In making their nets, our common netting-stitch is employed, the needle being of plain wood, 18 inches long, and forked at each end; whilst the mesh employed is a piece of tortoise-shell, having for a width of an inch a length of 21⁄2 inches. The method of netting familiar to ourselves appears to be generally employed amongst the native races of this portion of the globe. We learn from the Rev. George Turner that in Samoa the same stitch and the same form of needle are employed which are in use in Europe.[141] The natives of Port Moresby, in New Guinea, net “so precisely in our mode that the seamen of H.M.S. “Basilisk” took up their shuttles and went on with their work.”[142] The needle employed at Redscar Bay, on the coast of the same island, is more like our own, the mesh being of tortoise-shell, two to three inches long.[143] When Captain Bowen, of the ship “Albemarle,” was visited in 1791 by some natives of the Solomon Islands who came off to him in their canoes, he thought he had found in the apparently European workmanship of their nets a clue to the fate of La Pérouse, a very pardonable error which receives its explanation from the above facts.[144]
[141] “Nineteen Years in Polynesia” (London, 1861), p. 272.
[142] Moresby’s “New Guinea” (1876), p. 156.
[143] These specimens are in the British Museum Ethnological collection.
[144] Dillon’s “Discovery of the Fate of La Pérouse” (1829), vol I., p. lxix.
Fishing on the reef-flats with large hand-nets is a common occupation of the men in the islands of Bougainville Straits. Some five or six men form a party, each man carrying a pair of long hand-nets in which the netting is stretched on a long bamboo some 20 feet in length and bent like a bow, as shown in the accompanying [figure]. The fishing party wade about on the flat near the edge of the reef, each man being about 20 paces apart, and dragging behind him a pair of these clumsy-looking nets, one in each hand. When a fish is perceived they close round; and every man spreads out his nets, one on each side like a pair of wings, thus covering an extent of some 40 feet. By skilfully dropping his nets, when it makes a rush in his direction, the native secures the fish, which, dashing head first against one of the nets, gets its snout caught in the meshes; and a couple of blows on the head complete the capture. I have seen fish of the size of an ordinary bass caught in this manner. Smaller nets, 4 to 6 feet in length, with a finer mesh, are used for catching fish of less size. The large hand-net is known as the “sorau,” and the small hand-net as the “saiaili.” Such is one of the commonest methods of fishing in the Straits. For this purpose, fishing parties often visit the uninhabited small islands and coral islets that lie off the coasts. There they erect temporary sheds and remain for one or two weeks. In the numerous uninhabited islets and small islands which I visited, I frequently came on the temporary habitations erected by fishing parties; whilst propped up against the trees were the long bamboo poles on which the nets are stretched. The natives of St. Christoval and the adjacent islands employ a similar method in fishing on the reef-flats. Fishing parties often spend a week or two on the small islands and reefs which lie off the St. Christoval coast; thus the men of Wano visit for this purpose the islet of Maoraha, about 12 miles down the coast; whilst those of Sulagina cross over to the Three Sisters, which are about the same distance away.
Dip-nets, such as I have seen in common use on the banks of the Chinese rivers, are here employed, though on a smaller scale, for catching small fish. They are usually 7 or 8 feet across, and are stretched on two crossed bamboos. Seine-nets, much prized by the natives on account of the labour expended in making them, and buoyed up with floats of the square fruits of the Barringtonia speciosa, are commonly employed. There are other modes of net-fishing, of which I am ignorant, some of which probably came under the notice of the officers of the survey: and I hope that in reading these remarks they may be induced to supplement them with additional information.
The fish-hooks employed vary in form and workmanship in different parts of the group. In the sheltered harbour of Makira, the natives whiff in small outrigger-canoes for a small fish of the size of a smelt, using very fine lines and small delicately made hooks of mother-of-pearl. During our stay at the island of Simbo or Eddystone, one of the principal articles of exchange between the natives and ourselves was a somewhat clumsy kind of fish-hook used for catching large fish. The shank is of pearl-shell cut in the shape of the body of a small fish, 2 to 21⁄2 inches long, and rather less than half an inch wide. The hook itself, which is destitute of barbs and is made of tortoise-shell, is bound by strong twine to the tail-end of the shank. Considerable labour must be expended in making one of these hooks: but so eager were the natives for tobacco, that we were able to obtain them for small pieces of this article which could not have been worth more than half a farthing. It is worthy of note that in the island of Treasury, about 80 miles to the north-west, these hooks are not made by the natives, who were anxious to obtain from us those which we had brought from Simbo. Very similar, though larger, hooks are used by the natives of other Pacific groups; amongst them I may refer to those employed by the Society Islanders[145] for catching dolphins, albicores, and bonitos. These hooks, wherever they are used, as I need scarcely add, answer the purpose of both hook and bait. The fish-hooks of European manufacture, which are one of the articles used in trading with the natives, are in demand in many islands, though not in all. In some islands, in fact, the native fish-hook is preferred.