Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

CROCODILE WORSHIP. AND CATCHING 331The Phagrus had the distinction of being venerated inEgypt and Greece, whose writers, bothered by none of ourscientific hesitation, regarded him not as one of the Mormyri,but as the Eel. They scoffed ahke at his deification and hisdevotees.!The Phagrus, and the Mceotes, which is Wilkinson's additionto the four other sacred fish, were probably the same underdifferent names. ^Uan, indeed, states that the former,worshipped at Syene, was called the Mceotes by the people ofElephantine (quite close to Syene), and attributes itssanctityto its annual appearance always heralding the rise of theNile, 2 a property of prescience transferred by Plutarch to theMceotes. ^We know so little about the locus of the Lepidotus {Barbushynni) cult that Wilkinson's assertion, " its worship extendedover most parts of Egypt," needs confirmatory data.The Crocodile, hke the Lates, was worshipped here and there,but elsewhere keenly hunted. Of the first Thebes and LakeMceris furnish types. Each place (according to Herodotus)harboured one crocodile in particular, very tame and tractable.'*They adorned his ears, as Antonina her MurcBna, " with earringsof molten stone or gold, and put bracelets on his forepaws,giving him daily a set portion of bread, with a certain number ofvictims : when he dies, they embalm and bury him in a sacredplace." 5Of the various methods for catching the crocodile ourauthor sets forth one which we all must agree as " worthy ofmention." " They bait a hook with a chine of pork, and letthe meat be carried out into the middle of the stream, whilethe hunter on the bank holds a living pig which he belabours.The crocodile hears its cries and making for the sound encountersthe pork, which he instantly swallows down. Themen on the shore haul and, when they have got him to land,the first thing the hunter does is to plaster his eyes with mud.^Cf. Athenaeus, VII. 55, for the jests of Antiphanes, etc.2 N. H., X. 19.3 Op. cit.. 7.* Plato bears witness to the skill of the Egyptians in taming fish, andanimals, even the shy wild gazelle. Polii. 532.* Herodotus, II. 69, 70. Rawlinson' s Trans.Z