Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

34 INTRODUCTIONPrehistoric Man often with a limited local supply wasdriven to adopt and adapt any material which could be forcedinto his purpose of a hook. To this cause has been ascribedone of the most extraordinary hooks on record. This relic, nowin the Berlin Museum, of the lacustrine dwellers is formed outofthe upper mandible of an eagle, notched down to the base.But the most interesting natural fish-hook known to me (foundin Goodenough Island, New Guinea) is the thick upper jointof the hind leg of an insect, Eurycantha latro, furnished, however,only by the male, who is endowed with the long, stout recurvedspur, suitable for fishing. The leg joints and therefore thehooks got from them (about if inches long) are supphedready made by Nature : they merely require to be fastened toa tapered snood of twisted vegetable matter for immediateemployment.!Where flints, shells, and horn were absent or, if present,were not turned to account, an abundance of thorns with bendand point ready made and with proved capacities of piercingand holding would attract the notice and serve the purpose ofthe New Stone Man. Such later on was the case in Babylonand Israel (in both of which countries the primary sense ofthe word equalling hook seems, according to some authorities,hooks bear out this view {Ency. Brit., ed. xi., s.v. '' Angling "). " The progressiveorder of hooks used by the Indians or their predecessors in title inNorth America was, after the simple device of attaching the bait to the endof a fibrous line, (i) a gorge, a spike of wood or bone, sharpened at both endsand fastened at its middle to a line ; (2) a spike set obliquely in the end of apliant shaft; (3) a plain hook ; (4) a barbed hook ; {5) a barbed hook combinedwith sinker and lure. This series does not exactly represent stages of invention: the evolution may have been affected by the habits of the differentspecies of fish or their increasing wariness. The above progressive orderapplies, I believe, on the whole all over the world, if due allowance be madefor varying conditions" {Smithsonian Handbook of American Indians(Washington), p. 460).^ See Man, Feb., 1915, " Note on the new kind of Fish-hook," by HenryBalfour. 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 voyagein N.W. American waters (see Ethnographical Coll. at Brit. Mus.). Thewhalebone in this must not be mistaken for anything else but a snood. Forthe ingenious derivation of certain hooks in some South Sea Islands from theirsimilarity to the bones of common fish, e.g. Cod and Haddock, seeT. McKennyHughes, in ArchcBol. Jour., vol. 58, No. 230, pp. 199-213. See also J. G.Wood, Nature's Teaching (London, 1877), pp. 11 5-6, on the point.