almost wythe upon wythe
multiply its seed, if not quite like the sand of the sea, yet freely.
Proofs of this fecundity exist in the varying and world-wide forms of
its issue. A strong family likeness enables us roughly to divide these
descendants into two classes.
The first (A) where (to quote our leading law case) “the human element”
is absent, as in night lining, or in “trimmering,” or in its distant
and nowadays probably illegal connection, the method of live-baiting
for pike with the aid of a goose or a duck, as set forth by T. Barker
with his customary gusto.[75]
The second (B) where “the human element” is present, as in hand-lining
and in its very latest descendant, invented for “big game fishing” off
Santa Catalina, viz. a line attached to a kite, which device secures
the required “skittering” along the surface and from wave to wave of
the flying fish-bait.[76] Even this very up-to-date device is no new
invention. In the Malayan Archipelago and many Melanesian islands a
kite has long been employed, sometimes as in the Solomon group, with a
hookless bait of a spider’s web, which, as wool with eels, gets itself
firmly entangled in the small teeth of the Gar fish.[77]
Next arose, as snags and obnoxious branches in primitive days abounded,
and water bailiffs did not, the further crux, not quite unknown even
to-day, how to get the bait over the intervening obstacles which the
mere hand line was incapable of clearing, or how to obtain the length
necessary to place the bait properly before the fish.[78]
The difficulty was in time overcome by attaching the tackle, wythe,
gorge, and bait to the hunting Spear. It is at this stage I claim that
the hunting Spear with wythe, gorge, and bait so attached became, in
fact for all purposes was, the original pole, or at any rate was the
immediate sire by a more springy sapling of what in the procession of
the ages was to attain unto the “tremendous,” if at times unmastered,
“majesty” of our modern Rod.
[Illustration: FISHING NET SPUN BY SPIDERS IN NEW GUINEA.
See n. 1, p. 43.]
_Last of all_, I suggest, though the evidence is conflicting, comes
fishing by Net. If Tylor,[79] Calderwood,[80] and others are correct in
their conjectures that our primitive _piscator_, when endeavouring to
catch by hand fish half stranded or spawning in small pools, blocked
any little exit by plaited twigs—wattling, according to C. F. Keary,
was one of the earliest prehistoric industries—or stones, that they
erected in fact the world’s first barrage, then must this ascendant or
Scotch cousin of the Net take precedence of the Spear and every other
artificial device.
Of the Net’s kith and kin are there not some scores specified in the
_Onomasticon_ of Julius Pollux, or depicted in M. Dabry de Thiersant’s
_Pisciculture en Chine_? The Net was to beget a _progeniem_ to the
Angler at any rate _vitiosiorem_, and (to drag in another tag) almost
like κυμάτων ἀνήριθμον γέλασμα.
Three of this big family stand out conspicuous by their diversity.
(A) The fairy-like Net—perhaps the most interesting because the most
incredible—made by _Spiders_ and used by the Papuans.[81] (B) The
“Vimineous Weel” of Oppian. (C) The huge steel trawls, which lately
encompassed those ravening sharks of the sea, the German submarines.
How the following device should be classed, I am not sure; it is
neither Spear, nor Hook, nor Net. But it deserves to be put on record
as an ingenious and successful species of fishing, employed by the
Cretans during the War.
According to Mr. J. D. Lawson, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge
(to whom I am indebted for the account), the natives, eager to recover
the coal that ships while coaling dropped into the sea, set out to
_fish_ for it. Since the coal could not swallow the bait, they
resolved that the bait should grip the coal. Having by means of a rude
spy-glass located the position of the mineral, they lowered from a boat
a cord to which an octopus—the larger the better—was secured. As the
fish detested the sensation of suspension, the moment he touched bottom
he clutched with all his tentacles any solid object within reach, and
while being drawn up clung to it with might and main.
By this method of inverted fishing—whether a survival of “Minoan
Culture” or an adaptation from the East, where for many centuries the
octopus has been similarly used for catching fish—much coal and much
else was retrieved from the sea.
NOTE.—Since the above was written Th. Mainage
has published at Paris _Les Religions de la préhistoire_.
“Rites de Chasse” (ch. viii.) includes a section on magic
(pp. 326-342) and on religion (pp. 342-9), both dealing with
fishing, etc., ancient and modern. The sermon preached among
the Hurons to the fish recalls that of St. Anthony of Padua.
Mainage, on p. 344, fig. 188, gives an incised design from
Laugerie-Basse, which according to him represents “Pêcheurs
armés de filets (?).” The design is as little convincing as
the author by his query seems convinced.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _postea_, 48 ff.
[2] The recent discovery of the inscribed bone fragments in Honan
apparently adds some six hundred years to the history, as apart from
the legends of China, for _c._ 1500 B.C. instead of _c._ 900 B.C. seems
now our starting point. See _infra_, p. 450.
[3] Cf. Dr. J. T. Jehu’s _Lectures before the Royal Society_, 1919. It
is noteworthy that whatever be the geological date of Man, the oldest
true fish, as we understand the term, seems the Shark family, which,
although extremely archaic, has but little altered. Next in seniority
comes probably the _Ceradotus_; if now “merely a living fossil” and
found only in Queensland, its form, hardly modified, corresponds with
remains found all over the world as early as from the Trias.
[4] The urination of a mare was thought to weaken her hairs. Plutarch,
_De Sol._, 24.
[5] Cf. however, _postea_, 315.
[6] Oric Bates, _Ancient Egyptian Fishing, Harvard African Studies_,
I., 1917, p. 248. With a “running line,” Leintz in U.S.A. cast April,
1921, 437 ft. 7 in.
[7] Dr. Turrell, the author of that researchful book, _Ancient Angling
Authors_, London, 1910, while of opinion that the “wheele” was in the
course of time evolved from the “wind” of the troller, differentiates
between their uses in fishing. Barker “put in a wind to turn with a
barrell, to gather up his line and loose at his pleasure: this was his
manner of trouling.” Walton’s words are, “a line of wire through which
the line may run to as great a length as is needful when (the fish is)
hook’d and for that end some use a wheele,” etc. The use of the “wind”
as described by Barker in his first edition was simply to gather up the
slack line in working the bait, “this was the manner of his trouling”;
while that of Walton’s “wheele” was to let the line go, in playing the
rushes of salmon, of which his experience seems mainly vicarious.
Sea-anglers of the present day prefer in many cases man-handling the
line to using the reel: thus the Spanish fisherman on striking a tunny
throws the whole Rod back into the boat, the crew of which seize the
line (which is of great thickness) and haul the fish in by sheer brute
force. (See _The Rod on the Rivieras_ (1911), p. 232.)
[8] With good reason the author styles his work, “Ouvrage très curieux,
utile, et récréatif pour toutes personnes qui font leur séjour à la
campagne.”
[9] No example of a running line has ever been produced from either
ancient literature or ancient art, but on the other hand numerous
illustrations of the tight line on vases, frescoes, mosaics, etc.,
are extant. To the examples collected by G. Lafaye in Daremberg and
Saglio, _Dict. des antiquités_, iv. 489, ff. _s.v._ ‘piscatio,’ can be
added: (_a_) Ivory relief from Sparta, seventh century B.C., published
by R. M. Dawkins in the _Annual Report of the Brit. School at Athens_,
1906-7, xiii. 100, ff., pl. 4. (_b_) Black figured _lekythos_ from
Hope Collection (Sale Cat. No. 22), published by E. M. W. Tillyard
in _Essays and Studies presented to W. Ridgeway_, Cambridge, 1913,
edited by E. C. Quiggin, p. 186, ff. with plate. (_c_) Græco-Roman
gem in A. Furtwängler, _Beschreibung der geschnittenen Steine im
Antiquarium_ (zu Berlin), Berlin, 1896, p. 257, No. 6898, pl. 51. Cf.
the same author, _Die Antiken Gemmen_, Leipzig-Berlin, 1900, i. pl.
28, 25, and pl. 36, 5; ii. 140 and 174. A. H. Smith, _Cat. of Engraved
Gems in the Brit. Museum_, London, 1888, p. 191, Nos. 1797-99, and p.
206, No. 2043. (_d_) Coins of Carteia in Spain, well represented by
A. Heiss, _Description générale des Monnaies antiques de l’Espagne_,
Paris, 1870, p. 331 f., pl. 49, 19-21. (_e_) Mosaic in Melos, see R. C.
Bosanquet in the _Jour. of Hell. Studies_, 1898, xviii. 71 ff., pl. 1.
(_f_) Silver _krater_ from Hildesheim shows Cupids with fishing rods
and tridents catching all sorts of sea-beasties. E. Pernice and F.
Winter, _Der Hildesheimer Silberfund_, Berlin, 1901, pls. 32, 33. Cf.
S. Reinach, _Répertoire de Reliefs grecs et romains_, Paris, 1909, i.
165 f. (_g_) H. B. Walters, _Cat. of Greek and Roman Lamps in the Brit.
Museum_, London, 1914, p. 79 f., No. 527, Pl. 16, p. 99 f.; No. 656,
pl. 22, p. 96, No. 635. The accompanying illustration is reproduced by
kind permission of Mr. E. M. W. Tillyard and of the University Press,
Cambridge.
[10] Aristotle, _N.H._ ix. 37. Plutarch, _De Sol. Anim._ 27, translated
by Holland. Ælian, _N.H._ ix. 24. See Pliny, _N.H._ ix. 42.
[11] _Presidential Address to the British Association for the
Advancement of Science_ (Newcastle, 1916), pp. 6-9. Cf. M. Burkitt,
_Prehistory_, Cambridge, 1921, chs. iv-xx.
[12] E. A. Parkyn, _Prehistoric Art_, London, 1915.
[13] The Neolithic stage, some hold, is characterised by the presence
of polished stone implements and in particular the stone _axe_, which,
judging from its perforation, so as to be more effectually fastened
to a wooden handle, was probably used rather for wood than conflict.
T. Peisker, _Cambridge Mediæval History_, 1911, vol. i., has much of
interest on the domestication of this period.
[14] _Les Peintures préhistoriques de la Caverne d’Altamira, Annales du
Musée Guimet_, Paris, 1904, tome xv. p. 131.
[15] Émile de Cartailhac et H. Breuil, _La Caverne d’Altamira_, Paris,
1906, p. 145. Professor Boyd-Dawkins, _Early Man in Britain_, London,
1880, p. 233. But their technique in flaking, etc., suggests a later
date.
[16] The route was probably by Russia, Siberia, and across the land now
cut by the Behring Straits.
[17] In H. Ling Roth’s _The Aborigines of Tasmania_, London, 1890 (see
Preface by Tylor on page vi.), “It is thus apparent that the Tasmanians
were at a somewhat less advanced stage in the art of stone implement
making than the Palæolithic men of Europe.”
[18] Cf. W. J. Sollas, _Ancient Hunters_, London, 1911, p. 70.
[19] Evans, _op. cit._, p. 9. See also an interesting essay by
Professor E. T. Hamy, _L’Anthropologie_, tome xix. p. 385 ff., on _La
Figure humaine chez le sauvage et chez l’enfant_.
[20] C. Rau, _op. cit._, Washington, 1884. Salomon Reinach, _Antiquités
Nationales_, vol. i., 1889. W. I. Hoffmann, _The Graphic Art of the
Eskimo_, Report to Smithsonian Museum, 1895, p. 751.
[21] At Cogul the sacral dance is performed by women clad from the
waist downwards in well-cut gowns, which at Alpera are supplemented by
flying sashes, and at Cueva de la Vieja reach to the bosom. Verily, we
are already a long way from Eve! Cf. Evans, _op. cit._, p. 8.
[22] Cook’s _Third Voyage_, Bk. I. ch. vi. W. C. Wentworth, _A
Statistical, etc., Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s
Land_, London, 1819, p. 115: “They have no knowledge whatever of
the art of fishing”; the only fishing was done by women diving for
shellfish. G. T. Lloyd, _Thirty-three Years in Tasmania and Victoria_,
London, 1862, pp. 50-52. Ling Roth, _op. cit._, p. 75.
[23] No Maya hook has as yet been brought to light, although this was
employed by practically all the races aboriginal or other from Alaska
to Peru.
[24] Cf. T. A. Joyce, _Mexican Archæology_, London, 1914.
[25] Montezuma’s table was provided with fish from the Gulf of Mexico
brought to the capital within twenty-four hours of capture by means
of relays of runners. Some five gods of fishing, of whom the chief
seems to have been Opochtli, were worshipped: to him was ascribed the
invention of the net and the _minacachalli_ or trident. Cf. de Sahagun,
_Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle Espagne_, traduite et
annotée par D. Jourdanet et Rémi Simeon, p. 36, Paris, 1880. De
Sahagun, a Franciscan, came to Mexico in 1529 and died there in 1590.
See also, C. Rau, _op. cit._, p. 214, and T. Joyce, _op. cit._, pp.
165, 221. A not uncommon practice was co-operative fishing, by which,
after a portion had been set aside for the feudal lord, the rest of the
catch was divided in fixed shares; see Joyce, p. 300.
[26] These pictographs were made by native artists shortly after
the conquest of Mexico, and were sent by the Viceroy Mendoza, with
interpretations in Aztec and Spanish, to the Emperor Charles the
Fifth. A copy of this Codex in the Bodleian was reproduced by Lord
Kingsborough in his first volume of _Antiquities of Mexico_ (1831).
[27] From a letter from the representative in Mexico of the Smithsonian
Institute, who adds: “My belief is that the Mayas used the Spear, the
Net, and the Bow and Arrow. That is all I can give you at present:
should anything else turn up, I will let you know.” In _A Study of
Maya Art_, an elaborate work by Herbert J. Spinder (_Peabody Museum
Memoirs_, Harvard University, 1913), I have failed to find any fishing
scenes or any ancient fishing implements depicted.
[28] Baessler translated by A. H. Keane (Asher & Co.), London, 1902-3.
Mead’s monograph is in the Putnam Anniversary Volume, New York, 1909.
_The Necropolis of Ancon_, by Reiss and Stübel, translated by A. H.
Keane, Berlin, 1880-87.
[29] T. A. Joyce, _South American Archæology_, London, 1912, p. 126.
[30] See _infra_, p. 371.
[31] _Indian Notes and Monographs_, published by the Heye Foundation,
New York, 1919, p. 56, show in the tombs of Cayuga fish-hooks,
harpoons, and fish-bones, “most of which objects are unique or unusual
as grave finds.”
[32] E. J. Banfield, _Confessions of a Beachcomber_, London, 1913.
[33] For descriptions of Palæolithic life, see Worthington G. Smith,
_Man the Primal Savage_, London, 1894, and J. J. Atkinson, _Primal
Law_, London, 1903. For the community assumed by the former, Atkinson
substitutes a family group.
[34] Cuvier and Valenciennes, _Hist. Nat. des Poissons_, vol. xviii.
pp. 279-80, Paris, 1846. Since in this volume the geographical
distribution of the pike, as known at the time, is set forth without
any mention of Greece, it is rather difficult to understand the
surprise of Valenciennes, who wrote the volume in question; Cuvier died
in 1832.
[35] É. Cartailhac, _La France Préhistorique_, Paris, 1889, p. 82, fig.
41.
[36] É. Cartailhac, _Matériaux pour l’histoire de l’homme_, xiii. p.
395. The Magdalenian workmanship on bone was extraordinarily fine.
Their bone needles (according to de Mortillet) are much superior to
those of the later, even of historical times, down to the Renaissance.
The Romans never possessed needles comparable with them.
[37] G. de Mortillet, _Origines de la Chasse et de la Pêche_ (Paris,
1890), p. 222. Our learned author nods. If the seals had _killed_ the
trout, it would not have floated “belly up,” but instantly down their
bellies.
[38] S. Reinach, _Répertoire de l’Art Quaternaire_ (Paris, 1913), p.
156, which is a complete summary of the various finds in excavations,
etc. See p. 88 for a seal, and p. 114 for a fine representation from
Laugerie Basse of two fish meeting.
[39] Fishermen in Malay, _while they are at sea_, studiously avoid
mentioning the names of birds or beasts: all animals are called
“cheweh,” a meaningless word, which is believed not to be understood
by the creatures (J. G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, second edition,
1900, vol. i. p. 460). So, too, fishermen from some villages on the
N.E. coast of Scotland never pronounce, _while at sea_, under penalty
of poor catches, certain words such as “minister,” “salmon,” “trout,”
“swine,” etc. The first, poor fellow! “que diable allait-il faire dans
cette galère?” is invariably referred to as “the man with the black
‘guyte’” (_Ibid._, p. 453).
[40] _Acad. des Sciences_, Paris, séance du 22 juin, 1903.
[41] The pictured hook is of special interest. The head, considered by
Krause that of a wizard, was intended to endow the hook with an extra
power of magic.
[42] F. Boaz, _6th Report on N.W. Tribes of Canada_, p. 45.
[43] E. Aymonier, _Cochinchene Françoise_, No. 16, p. 157, as quoted by
Frazer. _Ibid._
[44] S. Reinach, _L’Anthropologie_ (1903), p. 257.
[45] Such is the solution which Bates (_Ancient Egyptian Fishing_,
1917, p. 205) offers of the presence in the pre-dynastic Egyptian
graves of the numerous slate palettes bearing the profile of a fish or
beast.
[46] Frazer, _Golden Bough_. _Taboo_, Part ii. (London, 1911), p. 191
ff.
[47] W. H. Dall, “Social Life among the Aborigines,” _The American
Naturalist_ (1878), vol. xii. J. G. Frazer, _Folk Lore in the Old
Testament_ (London, 1918), vol. iii. p. 123.
[48] See Dr. F. Keller’s _The Lake Dwellers in Switzerland_
(translated, London, 1878, by John Edward Lee), vol. ii. pl. 136, fig.
2. This net of cord with meshes not quite three-eighths of an inch
in width was almost certainly made, it was certainly well suited,
for fishing. Another example with meshes two inches wide, probably
formed part of a hunting net. R. Munro, _The Lake Dwellings of Europe_
(London, 1890), p. 504, mentions fishing-nets from Robenhausen
and Vinetz—both belonging to the late Neolithic Age. O. Schrader,
_Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_ (Strassburg, 1901),
p. 242, records “remains of nets” in the Stone Age settlements of
Denmark and Sweden, which he classes as fishing nets.
[49] _Les Origines de la Pêche et de la Navigation_, Paris.
[50] An excellent monograph, with hundreds of illustrations,
by E. Krause (“Vorgeschichtliche Fischereigeräte und Neuere
Vergleichsstüche”) contained in the magazine, _Zeitschrift für
Fischerei_, xi. Band ¾ Heft (Berlin, 1904), p. 208, states that
hooks of the Stone Age are numerous, but unfortunately he does not
discriminate between the Old and New Stone Ages. Palæolithic finds
mention but once in his 176 pages.
[51] _Types de la Madelaine_, p. 222, fig. 78.
[52] H. J. Osborne, _The Men of the Stone Age_ (1915), p. 465.
[53] _Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ_ (London, 1875), ii. p. 58. Christy’s
solitary buttress for his opinion is a reference to “a Nootka Sound
fishing implement,” which is identical (according to Rau, fig. 9) with
a hook described in Mr. J. G. Swan’s _The Indians of Cape Flattery_,
as used by the Makahs solely (and successfully) for the halibut,
because “its mouth is vertical, instead of horizontal, like most fish.”
The absence of halibut from _débris_ or representations scarcely
strengthens Christy’s opinion.
[54] _L’Anthropologie_, tome xix. pp. 184-190, especially p. 187, where
the author attempts _une reconstitution hypothétique de la façon, dont
cette interprétation admise, on pourrait conçevoir la fixation de ces
“hameçons.”_ The inverted commas do not suggest confidence.
[55] If both the ends of the gorge were as much bent up as a hook,
the tendency would be for the gorge, when its points got fast, to
be rotated by the pull on the line and to assume, owing to greater
curvature, a bent-back position, which would allow of its easy
withdrawal and defeat the object—the capture of the fish. Some Santa
Cruz gorges are of an angular type, but with the points turned somewhat
down. The double hook of bronze or copper, _e.g._ of Ancient Peru,
seems to support my suggestion of gorge evolution, although, fair to
add, it was suspended from the centre.
[56] Sanchouniathon, as translated by Philo of Byblus, _ap._ Euseb.,
_Praep. Ev._ i. 10, 9, in what purports to be a Phœnician account,
would bring the invention right down to the Iron Age. “Many generations
later Agreus and Halieus sprang from the stock of Hypsouranios. They
were the discoverers of hunting and fishing, hunters and fishers being
called after them. From these in turn sprang two brothers, inventors of
iron and iron-working. One of these brothers, Chrysor, practised spells
and charms and oracles. He is Hephaistos, and he it is who invented
hook and bait and line and boat, being the first of all men to set
sail. Wherefore also they worshipped him as a god after his death, and
named him Zeus Meilíchios.”
[57] E. Krause, _op. cit._, 208, holds that the most primitive hook was
made of wood: bind a thorn or sprig crossways and your hook is to hand.
[58] H. T. Sheringham holds that both early and recent specimens
of Fijian hooks bear out this view (_Ency. Brit._, ed. xi., _s.v._
“Angling”). “The progressive order of hooks used by the Indians or
their predecessors in title in North America was, after the simple
device of attaching the bait to the end of a fibrous line, (1) a gorge,
a spike of wood or bone, sharpened at both ends and fastened at its
middle to a line; (2) a spike set obliquely in the end of a pliant
shaft; (3) a plain hook; (4) a barbed hook; (5) a barbed hook combined
with sinker and lure. This series does not exactly represent stages
of invention: the evolution may have been affected by the habits of
the different species of fish or their increasing wariness. The above
progressive order applies, I believe, on the whole all over the world,
if due allowance be made for varying conditions” (_Smithsonian Handbook
of American Indians_ (Washington), p. 460).
[59] See _Man_, Feb., 1915, “Note on the new kind of Fish-hook,” by
Henry Balfour. The illustration is reproduced by the kind permission of
Mr. H. Balfour and the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Another notable hook is one of wood about four inches long with a claw
(said to be that of a bird) attached, which Vancouver collected on
his voyage in N.W. American waters (see Ethnographical Coll. at Brit.
Mus.). The whalebone in this must not be mistaken for anything else but
a snood. For the ingenious derivation of certain hooks in some South
Sea Islands from their similarity to the bones of common fish, _e.g._
Cod and Haddock, see T. McKenny Hughes, in _Archæol. Jour._, vol. 58,
No. 230, pp. 199-213. See also J. G. Wood, _Nature’s Teaching_ (London,
1877), pp. 115-6, on the point.
[60] See _infra_, p. 357.
[61] My own Mohave Rod is of _’ihora_, the red willow of that district,
barked and straightened by an ingenious Indian method. The line is of
the prepared bast of _’ido_, another species of willow, and the hook
of barrel cactus thorn. Hooks made out of _Echinocactus wislizeni_
are better adapted for fish which do not nibble at the bait, but bolt
it hook and all; for this reason the Indians fasten the bait _below_
the hook (E. Palmer, “Fish-hooks of the Mohave Indians,” _American
Naturalist_, vol. xii. p. 403). On the north-west coast the Indians
a generation ago invariably used spruce-wood for their halibut hooks
(Rau, p. 139). Some Maori hooks are of human bone and _pawa_, with
_kiwi_ feathers.
[62] I do not think that these gold hooks were a unit of currency, as
the _lari_ of the Persian Gulf were, according to W. Ridgeway, _The
Origin of Metallic Currency_, etc. (Cambridge), 1892, p. 276.
This gold hook must not be confounded with the _silver hook_ not
infrequently employed in the remoter districts of Great Britain by
certain anglers, who in their anxiety to avoid being greeted with
Martial’s “ecce redit sporta piscator _inani_,” cross with silver the
palm of more fortunate brethren, and
“Take with high erected comb
The fish, or else the story, home
And cook it.”
[63] See R. Munro’s _Lake Dwellings of Europe_, pp. 127, 499, 509.
Flinders Petrie, _Tools and Weapons_ (London, 1917), p. 37 f., has a
section on fish-hooks with good illustrations, pl. 44, figs. 61-87,
pl. 43, figs. 59, 60, 88-102. “Considering how much the Lake-dwellers
relied upon fishing, the moderate number of hooks found points to their
depending more on nets. The few copied here, 88-94, are merely rounded,
without any peculiar form.”
[64] Many of the Solutréan tanged blades and _pointes à cran_ are small
enough to suggest their use as arrowheads, and Rutot has described
tanged and barbed “arrowheads” from Palæolithic deposits in Belgium.
[65] _Op. cit._, p. 160. But why? Flint points break quicker than wood.
[66] See Julie Schlemm, _Wörterbuch zur Vorgeschichte_ (Berlin, 1908),
pp. 555-7. The immediate successors of the single spear were probably
the bident and trident. Owing to the refraction of light and other
reasons a spear is difficult of accurate direction, but the broader
surface of the trident helps to lessen the factor of error.
[67] H. J. Osborne (_op. cit._, p. 385 ff.) states that, with the
exception of one half-finished hole in a Harpoon from La Madelaine,
the side hole for the attachment of the thong to the Harpoon does
not appear in the French Magdalenian Harpoon, although in those from
Cantabria it is nearly always present. The Azilian weapon usually bears
a hole.
[68] _The Troglodytes of the Vézère Valley_, Smithsonian Report, 1872,
p. 95.
[69] In _Contributions to North American Ethnology_, 1877, i. p. 43,
Dall states that the _débris_ of the heaps show tolerably uniform
division into three stages, characterised by the food which formed
the staple of subsistence and by the weapons for obtaining as well
as the utensils for preparing the food. The stages are: 1st, The
Littoral period, represented by the _Echinus_ layer; 2nd, The Fishing
period, represented by the Fish-bone layer; 3rd, The Hunting period,
represented by the Mammalian layer. This antecedence of fishing before
hunting, if Dall be correct, was, I imagine, caused probably by local
or climatic conditions in the Arctic Circle; it is not the general rule
elsewhere.
[70] _Les Débuts de l’humanité_, etc. (Paris, 1881), p. 69. E. Krause,
_op. cit._, p. 153, agrees.
[71] “Apes know how to get oysters thrown up on the shore, but man has
been endowed with the knowledge how to get them in and out of the sea.”
The sentiment, if not the style, of this sentence—to prove the superior
design and creation of man over the animal creation—seems not quite
unworthy of Izaak Walton’s pages.
[72] His pleasant description of “tickling” and his “viro Britanno”
must be my excuse for introducing a writer in Latin so late after my
limit of 500 A.D. as Parthenius, better known as Giannettasi, the
author of _Halieutica_, published at Naples in 1689:
“Paulatim digitis piscator molliter alvum
Defricat, et sensim palpando repit in ipsas
Cæruleas branchas, subituque apprendit: et illa
Blanditiis decepta viro fit præda Britanno.”
[73] For a similar use of bow and harpoon arrow by the Bororo tribes
in the Amazon valley, see W. A. Cork, _Through the Wilderness of
Brazil_, p. 380. Our gaff, a descendant, possibly, of the unilaterally
one-barbed spear, seems possessed of perpetual youth. The first
description of its use in Angling in England occurs, according to Mr.
Marston (_Walton and the Earlier Fishing Writers_ (1898), p. 97), in
T. Barker’s _Art of Angling_ (1651), but according to Dr. Turrell,
_op. cit._, pp. 85 and 91, only in Barker’s 2nd of 1657, “a good large
landing hook.” From the definition, however, by Blount, _Glossage_, in
1657, “_Gaffe_, an iron wherewith seamen pull great Fishes into their
ships,” its previous existence and employment at sea can be deduced.
[74] There is no hook; only a piece of whalebone or a stem of seaweed,
with a feather stuck at the end, attached to which is a running knot,
which holds the bait. As soon as the fish has swallowed feather and
bait, the women, for the men disdain fishing, draw it to the surface
and quickly seize it. Cf. Darwin, _Jour. of Researches, etc., during
the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle_ (London, 1860), ch. x, p. 213.
[75] “The principall sport to take a Pike is to take a Goose or Gander
or Duck, take one of the Pike Lines as I have showed you before; tye
the line under the left wing and over the right wing, and about the
bodie as a man weareth his belt; turne the Goose off into a Pond where
Pikes are; there is no doubt of sport with much pleasure betwixt the
Goose and the Pike. It is the greatest pleasure that a noble Gentleman
in Shropshire doth give his friends for entertainment. There is no
question among all this fishing but we shall take a brace of good
Pikes.”
[76] For a full description of this method, see _Sport on Land and
Water_, by F. G. Griswold, privately printed (New York, 1916), and
_The Game Fishes of the World_, by C. F. Holder (London, 1913). To the
kite, which is of the ordinary 28-inch type, is allowed 700 feet of
old fishing line from off a reel; the fisherman’s line is tied to the
kite about 20 feet from the bait with a piece of cotton twine. When
a Tuna fish takes the bait the cotton line breaks, and the kite is
either reeled in or falls into the sea. The Santa Catalina fishing,
with its records of enormous Tuna, of Sword fish (the largest 463
lbs.), sometimes fighting for 14 hours, sounding 48 times, and leading
the launch for a distance of 29 miles, and of Giant Bass weighing 493
lbs., fills a British angler with envious despair, a despair which is
heightened when one reads that the regulation tackle prescribed by the
Tuna Club is, or was not long ago, a sixteen ounce Rod and a line not
over No. 24! In Mr. Zane Grey’s enthralling volume (_Tales of Fishes_
(London, 1919), p. 39) we read of a swordfish, that “when he sounded,
he had pulled thirteen hundred feet off my reel, although we were
chasing him (in a motor boat) full speed all the time”!
[77] See the excellent monograph on “Kite-Fishing,” by Henry Balfour,
in _Essays and Studies, presented to Wm. Ridgeway_ (Cambridge,
1913), p. 23, where he regards the invention as ancient and probably
proto-Malayan. This hook was usually made of wood and the claw of a
bird. Cf. _Man_, 1912, Art. 4, and case 42 in Ethnographical Collection
at the British Museum.
[78] De Mortillet, pp. 245, 249: “_De tous les engins la ligne est le
plus simple, et celui qui a du être le premier employé._” He sums up
his surview of the world from China to Peru, by “_La pêche à la ligne
est la pêche la plus repandue parmi les nations sauvages._”
[79] _Op. cit._, “The Net is known to almost all men as far as history
can tell.” But Darwin, in _The Cruise of the Beagle_, found the
Fuegians without Nets or traps of any kind. Their only methods of
fishing were with Spears, and a baited hair line without any hook.
[80] _The Life of the Salmon_, p. xv, London, 1907: “At once the most
primitive and most deadly method of catching fish, which inhabit
rivers, is the erection of built barriers and enclosures.” Plutarch (De
Sol. Anim. 26) has no doubt of the priority of the Line over the Net:
“Fishermen when perceiving that most of the fishes scorned the line and
hook as stale devices or such as can be discovered, betook themselves
to fine force and shut them up with great casting nets, like as the
Persians serve their enemies in their wars”—σαγηνεύειν—(Cf. Herodotus,
vi. 31) “to sweep the whole population off the face of a country”
(Hollands’ Trs.). W. v. Schulenburg, _Märkische_ _Fischerei_ (Berlin,
1903), s. 62, “Das Fischnetz galt also schon in der Vorgeschichtlichen
Zeit, im grauen Altertum für uralt. Mit Recht darf der Fischer sich den
ältesten Gewerben der Menschheit zuzählen.”
[81] Cf. A. E. Pratt, _Two Years among the New Guinea Cannibals_
(London, 1906), p. 266, and 3 photographs. The webs spun by the spiders
in the forests are six feet in diameter, with meshes varying from one
inch at the outside to about one-eighth at the centre. The diligence
of the creatures has been pressed into weaving fishing-nets for the
use of man by setting up, where the webs are thickest, long bamboos
bent over in a loop at the end. On this most convenient frame the
spider in a short time produces a web which resists water as readily as
does a duck’s back, and holds fish up to a pound satisfactorily. See
also Robert W. Williamson (_The Maflu Mountain People of British New
Guinea_ (London, 1912), p. 193) who differs materially from Pratt as to
the formation of the net. The illustration is reproduced by the kind
permission of _The Illustrated London News Co._
INTRODUCTION
PART II
“Except to politicians, a decent definition is a help and a delight.”
Acting on this American dictum I start with two definitions, one of
Fishing and Angling, the other of Angling. The first we owe to that
past master of the art, Plato. Whether it come within the category of
“delight or help,” or whether he can endorse the verdict of Theætetus
as to its “satisfactory conclusion,” each reader must decide.
Plato, using the method of elimination and incidentally more than
three pages of print, eventually arrives at the following definition
of Fishing and Angling:[82] “Then, now you and I have come to an
understanding, not only about the name of the Angler’s art, but
about the definition of the thing itself. One half of all Art was
acquisitive: one half of the acquisitive Art was conquest or taking by
force: half of this again was hunting, and half of hunting was hunting
animals: of this again the under half was fishing, and half of fishing
was striking: a part of striking was fishing with a barb, and one half
of this again (being the kind which strikes with a hook and draws the
fish from below upwards) is the Art we have been seeking, and which
from the nature of the operation is denoted Angling or drawing up.”
_Theætetus:_ “The result has been quite satisfactorily brought out.”
In search of a more helpful definition I turn to the English
Dictionaries. The _N.E.D._ (_New English Dictionary_, Oxford) gives
Fishing—“to catch, or try to catch fish”—wide enough for all our
purpose and for most of our performances! In their definitions of
Angling, Angle, etc., the majority of dictionaries disagree, but unite
in deriving Angle from the Aryan root, ANK = to bend, and establishing
the fishing term as the cousin of the awkward angles of Euclid and of
our youth. The _N.E.D._ in its definitions of ‘Angle’ (sb.), of ‘Angle’
(vb.), of ‘Angler,’ or of ‘Angling,’ does not even agree with itself.
Thus we find:
(A) “Angle (sb.), a fish hook: often in later use extended
to the line, or tackle, to which it is fastened, and the
Rod to which this is attached. See Book of St. Alban’s
(title of ed. 2), _Treatyse perteynynge_ to _Hawkynge,
Huntynge, and Fysshynge with an Angle_.”
(B) “Angle (vb.), to use an angle: to fish with a hook _and
bait_.”
(C) “Angler, one who fishes with a hook and _line_.”
(D) “Angling, the action or art of fishing with a _rod_.”[83]
If A, B, C, which all differ, are accurate, D can hardly be so. Further
from A, B, C, we can deduce no correct definition of D.
Under D the _N.E.D._ imports as a necessary component part of angling
the presence of a rod, but I venture to think on insufficient grounds.
In the first quotation cited in support, “Fysshynge, callyd Anglynge
with a rodde,” the word “rodde,” if D hold good, must be redundant
or unnecessary. “Rodde” I hold to be an added word of limitation, or
description, as in “Fysshynge with an _Angle_.”
But since the dictionaries do hardly help—to some, indeed, they smack
of “the heinous crime of word-splitting”—and since the importance
(apart from etymological reasons) of possessing an accurate and
adequate definition presses, let us prostrate ourselves before
another oracle, the Law. But here too success scarcely crowns our
quest. The leading case, _Barnard_ v. _Roberts and Williams_, yields,
Delphic-like, little light or leading.[84]
The facts, briefly stated, were: Roberts and Williams laid in a private
river two fishing lines; one end of the lines attached to two pieces
of wood driven into the ground made fast the lines, the other end held
hooks baited with worms, and a stone to keep the lines under water.
“The lines were left by the men, who subsequently were found taking
two fish off the hooks, and resetting the lines, of which the keepers
deprived them. The charge (under s. 24 of the Larceny Act of 1861)
ran of unlawfully, etc., taking fish otherwise than by angling. The
Justices of Bangor refused to commit, on the ground that they were
angling, and thus under the Act were protected from damages or penalty
for such angling.”
On appeal both sides cited Izaak Walton and other authors; both quoted
the _N.E.D._—the appellant its definition of ‘Angling,’ _i.e._ fishing
with a rod, and the respondent that of ‘Angle’ (vb.), _i.e._ to fish
with hook and bait.
The three Judges, judge-like, disagreed in their reasons but agreed in
allowing the appeal, and disagreeing in their conceptions of angling
agreed in abstaining from any definition.
“In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed is king.” Mr. Justice
Phillimore was the least non-positive. He even committed himself to
the following: “He did not think that a rod must necessarily be part
of an angler’s outfit, but only a hook and line. He thought _the human
element_ must be present, and that it was not sufficient when the
tackle was set once and for all, and then left.”
It is obvious from the above that, while the dictionaries are but blind
guides, the Law (if on this occasion not exactly “a hass”) fails to
elucidate what exactly constitutes Angling.
Dr. Henry van Dyke, the author of _Little Rivers_ and other fascinating
books connected with fishing, suggests to me “Angling, the art of
fishing by hand with a hook and line, with or without a rod.” I much
prefer this to that of _N.E.D._, because of its greater accuracy and
of its inclusion of that really skilful method, hand-lining. But for
general convenience I adopt as the definition of Angling “_The action,
or art, of fishing with a Rod._”
_My Fishing from the Earliest Times_ treats of the Old Stone Men,
Egyptians, Assyrians, Chinese, Jews, Greeks, and Romans. The amount of
space allotted to the last two, compared with that occupied by some of
the other nations, may suggest the immortal even if apocryphal chapter
of “_Snakes in Ireland_.” “There are none.”
To any such criticisms I make answer that for nearly all our knowledge
as to the methods and tackle of fishing and varieties of fish we are
indebted to the Greeks and Romans, and in a smaller degree to the
Egyptians and Chinese.
Reasons of date, data, and dearth of paper prevent my using in this
book the material which I had collected on Indian, Persian, and
Japanese Fishing.
As regards India, while fishing by net falls well within my adopted
date (500 A.D.), that by hook and line—not necessarily Angling—gains
entrance by a short head, or a mere century.
Fish (_matsya_, apparently derived from the root _mad_ and signifying
_the inebriated_) is down to _c._ 1000 B.C. only mentioned once[85] in
the _Rigveda_, X. 68, 8. In the next period—that of the later Vedas and
Brāhmanas—fish, but not methods of capture, find frequent mention.
The Net (_jāla_) is first referred to in the _Atharvaveda_ (not
later than 800 B.C.) but not in connection with fishing, while
in the _Yajurveda_ (_c._ 800 B.C.) names for fishermen and a
hook—_baḍiša_—occur. The 139th _Jātaka_ (_c._ 400 A.D.) contains the
first allusion to fishing with a _line_ and hook.
References in Sanskrit poetry to the iron hook and bait probably
imply, though they fail to mention, the Rod. Passages in the epic
_Mahābhārata_, V. 1106 (_c._ 200 A.D.), in Kāmandaki’s aphoristic
poetry (_c._ 300-400 A.D.), in the _Pancatantra_, I. 208, “when women
see a man caught in the bonds of love, they draw him like a fish that
has followed the bait,” all suggest Angling.[86]
Fish legends, similes, stories—not always redounding to ichthyic
wisdom—meet us fairly frequently. Manu[87] is saved from the Flood by a
fish. Buddha[88] answers questions as to abstention from fish. Wondrous
fish occur: _e.g._ the _Kar_, “which knows to the scratch of a needle’s
point by how much the water in the Ocean shall increase, by how much it
is diminishing.”[89]
Stories, such as the recovery by a fish of Šakuntalā’s ring and the
consequent marriage of King Dushyanta; of Indra, the fearless slayer of
the serpent, whose death for defiling the bed of Ahalyâ was compassed
by fish;[90] of Adrikâ’s transformation into a fish and her conception
in that form of a child by King Uparicaras;[91] of _The Stupid and Two
Clever Fishes_;[92] of _The Frog and The Two Fish_,[93] all these make
pleasant if varied reading. But when we come to _methods_ of fishing,
all variety vanishes. We are confronted with a damnable monotony, a
_toujours perdrix_. It is almost Net, or Nothing.
This holds true of the piscine tales even in the _Arabian Nights_,
_e.g._ _The Fisherman and the Jinn_, and _The Fisherman and the
’Efreet_. The latter, however, possesses an unique interest: the
fisherman here, unlike his Greek and Roman poverty-stricken brethren,
became by means of his miraculous fish, “the wealthiest of the people
of his age, and his daughters continued to be the wives of princes”!
Evidence that fishing in India was of old and is now (the fishing
caste, I am told, ranks low) not highly regarded can be deduced
(_inter alia_) from its total omission in the Fourteen Sciences and
the Sixty-four Arts, which the _Vātsyặyana Kāma Sūtra_ (not later than
the third century A.D.) promulgates for the education of children from
five to sixteen. Among the requisite Sciences gymnastics, dancing, the
playing of musical glasses, sword-stick, cock quail and ram fighting,
teaching parrots and starlings to sing, all these find commendation,
but fishing none!
As with India, so with Persia ancient and modern, _toujours le
filet_! Very many of the earliest prose works in modern Persian
came through the Pahlavi from the Sanskrit. Thus the three or four
stories—occasionally but wrongly regarded as of Persian origin—about
fish and fishing which are contained in the _Anwār-i-Suhaili_[94]
can be traced to _The Fables of Bidpai_, or _The Pancatantra_,[95]
translated from the Arabic version into Persian about 550 A.D.
In modern Persian (_c._ 1000 A.D.) poetry, lines allusive to fishing
dot themselves sparsely:[96] even in them the Net bulks biggest. Hafiz
(fourteenth century), however, gives us
“I have fallen into a Sea of Troubles, (presumably tears),
So that my Beloved may catch me with a Hook” (a curl of hair).
A passage in Arabic furnished hope of finding Angling oases in the
desert, but when in
“A fish whose jaw the gaff of Death had pierced,”
I found the word (_saffūd_) rendered _gaff_ given by Richardson’s
_Persian-Arabic Dictionary_ as “a roasting spit, a poker for the fire,”
my hope fled, for I quickly realised here an instance of anachronistic
translation, or the employment of fishing terms appropriate to modern
but inapplicable to ancient methods.[97]
I have come to the sad conclusion that the Persians ancient and modern
care not in general for fishing or angling, although the Gulf, from
which the ancient Sumerians garnered such splendid “harvest of the
sea,” washes their shores, and from their mountains descend “fishful”
streams. I have reached my conclusion for the following reasons:—
(A) There is no word in the language which properly
expresses _fish_-hook. Arabic words, which strictly mean
_grappling_ hooks, have been adopted or adapted. In modern
Arabic itself these words are not used for a _fish-hook_:
bâlûgh, a foreign term, prevails.
(B) In Persian, Arabic, and Turkish[98] the expression _to
fish_, literally translated, equals _to hunt fish_, and
generally describes a man who makes his living by _netting_,
and selling fish.
(C) There is no word for fishing-rod in Wollaston’s great
English-Persian Dictionary.
(D) Proverbs are usually the offspring and embodiment
of the life and occupations of a nation. In both ancient
and modern Persian there is, as far as I know, but one
proverb—and that rather contemptful—allusive to fish or
fishing. It runs, “Thou shall not make a fish thine enemy,”
which probably signifies that no foe, however unlikely to
injure, can be despised.
(E) In the experiences related to me by the Rev. Dr. St.
Clair Tisdall, and by the late Sir Frank Lascelles, Netting
ousts Angling.
The former:[99] “’Though I have lived in Persia for many years and have
travelled through it from Sea to Sea, from the Persian Gulf to the
Caspian, I have never seen a fish-hook in a Persian’s hands. In the
districts I know best, the Net is the only weapon.”
The second, when our Minister at Teheran, on his first holiday went
a-fishing. Having caught on a likely stream before supper three or four
half-pound trout (I think), he anticipated next day pleasant sport.
With the very early morning came not Remorse, but the local Sheikh to
do his reverence and to make the customary present. “As I have heard
that His Great Excellency worked hard for a few fish last night, my
tribesmen have netted the river for the length of a parasang, and
I bring you plenty of fish.” Tableau! Hasty flight of Sir Frank to
another river, with like results!
Reasons both of date and data prevent my including the Japanese,
perhaps the most alert and adaptive sea-fishers in the world. As their
history before 500 A.D. must apparently be classed as legendary,
this nation eludes my chronological Net. Data on ancient fishing, if
existing, are either unknown[100] or as being derived from China find
place _postea_.[101]
I set the time limit of my book at roughly 500 A.D., so as to include
the last classical or quasi-classical piscatory poems _viz._ those of
Ausonius—notably _ad Mosellam_—in the fourth and of Sidonius in the
fifth century.
This date seems, indeed, a pre-ordained halting-place for three
reasons. First, the tackle of our day (though improved almost beyond
recognition in rod, winch, artificial bait, etc.) is merely the lineal
descendant of the Macedonian described by Ælian in the third century
A.D. Second, between Ælian and Dame Juliana’s _Boke_ no record, with
two possible exceptions, of fishing with a fly exists. Third, and more
important, we possess no real continuous link between the Angling
literature of Rome down to the fifth century and that which sprang up
after the invention of printing some thousand years later.
In the intervening centuries, it is true, books and manuscripts were
written (mainly by monks) which treated more or less of fishing, but
of Angling only incidentally.[102] They illustrate the customs of
fishermen, the natural history of fish, the making and maintaining of
_vivaria_ or fish-ponds, rather than instruct or inform on practical
Fishing.
The most notable would, could we trace it, be “an old MS. treatise on
fishing, found among the remains of the valuable library belonging
to the Abbey of St. Bertin, at St. Omer. A paper on this was read,
a few years before 1855, at a society of antiquaries at Arras. From
its style, the MS. was supposed to have been written about 1000 A.D.,
and to have been divided into twenty-two chapters. The author’s main
object was to prove that fishers had been singularly favoured by Divine
approbation; but appended to the MS. was a full list of all _river_
fish, the baits used for taking them, and the suitable seasons for
angling for each sort of fish.”
For the existence of this work, vanished now for over sixty years,
we have only the authority of Robert Blakey.[103] But this, if it do
pass muster with Dr. Turrell, fails to satisfy Westwood and Satchell,
who describe his book on Angling as “a slipshod and negligent work,
devoid of all utility, a farrago of quotations incorrectly given,
and of so-called original passages, the vagueness and uncertainty of
which rob them of all weight and value. Mr. Blakey’s volume, it is but
fair to add, is redeemed from utter worthlessness by the excellent
bibliographical catalogue appended to it by the _publisher_!”[104]
The _Geoponika_, whether written or redacted by Cassianus Bassus or
Cassius Dionysius, or merely translated from a treatise by an ancient
Carthaginian author, treats generally of agriculture. The twentieth
book, however, deals with fish-ponds, fishing, and baits: unlike the
Roman writers on _vivaria_, who tell us nothing as to the capture of
the fish in them, the writer gives us instructive tips on baits.
One infallible recipe in chap. xviii. for collecting the fish—on the
lines of Baiting the Swim—from its superstitious _naïveté_ compels
quotation: “Get three limpets, and having taken out the fish therein,
inscribe on the shell the words, Ἰαώ Σαβαώθ, or ‘Jehovah, Lord of
Hosts’; you will immediately see the fish come to the same place in
a surprising manner.”[105] The two Greek words formed the so-called
Gnostic formula and occur frequently on amulets, etc. The _Geoponika_
adds immediately, “this name the Ichthyophagi use.”
About the fourteenth century a poem entitled _De Vetula_, attributed
to R. de Fournival, got translated or imitated by Jean Lefevre. The
fishing portion (68 lines) awakes our interest, as it shows that “more
than six hundred years ago, and probably two hundred years before the
date of _The Boke of St. Albans_, most of the modern modes of fishing
were practised; for instance, the worm, the fly, the torch and spear,
the night line, the eel-basket and fork,” etc.
This quotation from Westwood and Satchell might cause a casual reader
to suppose that (α) from _De Vetula_, written only some two centuries
before _The Boke of St. Albans_, we gain our first information “of
these modes of fishing,” and (β) that these were “modern,” whereas
Oppian had described them all, some thirteen hundred years before _The
Boke of St. Albans_ saw light.
With the exception of de Fournival and the elusive MS. of Dom
Pichon,[106] which (written about 1420 but only rediscovered about
1853) probably stamps this monk as the first to practise artificial
hatching, the Continent produced practically nothing till the
appearance at Antwerp in 1492 of the first printed original book on
Fishing, which as regards printing precedes _The Boke of St. Albans_.
This little Flemish work by an unknown author contains twenty-six
chapters of a few lines, gives recipes for artificial baits, unguents,
and pastes, and in the last two pages notes the periods when certain
fish eat best. As its title sets out, it teaches “how one may catch
birds and fish with one’s hands, and also otherwise.”[107]
The earliest description of fishing in the English language meets us
in _The Colloquy of Aelfric_, A.D. 995, which Skeat first brought
to notice and first “Englished” in _The Oldest English Treatise on
Fishing_.[108] This takes the form of a short dialogue introduced
into the _Colloquy_ written by Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury,
for the purpose of teaching his pupils Latin, and therefore written
in Anglo-Saxon with a Latin translation beneath. “It is arranged as
a conversation between the master and his pupil; the latter in turns
figuring as huntsman, fisherman, falconer.”
The length of the _Colloquy_, even of the fishing portion, prevents
inclusion here, but the pupil’s objection to fishing in the sea,
“because rowing is troublesome to me,” and to going a-whaling, “because
I had rather catch a fish I can kill than one that can, with one
stroke, kill both me and my comrades,” strikes me as well taken and
pertinent.
A poem by Piers of Fulham, written about 1420 (the original MS.
of which can be seen at Trinity College, Cambridge) claims next
our notice. The author, judging from Hartshorne’s rendering, fully
justifies the description of him as a somewhat pessimistic angler.
He seems to have anticipated De Quincey’s “fishing is an unceasing
expectation and a perpetual disappointment.” He fully appreciated
its difficulties and disappointments, but clearly possessed some
sportsmanlike instincts, as the following, among other, verses
show[109]:—
“And ete the olde fishe, and leve the yonge,
Though they moore towgh be uppon the tonge.”
A Latin book _Dialogus creaturarum optime moralizatus_ was published in
1480; a translation about 1520 styles it _The Dialogues of Creatures
Moralysed_. This very rare work, which I have found fully dealt with
from an Angler’s point of view only by Dr. Turrell, furnishes the
earliest known illustration of an angler fishing with a float.
Next in date, and last to be noticed here, comes the famous _Treatyse
of Fysshynge with an Angle_, printed at Westminster by Wynkyn de Worde
in 1496 as part of the second edition of _The Boke of St. Albans_.
Whether, as has been commonly supposed, Dame Juliana Berners wrote it,
or whether any such lady ever existed, are points of controversy, but
that _The Treatyse_ was not an immaculate conception, without parents
or ancestors, can be reasonably proved by its reference to earlier
writers on fishing, and to its “these ben the xii flies ye shall use”
being introduced as a precept of practice rather than a revelation of
invention.
If few the forbears of what some term “not only the first angling
manual in England, but also the first practical work written in any
language,” its vitality and its prolific progeny admit of no doubt.
According to Mr. A. Lang (who accounts for the startling fact by
the increased number of people able to read owing to the spread of
education) no less than ten editions of _The Boke_ were issued within
four years of publication, while Dr. Turrell limits himself to fourteen
undated editions between 1500 and 1596.
Whatever the number of the editions, the need for and the vitality of
_The Treatyse_ is demonstrated by the fact that for over a hundred
years no new work on Angling was printed in England, and between it and
_The Compleat Angler_—a space of over one hundred and fifty years—there
occur but four books on the subject.[110] To its prolific progeny, the
_Bibliotheca Piscatoria_ bears witness[111] in its catalogue of some
fifteen hundred authors and of countless books, MSS. etc.
We owe, it is said, this voluminous literature to the geographical
position of England, which lends itself very favourably to the
pursuit of all kinds of fishing. Can we, also, flatteringly add the
other factor of Lacépède’s dictum, “Il y a cette différence entre la
chasse et la pêche, que cette dernière convient aux peuples les plus
civilisés?”
But the pursuit of fishing did not prevail in early England or
Scotland. A passage in Bede (probably used by Henry of Huntingdon),
which has, I think, escaped the many-eyed net of our fishing authors,
testifies to its absence in the former.
St. Wilfrid (born 634) on his return from Friesland, where fishing
yielded the staple of food, met with such success in his mission to the
South Saxons that he not only converted them, “with all the priests
of the Idols,” but also—“which was a great relief unto them”—taught
them the craft of fishing, of which, save eeling, they wotted naught.
Collecting under the Saint’s order eel-nets where they could, the first
adventurers _meritis sui patris Divina largitate adjuti_[112] enmeshed
three hundred fishes, which they equally divided between the poor, the
net-owners, and themselves.
The Celtæ, with some exceptions such as the scomber-catching Celtiberi,
eschewed fish, probably from religious prejudices, which owing to their
adoration of the springs, rivers, and waters prevented the eating of
their denizens.
Whatever the cause, Dion Cassius expressly comments on the abstinence
of the Caledonians, although their seas and rivers abounded with
food.[113] In time the example of the clergy and the ordinance of fast
days gradually overcame—save in the case of Eels, which still remain
to the Highlander an abomination—their obstinate antipathy. Across
St. George’s Channel the Irish two centuries ago “had little skill in
catching fish.”[114]
But when the Western Highlanders did go a-fishing, their prayers and
promises—prompted by the same principle of gratitude being a sense of
favours to come—echo the prayers and promises, _Dis mutatis_, of the
_Anthologia Palatina_.
The seas differ, but the gods precated are the same. If in the
following verses you substitute for “Christ, King of the Elements”
Poseidon, King of the Waters, for “brave Peter” ruseful Hermes, and for
“Mary fair” Aphrodite, you have the tutelary deities of fishing. The
spirit of the prayer and promise of the firstling remain unchanged.
For century after century the fishermen of the Isles have handed down
orally to generation after generation the Gaelic prayer with which they
set out to sea.[115]
“I will cast down my hook:
The first fish which I bring up
In the name of Christ, King of the Elements,
The poor man shall have for his need:
And the King of the Fishers, the brave Peter,
He will after it give me his blessing.
Columba, tender in every distress,
And Mary fair, the endowed of grace,
Encompass ye us to the fishing bank of ocean,
And still ye to us the crest of the waves!”
The rarity—I have not met its mention—and curious nature of a volume
published at Frankfort in 1611, even if more than a century after _The
Boke of St. Albans_, compels some reference.
_Conjecturæ Halieuticæ_ by Raphael Eglinus consists of a long
dissertation based on the strange markings of three fishes (pictured on
its title-page), two caught in Scandinavia on the same day, November
21, 1587, and the third in Pomerania on May 21, 1596. These markings,
supposedly chronological, provide their author with a basis for various
prophecies and warnings of the evils to come in Central Europe,
especially in Germany.
As neither text nor type peculiarly tempt to perusal, I have not found
it easy to disentangle the disasters or allot to each country its
individual woe. Deductions from Daniel, the patriarch Joseph, and of
course the Apocalypse enable Eglinus to establish definitely to his
own satisfaction the future advent, in one or other of the Central
Kingdoms, of Antichrist.
Nor, again, is it easy to gather whether a time-limit is set for his
appearance, or whether the prophecies apply to twentieth-century
events. Alas! also, the data do not enable me with certainty from the
very promising entries from Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria to single
out the precise potentate who best fills the bill, or closest answers
to the author’s Antichrist.[116]
Space debars from one fascinating branch of my subject—the
superstitions of Fishing. Their far-flung web enclosed the ancient
_piscator_ more firmly than his brother _venator_, or, indeed, any
class save only the “medicine men” of Rome.
Nor could their successors disentangle themselves, as witness the
recipe given above by Bassus for inscribing on the limpets’ shell
the Gnostic formula, and Mr. Westwood’s words, “There is, in fact,
more quaint and many-coloured superstition in a single page of Old
Izaak than in all the forty-five chapters of the twentieth Book of
the Geoponika. Silent are they touching mummies’ dust and dead men’s
feet—silent on the fifty other weird and ghastly imaginations of the
later anglers.”[117]
And even the modern angler, if he thoroughly examine himself, must
confess that some shred of gossamer still adheres. Does he not at
times forgo, even if he boast himself incredulous of consequence,
some act, such as stepping across a rod, lest it bring bad luck? If
particular individuals rise superior, the ordinary fisherman in our
present day still avows and still clings to superstitions or omens. Let
him in the South of Ireland be asked whither he goes, meet a woman,
or see one magpie, and all luck vanishes.[118] A dead hare (_manken_)
regarded as a devil or witch a century ago brought _piscator_ nigh unto
swooning.[119]
Women seem usually fatal to good catches; as one instance out of many
we read in Hollinshed’s _Scottish Chronicle_, that “if a woman wade
through the one fresh river in the Lewis, there shall no salmon be seen
there for a twelvemonth after.”
Superstitions of every sort and almost incredible dictate to the
ancient and to the modern fisherman what are the good and what the bad
days for plying his craft, or setting his sail. Their cousin, imitative
magic, plays no small part in deciding his bait.
But enough here of fishing superstitions. Are they not writ large
in Pliny, Oppian, Plutarch, in the _Folk Lore Records_, and larger,
geographically, in that masterpiece, _The Golden Bough_?
The most incredulous, if there were one chance in a hundred of the
operation ensuring adeptness in our craft, would willingly sacrifice in
conformity with Australian superstition the first joint of his little
finger.[120] Nor, again, if only the most moderate success resulted,
would any of us utter a belated plaint at his mother imitating her
Fijian sister and throwing, when first a-fishing after childbirth, his
navel-string into the sea, and thus “ensuring our growing into good
fisherfolk.”[121]
FOOTNOTES:
[82] Jowett’s _Translation_, vol. iv. p. 343. The whole passage, which
is too long for quotation, is fairly typical of Platonic methods.
[83] The _italics_ are mine.
[84] 23 Law Times, 439.
[85] In H. Grassmann’s _Wörterbuch zum Rig-Veda_, twice. One cannot
indict a whole sex for inebriety on the strength of a single passage,
but fish, despite _matsya_ being masculine in Sanskrit, are always
feminine according to the _Avesta_ (vol. v. p. 61, of _Sacred Books of
the East, Pahlavi Texts_): “Water, Earth, Plants, and Fish are female,
and never otherwise.”
[86] For help and guidance as to India I am greatly in debt to my old
Oxford friend, Dr. A. Macdonell, Boden Professor of Sanskrit, and to
his two books, _History of Sanskrit Literature_, p. 143, and Macdonell
and Keith, _Vedic Index of Names and Subjects_ (London, 1912), vol. ii.
p. 173.
[87] _The Story of the Flood in the Catapatha Brāhmana._
[88] _Sacred Books of the East_, xx. 252. Cf. x. 41.
[89] _Ibid._, xvi. 7. Cf. xxiii. 239, and v. 65.
[90] De Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_ (London, 1872), vol. ii.
331, f.
[91] De Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_ (London, 1872), vol. ii.
331, f.
[92] _The Pancatantra_, I., Story 17.
[93] _A Group of Hindoo Stories_, by an Aryan (really F. F. Arbuthnot)
(London, 1881), p. 35.
[94] Book I., Story 12 and 15. Book XI., Story 4. Here the fisherman,
when asked by the king the sex of a fish, saves the situation and
collars 2000 dinar by ejaculating the blessed word, not Mesopotamia,
but “Hermaphrodite,” which he had once overheard two students casually
employ.
[95] Sir William Jones holds that this collection of Fables “comprises
all the wisdom of Eastern nations, and was surpassed in esteem and
popularity by few works of Oriental literature.”
[96] No Quatrain of Omar Khayam sings of the craft.
[97] See _Idyll_ XX. of Theocritus, _postea_ 135, note 1, for another
example.
[98] Modern Turkish contains (according to Dr. Tisdall) two genuine
old _Turkish_ words for fish-hook, (1) _Ôltah_, (2) _Zôngah_. This is
of great interest, for it goes far to show that the Turks, even before
leaving Central Asia, were familiar with Angling.
[99] To him, a high authority on Persia, not only from the many years
spent there but also from his great linguistic accomplishments, I am
greatly in debt for much of the foregoing.
[100] Mr. Harold Parlett, our Consul at Dairen and an authority on
Japan, writes, “I know of no books in Japanese dealing with the
_history_ of fishing, and I think it improbable that any exist, unless
in MS. It is a subject, which as far as I know, has not yet been
studied. I should advise you to dismiss ancient Japanese methods in as
few words as possible.” I follow his advice.
[101] On consulting a great Sinologist, he rapped out, “The only thing
I know or want to know of Japan is that every art, every craft, it
possesses came from China.”
[102] W. J. Turrell, _Ancient Angling Authors_ (London, 1910), p. xi.
_Ancient_, in this most researchful work, might, I venture to suggest,
be qualified by _British_, for six pages (in the Preface) suffice for
all fishing before the tenth century.
[103] _Angling Literature_ (London, 1856), p. 33.
[104] There is in existence a Byzantine MS. entitled Ψαρολόγος (lit.
“Fishbook,” _i.e._ anecdotes of fish), which K. Krumbacher, _Geschichte
der byzantinischen Litteratur_, 3rd ed. (München, 1897), p. 884, states
should be published.
[105] The result of the work done during the last twenty years by
German writers, such as W. Christ, _Geschichte des griechischen
Litteratur_, ed. 3 (München, 1898), p. 664 f.; E. Oder, in Pauly-Winowa
_Real Enc._ (Stuttgart, 1910), VII., 1221-1225; and F. Lübker,
_Reallexikon des klassischen Altertums_ (Leipzig, 1914), p. 409,
seems to show that our _Geoponika_ is a reduction, _c._ 950 A.D., by
an unknown hand of an older compilation made in the sixth century by
Cassianus Bassus. Behind him in turn are older works of the fourth
century, _viz._ the συναγωγὴ γεωργικῶν of Vindanius Anatolius in twelve
books, and the γεωργικά of the younger Didymos of Alexandreia in
fifteen books. Ultimately we get back to Cassius Dionysius of Utica,
who translated the Carthaginian Mazo’s work on agriculture (88 B.C.).
[106] See _infra_, p. 291.
[107] The date of 1492 is suggested by Mr. Alfred Denison, who
translated and issued privately twenty-five copies of _Dit Boecxken
leert hoe men mach voghelen vanghen metten handen. Ende oeck
andersins_. From the press of Mathys Van der Goes. The marriage of
Madame Van der Goes to Godfridus Bach, whose printer’s mark also
appears in the book, seems to point to 1492. See, however, M. F. A. G.
Campbell, _Annales de la Typographie Neerlandaise au xv^e siècle_ (La
Haye, 1874), p. 80, and _Bibl. Pisc._, pp. 35, 36.
[108] _The Angler’s Note-Book_, 1st series (1880), p. 76.
[109] Cf. Turrell, _op. cit._, 4. In “and with angle hookys” in Piers,
Mr. Marston, _op. cit._, 2, sees “probably the earliest known reference
to angling in English.”
[110] Cf. M. G. Watkins, _Introduction to the Treatyse, etc._ (London,
1880), p. xi.
[111] It enumerates 3158 distinct editions of 2148 different fishing
works published before 1883. The _Supplement_ issued by Mr. R. B.
Marston in 1901 gives 1200 more. Mr. Eric Parker’s delightsome and
pocket-companionable _An Angler’s Garland_, London, 1920, gives many
happy extracts from the fifteen hundred, and present-day writers.
[112] In Bede, “Et divina se innante gratia.”
[113] 76, 12. τῶν γὰρ ἰχθύων, ἀπείρων και ἁπλέτων ὒντων, οὐ γεύονται.
[114] James Logan, _The Scottish Gael_ (Inverness, 1876), vol. ii. p.
130 f.
[115] Alexander Carmichael, _Carmina Gælica_ (Edinburgh, 1900), vol. i.
p. 325.
[116] S. Bochart, _Hierozoicon_ (Leipzig, 1796), p. 868, telling of a
fish whose right ear bore the words, _There is no God, but God_, and
left, _Apostle of God_, and neck, _Mahomet_, concludes with a parody of
Virgil, _Buc._, iii. 104.
“Die quibus in terris inscripti nomina Divum
Nascantur pisces, et eris mihi magnus Apollo!”
A _magnus Apollo_ to graduate the claims of the different potentates
would indeed be a boon. The capture of a fish some two years ago near
Zanzibar with Arabic inscriptions—legible only by the faithful—caused
immense excitement, as possibly foretelling the speedy end of the world.
[117] _Angler’s Note-Book_, ii. p. 116.
[118] _Angler’s Note-Book_, i. 44.
[119] Dougal Graham, _Ancient and Modern Hist. of Buckhaven_ (Glasgow,
1883), vol. ii. p. 235.
[120] John F. Mann, “Notes on the Aborigines of Australia,” _Proc.
Geograph. Soc. of Australia_, i. p. 204.
[121] J. G. Frazer, _op. cit._, iii. 206-7.
GREEK AND ROMAN FISHING
“_Noster in arte labor positus, spes omnis in illa._”
[Illustration: FISHERMEN ON THE VASE OF PHYLAKOPI.
Probably the earliest Greek representation connected with fishing, _c._
1500 B.C.
See n. 2, p. 63]
GREEK AND ROMAN FISHING.[122]
CHAPTER I
HOMER—THE POSITION OF FISHERMEN
It is difficult to define accurately or trace separately the Lure
or the Lore of these two nations, for their methods of fishing were
practically the same or dove-tailed one into the other. Since our
authors in both languages frequently synchronise, or as in the case of
Pliny and Ælian the younger tongue antedates the elder by a century or
more, and since this book is based on no zoological system, I shall
deal with them for the most part in chronological order.
The opposite page reproduces the figures of the four fishermen from the
famous Fishermen’s Vase of Phylakopi discovered in Melos some twenty
years ago.[123] If the period assigned to this, viz. _c._ 1500 B.C.,
be accurate, it seems to be the oldest Greek representation, at any
rate in the Ægean area, depicting anything connected with fishing, and
antedates the earliest Greek author by four to nine hundred years, in
accordance with the varying ages allotted to the Homeric poems.[124]
It is to Homer, whether written by half a dozen different authors or
in half a dozen different centuries,[125] as the oldest Greek writer
extant that we naturally turn for information about fishermen and
fishing. His evidence is not only the earliest, but also the most
trustworthy, according to Athenæus. “Homer treats of the art of fishing
with greater accuracy than professional writers on the subject such as
Cæcilius, Oppian, etc.”[126]—an endorsement from the piscatorial side
of the Theocritean ἅλις πάντεσσιν Ὅμηρος.
Neither fishermen nor traders in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ possess any
real status. While farmers, more especially pastoral farmers, occupy an
acknowledged and—next to the chiefs and warriors—the highest position,
no fisherman or trader is regarded as a representative unit of the
body, politic or social, or as a contributor to the wealth of the tribe
or state, a condition with which that of the fisherfolk in ancient
Egypt[127] and in China, both in early times and in the present day,
is elsewhere compared and contrasted.[128]
“For trader Homer knows no word.”[129] As _traders_ he represents no
Greeks, although the Taphians approximate closely (_Od._, I. 186). For
this three reasons have been assigned:—
First, the Greeks of Homer’s time with the exception of the Phæacians,
“who care not for bow or quiver, but for masts, and oars of ships, and
gallant barques, wherein rejoicing, they cross the grey sea” (_Od._,
VI. 270), hardly impress us, despite Dr. Leaf’s “The whole attitude of
both the Poems is one of maritime daring,”[130] as adventurous sailors.
They disliked long sea voyages; they shrank from spending the night on
the water; they would go thrice the distance, if they could but keep
in touch with land—and naturally enough, when we remember that for the
Homeric boat the Ægean was safe for only a few months of the year.
Their food supply made the sea a hateful necessity. “As much as a
mother is sweeter than a stepmother, so much is earth dearer than the
grey sea” might have been written as appropriately by Homer as by
Antipater centuries later.[131]
Whatever trading existed was in the hands not of the Phæacians, but of
the Phœnicians, to whose great port Sidon Homer makes reference more
than once.[132] Boldness of navigation, plus guile and gainfulness,
characterised the nation; their “tricky trading” (cf. the Levantines of
our day)[133] found frequent comment.
A comparison of them with the seamen of Elizabeth’s time shows common
traits. Both were “the first that ever burst into the silent seas,”
both committed acts of piracy, both kidnapped and enslaved freely. Lest
it be objected that the evidence of _Od._, XIV. 297 and 340 occurs in a
fictitious account by Odysseus of himself and so is itself fictitious,
let us call as witness the Hebrew prophet Joel[134]: “What have ye to
do with Me, O Tyre and Zidon? The children, also, of Judah, and the
children of Jerusalem, have ye sold unto the sons of the Grecians.”
The second reason lies in the fact that each Homeric house or each
hamlet, although perhaps not each town, apparently supplied nearly all
its own wants and was practically self-supporting.
The chief crafts existed, as Hesiod shows, but only in a rudimentary
stage; workers there were in gold, silver, bronze, wood, leather,
pottery, carpentry. Although they were not “adscripti glebæ,” the
proper pride or narrow jealousy of each settlement was strongly
averse from calling in craftsmen from outside. Only apparently those
“workers for the people,” such as “a prophet, or a healer of ills, or
a shipwright, or a godlike minstrel who can delight all by his song,”
were free to come and go, as they willed, sure of a welcome: “These are
the men who are welcome over all the wide earth.”[135]
The third reason was due to nearly all ordinary trade being effected by
barter. Payment was in kine, kind, or service. The ox, probably because
all round the most important of possessions, constituted the ordinary
measure of value: thus a female slave skilled in embroidery fetches
four oxen. Laertes gives twenty for Eurycleia, while much-wooed maidens
by gifts from their successful suitors “multiply oxen” for their
fathers.
Mentes sails to Temesa with a cargo of “shining iron” to exchange for
copper.[136] Then again in _Il._, VII. 472 ff., “the flowing-haired
Achæans bought them wine thence, some for bronze and some for gleaming
iron, and some with hides, and some with whole kine, and some with
captives.” Among the fishermen of the Indian Ocean, fish-hooks, on the
same principle of importance of possession, “the most important to them
of all implements, passed as currency and in time became a true money
_larin_, just as did the hoe in China.”[137]
“The talents of gold,”[138] probably Babylonian shekels, whether
Hultsch’s heavy or W. Ridgeway’s light one, implied, according to some,
a money standard of value. But wrongly, because neither gold nor silver
came to coinage in Greece or anywhere else till long after Homer’s day.
Fishermen seem slowly to have acquired some sort of status. Ἁλιεύς, at
first meaning a seaman or one connected with the sea, in time denoted
also a fisherman. _Od._, XIX. III, characterises the well-ordered realm
of a “blameless king” as one, in which “the black earth bears wheat and
barley, and trees are laden with fruit, and sheep bring forth and fail
not, and _the sea gives store of fish_.”
Any objection that such a kingdom had no actual existence, but was only
invented to heighten the hyperbole of laudation of Penelope’s fame,
“which goes up to the wide heaven, as doth the fame of a blameless
king,” concerns us not at all, for the kingdom whether actual or
imaginary is held up as worthy of all praise and admiration. In this
our Fish and so our Fishermen have attained some, if small, constituent
status.
The period of such attainment cannot be dated, but how and why the
status arrived I now try to trace.
Authorities differ widely as to whether the (so-called) Greeks, on
leaving Central Asia or whatever their _Urheimat_, established their
first lodgements in Europe or Asia, in Greece Proper or Asia Minor. E.
Curtius maintained that the Ionians at any rate, if not all the Greeks,
founded their earliest settlements on the coast of Asia Minor, and only
later crossed to Greece.
This view finds little favour among most Homeric scholars of the
present day,[139] who reverse the theory. They place the first
settlement of the immigrant Greeks in European Greece, whence by
peaceable permeation or otherwise they subsequently colonised the
coasts of Asia Minor and the Islands.
According to Professor K. Schneider[140] the Greeks, when swarming from
their original Aryan hive and establishing themselves on the coast of
Asia Minor and in the Islands of the Ægean Sea, carried with them and
for a long time closely preserved their original habits of life and
livelihood. Descended from generations of inland dwellers, eaters of
the flesh of wild animals, of sheep, etc., they were ignorant of marine
fish as a food. Only when the population increased more rapidly than
the crops, did they, profiting by their contact with the Phœnicians,
to whom in seamanship[141] and, according to some writers, in art[142]
they owed much, begin to realise and utilise the wealth of the harvest
to be won from the adjacent seas.[143]
Fishing, followed at first mainly by the very poor to procure a food in
low esteem, gradually found itself.
In the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ no fish appear at banquets or in the
houses of the well-to-do: only in connection with the poorest or
starving do they obtain mention.
Meleager of Gadara accounted for this fact—previously noted by
Aristotle—by the suggestion that Homer represented his characters as
abstaining from fish, because as a Syrian by descent he himself was a
total abstainer. The curious omission of fish has been held to indicate
that Homer either lived before the adoption of fish as food, or, if
not, that the social conditions and habits of diet which he delineates
are those of generations before such transition.[144]
The decision, if one be possible, lies for Homeric scholars, and not
for a mere seeker after piscatoriana. Even to such an one, however, two
alternatives seem clear.
First, if Homer did live after the transition occurred, his
descriptions of ancient times and customs unconsciously included habits
and conditions of a more modern society.[145]
Second, if he lived before such transition—a supposition, which
scarcely consists with the presence in Palæolithic _débris_ of copious
remains of fish—passages such as _Od._, XIX. 109-114, which ranks “a
sea-given store of fish” a constituent of a well-ordered realm, and
_Il._, XVI. 746, where “This man would satisfy many by searching (or
diving) for oysters,” are interpolations by later writers.
It is difficult otherwise to reconcile or explain conflicting passages.
How, for instance, can the dictum, that “Fish as a food was in the
Poems only used by the very poor or starving,” be made to harmonise
with _Il._, XVI. 746, just quoted?[146] If it be confined solely to the
_Odyssey_, a more plausible case may possibly be presented.
Another suggestion, not quite similar, yet not repugnant, is Seymour’s.
“The Poet represented the life which was familiar to himself and his
hearers. Each action, each event might be given by tradition, or might
be the product of the poet’s imagination, but the details which show
the customs of the age, and which furnish the colours of the picture,
are taken from the life of the poet’s time. His interest is centred in
the action of the story, and the introduction of unusual manners and
standard of life would only distract the attention of his hearers.”
Mackail, perhaps, concludes the whole matter. “The Homeric world is a
world imagined by Homer: it is placed in a time, evidently thought of
as far distant, though there are no exact marks of chronology any more
than there are in the Morte d’Arthur.”[147]
Homer’s close knowledge of the many devices for the capture of fish,
and his lively interest in the habits of fish quite apart from actual
fishing seem inconsistent with Schneider’s contention of Greek ichthyic
ignorance.
Fish, as we have seen, came gradually to be considered as much a part
of natural wealth as the fruits of the ground or herds of cattle. And
yet in all the pictures with which Hephæstus adorns the Shield of
Achilles, pictures of common ever-present objects, first of the great
phenomena of Nature—Earth, Sea, Sun, Moon, and Stars—and then of the
various events and occupations that make up the round of human life—in
all these pictures, which as a series of illustrations of early life
and manners are obviously a document of first-rate importance, no form
of sea-faring has any place. Ships of war, maritime commerce, and
fishing are alike unrepresented.[148]
No satisfactory explanation of this omission has as yet seen the light.
The design of The Shield, say some, came from an inland country, such
as Assyria. Others that Homer described some foreign work of art
fabricated by people who knew not the sea, but Helbig points out that
the omission consists with the references to ships and sea-faring
elsewhere in Homer. No commerce or occupation, which could be placed
side by side with farming in a picture of Greek life, then existed. If
Mr. Lang’s view—which possesses the pleasant property of incapacity of
either proof or disproof—that The Shield was simply an _ideal_ work of
art had been more generally borne in mind, we should have been spared
endless comment.
In his ascription of The Shield to Assyrian or Phœnician influence
Monro finds himself at variance with Sir Arthur Evans. Even if his
statement, “the recent progress of archæology has thrown so much light
on the condition of Homeric art,” be accurate and the deductions from
such recent progress be justifiable, the still more recent progress in
the same science (according to Evans) ousts the Assyrian or Phœnician
in favour of a Cretan parentage.
“It is clear that some vanguard of the Aryan Greek immigrants came into
contact with this Minoan culture at a time when it was still in its
flourishing condition. The evidence of Homer is conclusive. Arms and
armour described in the poems are those of the Minoan prime; the fabled
Shield of Achilles, like that of Herakles described by Hesiod, with its
elaborate scenes and variegated metal work, reflects the masterpieces
of the Minoan craftsmen in the full vigour of their art. Even the lyre
to which the minstrel sang was a Minoan invention.”[149]
The suggestion that both authorities are really in agreement and that
the influence at work may be traced back ultimately to the early
Assyrian, _i.e._ _Sumerian_, culture, even if Evans holds “that the
first quickening impulse came to Crete from Egypt and not from the
Oriental side,” seems, on present data, untenable.
Till twenty years ago it was generally accepted that no character of
Homer ever sailed for recreation, or fished for sport. They were far
too near the primitive life to find any joy in such pursuits. Men
scarcely ever hunted or fished for mere pleasure. These occupations
were not pastimes; they were counted as hard labour. Hunting, fishing,
and laying snares for birds in Homer and even in the classical periods
had but one aim, food.[150]
The Poet expressly mentions the hardships (ἂλγεα, _Od._, IX. 121) of
hunters in traversing forest and mountains. Nowhere does he give any
indication of _sport_ in hunting or fishing, except perhaps in the case
of the wild boar and in the delight of Artemis “taking her pastime in
the chase of boars and swift deer,”[151] where the word, παίζουσιν,
would seem surely to indicate pleasure in sport.
[Illustration: “IN AT THE DEATH.”
See n. 1, p. 73.]
But the recent discovery at Tiryns of a fresco where two ladies
are depicted standing in a car at a boar-hunt[152]—perhaps “in at
the death”—certainly makes for considerable qualification, and, if
succeeded by similar finds, for complete reversal of the non-sporting
theory.
On Circe’s Island, Odysseus strikes down “a tall antlered stag” as “he
was coming down from his pasture in the woodland to the river, for
verily the might of the Sun was sore upon him.” He bears the “huge
beast” across his neck to the black ship of his companions, who soon
devour it. This is the only mention of venison in Homer (_Od._, X. 158
ff.).
FOOTNOTES:
[122] For several reasons I have anachronously placed this section
first instead of last.
[123] The representation, reproduced by the kind permission of the
Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, consists of four men
carrying in each hand a fish by the tail. The absence of boots and
ornaments is in keeping with their occupation. The fishes with one
exception have heads like dolphins, similar to the representation of
Poseidon with a tiny dolphin in his hand. The painting is executed in
the “black and red” style upon the usual white slip. The figures are
drawn firmly and boldly according to the conventional scheme, shoulders
to front and legs in profile; the slim proportions of the bodies are
common to many Mycenæan works. The most barbaric features of the
drawing are the absence of hands, and the monstrous eye in the middle
of the cheek. Cf. No. 80 in the _British Museum Cat. of Gems_, which
shows a man clad with the characteristic Mycenæan loin cloth carrying a
fish by a short line attached to its gullet. _Excavations at Phylakopi
in Melos_ (London, 1904), p. 123, pl. xxii.
[124] Equally famous, perhaps even more so, is the representation
of a fish found in 1882 near Vettersfelde in Lower Lausitz, but now
in Berlin. It is the shield-sign of a Scythian chief, made in gold
_repoussé_ work early in the fifth century B.C. See the publications
of A. Furtwängler, _Der Goldfund von Vettersfelde_ (Berlin, 1883), (=
_id. Kleine Schriften_ (München, 1912), I. 469 ff. pl. 18); cf. E. H.
Minns, _Scythians and Greeks_ (Cambridge, 1913), p. 236 ff. fig. 146.
Furtwängler thinks that the fish may have been meant for the _Thymus
alalonga_.
[125] Homer, according to Sir A. Evans, “is at most sub-Mycenæan, his
age is more recent than the latest stage of anything that can be called
Minoan or Mycenæan,” _Jour. Hellenic Studies_, xxxii. (1912) 287. This
would seem to place Homer about the twelfth century.
[126] _Deipnosophistæ_, I. ch. 22.
[127] Herodotus (II. 164) describing the different grades of Egyptian
society begins with the priests and ends with the boatmen, among
whom he apparently includes the fishermen. Their humble position is
confirmed by other evidence; see _postea_ 333. In Laconia fishing was
confined to the Helots and Περίοικοι.
[128] “With the division of the people of the Empire into four distinct
classes—scholars, agriculturists, artisans, and merchants—the men and
women who followed the trade of fishing for a livelihood were placed
in an anomalous position from not being included in any of the four
classes. Thus socially ostracised to a certain extent, they clung to
themselves, forming groups or colonies of their own along the coasts
or on isolated islands. They lived in a world of their own, knowing
nothing of the affairs of their country and caring less. To this day
they do not come into direct contact with their countrymen on the
mainland.” Wei-Chung W. Yen: Fourth International Fishing Congress at
Washington, 1908. _Bulletin of Bureau of Fisheries_, No. 664, p. 376.
[129] Professor T. D. Seymour, _Life in the Homeric Age_ (London,
1907), p. 284, who might have added that Homer knows no general word
either for trade; to traders, πρηκτῆρες (_Od._, VIII. 162) come nearest
probably. From Seymour’s work, which sheds much valuable light on
Homeric pursuits, I quote and borrow frequently.
[130] See _Class. Journ._; _Chicago_, XIII. (1917), “The Leaf-Ramsay
Theory of the Trojan War,” where he uses these words in reply to Maury,
who holds that the view expounded in Leaf’s _Troy_ that the War was
an economic struggle by the Greeks for trade expansion to the fertile
lands of the Euxine and for the extinction of the tolls exacted by the
Trojans is untenable, because (_inter alia_) of their want of nautical
enterprise. In favour of Leaf there are, however, mentions (1) of a
voyage from Crete to Egypt in five days, and (2) the big νηῦς φορτὶς
εὐρεῖα twice mentioned.
[131] Cf. however, Geikie, _Love of Nature among the Romans_, p.
300. Subdivided by the waters of the Ægean into innumerable islands,
where the scattered communities could only keep in touch by boat or
ship, Greece naturally became a nursery of seamen. The descriptive
and musical epithets applied to the deep in Greek poetry show how
much its endless variety of surface and colour, its beauty and its
majesty, appealed to the Hellenic imagination. S. H. Butcher, _Harvard
Lectures_ (London, 1904), p. 49, speaks of the Greeks as “born sailors
and traders, who from the dawn of history looked upon the sea as their
natural highway.” Contrast with this Plato, _Laws_, iv. 705A, ἁλμυρὸν
καὶ πικρὸν γειτόνημα, “a bitter and brackish neighbour.”
[132] He never mentions Tyre, the later port. Evans (_Scripta Minoa_,
pp. 56, 80) and other archæologists nowadays hold that Homer’s
Φοίνικες, or “red men,” are really the “Minoans,” and are to be
distinguished from the Σιδόνιοι or Phœnicians. At what date the latter
appeared in the West Mediterranean is still a matter of controversy,
but the present trend of opinion is that they only succeeded to the
“Minoan” heritage.
[133] Cf., however, Isaiah xxiii. 8, “whose merchants are princes,
whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth.” In spite of this,
Butcher, _op. cit._, p. 45, writes: “but in Bacon’s words, the end and
purpose of their life was ‘the sabbathless pursuit of fortune.’”
[134] Chap. iii. 4-6.
[135] _Od._, XVII. 386.
[136] _Od._, I. 182 ff.
[137] W. Ridgeway, _The Origin of Metallic Currency_ (Cambridge, 1892),
27 ff.
[138] _Il._, XXIII. 269.
[139] See, however, Hogarth’s _Ionia and the East_, pp. 8, 120. A
fish, the Eel, plays an important part in the attempt to determine
the original home of the Indo-European family. See S. Feist, _Kultur,
Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen_ (Berlin, 1913), pp. 187, 525.
[140] _Der Fischer in der antiken Litteratur_ (Aachen, 1892).
[141] While the early Greeks learned much with regard to navigation
from the Phœnicians, none of the Homeric nautical terms have been
traced to a Phœnician source, as might have been expected in view of
the large number of such terms which the English language has borrowed
from the Dutch, such as _ahoy_, _boom_, _skipper_, _sloop_, etc. The
French has taken from the English, _beaupré_, _cabine_, _paquebot_,
etc. Seymour, p. 322.
[142] “The choice of the subjects (in _The Shield of Achilles_),
especially the absence of mythological subjects, the arrangement of
the scenes in concentric bands, and the peculiar technique, all point
to oriental, _i.e._ in the main to Phœnician and Assyrian influence.
In these respects the earliest actual Greek work known to us by
description, viz. The Chest of Cypselus (_c._ 700 B.C.), consisting
of cedar wood, ivory, and gold, and richly adorned (according to
Pausanias, V. 17) with figures in relief, holds an intermediate place
between _The Shield of Achilles_ and the art of the classic period.
Hence we infer that the Shield belongs to the earlier time, when (as we
also learn from Homer) the Phœnicians were the great carriers between
the Mediterranean countries and the East” (Monro, _Il._, XVIII).
Professor Jebb (_Homer_, p. 66) ranks, in the earlier period, Phœnician
lower than Phrygian influence, but the latest writer on the subject—F.
Poulsen, _Der Orient und die frühgriechische Kunst_, Leipzig-Berlin,
1912—makes large claims for the influence of the Phœnicians in art.
[143] Under ‘Piscator’ in _Dict. des Antiquités_ Daremberg and Saglio
write: “The configuration of the country generally would naturally
induce a large part of the population to seek their livelihood in
fishing and fish.”
[144] The explanation of Athenæus (Bk. I. 16, 22 and 46) is ingenious.
Homer never represents fish or birds, or vegetables, or fruit “as being
put on the table to eat, lest to mention them would seem like praising
gluttony, thinking besides there would be a want of decorum in dwelling
on the preparation of such things, which he considered beneath the
dignity of Gods and Heroes.” The latest explanation—by Professor J. A.
Scott, _Class. Journ._; _Chicago_, 1916-17, p. 329—that “Homer looked
upon fish with great disfavour, because as a native of Asia Minor he
had been trained to regard fish as an unhealthful and distasteful food
to be eaten only as a last resort,” would attain nearer “what seems
the solution of this vexed question” (Scott’s words), if he produced
(1) data establishing Homer’s country of birth, and (2) evidence far
stronger than “Tips to Archæological Travellers” (even though these be
written by Sir Wm. Ramsay) as regards the general “unhealthfulness” of
the fish of Asia Minor.
[145] Schrader, _Reallexikon_ (Strassburg, 1901), p. 244, states
that in neither the Avesta nor the Rig-Veda is there any mention of
fishing, nor in the Aryan period were there any common names for fish,
and that throughout the Homeric age, which generally knows fishing as
an existent occupation, there still seems to be a recollection of a
time when the Greek hero ate fish just as little as he rode, wrote, or
cooked soup!
[146] It is but fair, however, to add that the Scholiast notes this
passage as the only one in the _Iliad_ where fish is mentioned as a
food, while Monro makes the ingenious comment that these oysters,
or shell fish, are to be regarded not as luxuries, but as a way of
satisfying the hunger of a crew at sea. Of oysters this is the only
mention in the Homeric Poems. As oyster shells and even unopened oyster
shells were found by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ, the liking for oysters
is not likely to have been lost between the Mycenæan and the Homeric
times. The remains of the Homeric (sixth) city at Troy yielded very
many cockle shells, but of cockles there seems no mention in the poems.
Numerous representations of fishes are found on Mycenæan and Cretan
works of art.
[147] J. W. Mackail, _Lectures on Greek Poetry_ (London, 1910), p. 47.
[148] Monro’s Note on _Iliad_, XVIII. 468-608.
[149] Presidential Address to the British Association, 1916.
[150] Eustathius (on _Il._, V. 487) after stating that by the Homeric
heroes fishing and fowling were very rarely employed, continues Οὐκ
ἠσαν ὑδροθῆραι παρ’ αὐτοῖς εἰ μὴ ἄρα ἐν λιμῷ.
[151] _Od._, VI. 102 ff. W. W. Merry _ad loc._ well compares Soph.
_El._, 566 ff.
[152] G. Rodenwaldt in _Tiryns_ (Athens, 1912), II. 96 ff. pls. 12 f.