The head is a 2-pronged piece of iron or steel about 17 centimeters long, with barbs on the inner side of each prong, equidistant from the extremity and facing each other. These two prongs unite to form a solid neck that runs into the natural hole in the shaft, a ferrule of brass, or more frequently a winding of rattan coated with tabon-tábon seed pulp, serving to prevent the splitting of the frail bamboo tube. The head is attached to the shaft by a substantial string of abaká fiber, about 1.5 meters long, which is wound about the shaft, but which is unwound by the fish in its frantic efforts to escape, leaving him with the arrowhead in his body, and with the shaft breaking the water and indicating to the fisherman the whereabouts of his victim. On the far upper Agúsan the arrowhead is not of the 2-pronged type but is a thin, laminated steel point that expands gradually to form the two lateral barbs. It is of Mandáya manufacture and origin.
THE FISH SPEAR
The fish spear,27 except on the far upper Agúsan, consists of a long bamboo shaft from 1.5 to 2.25 meters in length with a heavy 3-pronged barbed head set into a node at its larger end and with strengthening girdles of rattan strips serving to reinforce it. The iron head is of Bisáya or of Christian Manóbo workmanship. On the upper Agúsan the head is 2-pronged and the shaft is frequently somewhat longer than that of the spear used on the lower river. In other respects it is identical.
27Sá-pang.
FISHHOOKS
Large hooks are much more commonly used than small ones. Both are made out of either brass wire or of iron, the latter often from the handle of a kerosene can, and in general they resemble ordinary fishhooks such as are made in civilized countries. The method of using the hook has been described already under "Fishing."
For crocodiles a peculiar hook is used. It consists of a piece of palma brava, sharpened at one end, and provided with a spur projecting backward at an angle of about 30°. To this piece of wood is attached a stout rope of abaká fiber, which in its turn is tied to a piece of stout bamboo about 1.8 meters long. The bamboo is then set firmly in the ground, and the bait is allowed to hang within about 60 centimeters of the water. The hungry crocodile, lured by the odor, springs at the bait, and gets the hook between his jaws. It is seldom that by dint of frantic pulling and wriggling he does not free the bamboo and rush off to one of his favorite haunts, where, by the presence of the bamboo float above him, he is discovered and dispatched.