Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

*THE BASIS OF MAGIC IN FISHING 29out, " What is this? I fear I am caught." Such procedureis beheved to attract the fish efficaciously and to ensure agood haul.iScotland not a century ago witnessed pantomimes of similarcharacter, according to the Rev. J. Macdonald, minister ofReay. Fishermen, when dogged by ill luck, threw one of theirnumber overboard and then hauled him out of the water,exactly as if he were a fish. This Jonah-like ruse apparentlyinduced appetite, for " soon after trout, or sillock, would beginto nibble."The comparative ethnologist detects in all these cases anattempt to establish direct relations between the hunter or thefisher and his quarry. Primitive man in search for foodfrequently seeks to establish an impalpable but in his eyes veryserviceable connection between himself and the object of hisquest by working a likeness of his desired prey.Such a Hkeness, according to the doctrine that a simulacrumis actively en rapport with that which it represents, bestowson its possessor power over the original — " I'auteur ou le possesseurd'une image pent influencer ce qu'elle represente." 2The cases are simply the commonplaces of homoepathic orimitative magic. ^We find that just as the savage attempts to appease theghosts of men he has slain, so he essays to propitiate thespirits of the animals and fish he has killed :for this purposeelaborate ceremonies of propitiation are widely observed.Of similar character and intent are the taboos observed byfishermen before the season opens, and the purifications performedon returning with their booty.Magic, exercised not so much to propitiate as to avoidoffending some power—in the following instance the elementof water— originated the rule (existent among the Eskimosfifty years ago) that forbade during the salmon season any^ E. Aymonier, Cochinchene Francoise, No. i6, p. 157, as quoted by Frazer.Ibid.2 S. Reinach, L'Aiiihropologie (1903), p. 257.3 Such is the solution which Bates {Ancient Egyptian Fishing, 191 7, p.205) offers of the presence in the pre-dynastic Egyptian graves of the numerousslate palettes bearing the profile of a fish or beast.* Frazer, Gulden Bough. Taboo, Part ii. (London, 1911), p. 191 ff.