Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

22 INTRODUCTIONattached to fish as a food extract favourable comment fromCortez.iIn spite of the pictographs, known as the Mendoza Codex,being executed several centuries after the date I have roughlyallotted myself, viz. 500 a.d., I cannot resist inserting two ofthese on account of their fourfold interest.They show first, that Mexican lads received early in theirteens education in fishing. Second, that the Aztecs were00000000000000AZTEC FISHING.From the Mendoza Codex, vol. i. pi. 6i, fig. 4.familiar with scoop nets. Third—and this surely will go tothe heart of our Food Controller—that food was rationed.^ Montezuma's table was provided with fish from the Gulf of Mexicobrought to the capital within twenty-four hours of capture by means of relaysof runners. Some five gods of fishing, of whom the chief seems to have beenOpochtli, were worshipped : to him was ascribed the invention of the netand the minacachalli or trident. Cf. de Sahagun, Histoire gM^al des chosesde la Nouvelle Espagne, traduite et annotee par D. Jourdanet et Remi Simeon,p. 36, Paris, 1880. De Sahagun, a Franciscan, came to Mexico in 1529 anddied 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 wasdivided in fixed shares ; see Joyce, p. 300.2 These pictographs were made by native artists shortly after the conquestof Mexico, and were sent by the Viceroy Mendoza, with interpretations inAztec and Spanish, to the Emperor Charles the Fifth. A copy of this Codexin the Bodleian was reproduced by Lord Kingsborough in his first volume ofAntiquities of Mexico {1831).