Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

24 INTRODUCTIONmassive tomes of Ancient Peruvian Art by A. Baessler, norThe Fish in Peruvian Art by Charles W. Mead vouchsafe it.To the absence among the ancient Peruvians of any writtenlanguage Mead attributes the very early arrival of conventionalismin art.In consequence of conventionalism, fish at the periodreached are merely rendered as various designs,notably thatof the " interlocked fishes," i.e. a pattern of parts of two fishturned in opposite directions, a curious example of which maybe found in Mead, Plate I. fig. 9. The mythological monster,part fish part man, in Plate II. fig. 13, compares and contrastswith 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 afew spears, comes to view.i Joyce, however, gives a fishingscene 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.2From his book emerge two interesting points of comparativemythology. The first—which compares with Assyrian andother similar legends ^—the tradition that culture was firstbrought to Ecuador by men of great stature coming from thesea, who lived by fishing with nets ; the second—whichcompares with the Egyptian practice—the custom amongcertain primitive coast tribes of placing provisions, amongwhich were fish, in the graves of the dead.'*Other races of the world present many points of similarityto the French cave men. The Bushmen of Africa, and theBushmen of Austraha, inter alios, exemplify this. Banfield, indealing with the drawings or so-called frescoes of men, animals,and fish on Dunk Island, vouches for the latter as "of talent,^ 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 Stiibel. translated by A. H. Keane,Berlin, 1880-87.^ T. A. Joyce, South American ArchcBology, London, 1912, p. 126.^ See infra, p. 371.* Indian Notes and Monographs, published by the Heye Foundation,New York, 1919, p. 56, show in the tombs of Cayuga fish-hooks, harpoons, andfish-bones, " most of which objects are unique or unusual as grave finds."