[24] Cf. T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archæology, London, 1914.
[25] Montezuma’s table was provided with fish from the Gulf of Mexico brought to the capital within twenty-four hours of capture by means of relays of runners. Some five gods of fishing, of whom the chief seems to have been Opochtli, were worshipped: to him was ascribed the invention of the net and the minacachalli or trident. Cf. de Sahagun, Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, traduite et annotée par D. Jourdanet et Rémi Simeon, p. 36, Paris, 1880. De Sahagun, a Franciscan, came to Mexico in 1529 and died there in 1590. See also, C. Rau, op. cit., p. 214, and T. Joyce, op. cit., pp. 165, 221. A not uncommon practice was co-operative fishing, by which, after a portion had been set aside for the feudal lord, the rest of the catch was divided in fixed shares; see Joyce, p. 300.
[26] These pictographs were made by native artists shortly after the conquest of Mexico, and were sent by the Viceroy Mendoza, with interpretations in Aztec and Spanish, to the Emperor Charles the Fifth. A copy of this Codex in the Bodleian was reproduced by Lord Kingsborough in his first volume of Antiquities of Mexico (1831).
[27] From a letter from the representative in Mexico of the Smithsonian Institute, who adds: “My belief is that the Mayas used the Spear, the Net, and the Bow and Arrow. That is all I can give you at present: should anything else turn up, I will let you know.” In A Study of Maya Art, an elaborate work by Herbert J. Spinder (Peabody Museum Memoirs, Harvard University, 1913), I have failed to find any fishing scenes or any ancient fishing implements depicted.
[28] 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 Stübel, translated by A. H. Keane, Berlin, 1880-87.
[29] T. A. Joyce, South American Archæology, London, 1912, p. 126.
[30] See infra, p. 371.
[31] Indian Notes and Monographs, published by the Heye Foundation, New York, 1919, p. 56, show in the tombs of Cayuga fish-hooks, harpoons, and fish-bones, “most of which objects are unique or unusual as grave finds.”
[32] E. J. Banfield, Confessions of a Beachcomber, London, 1913.
[33] For descriptions of Palæolithic life, see Worthington G. Smith, Man the Primal Savage, London, 1894, and J. J. Atkinson, Primal Law, London, 1903. For the community assumed by the former, Atkinson substitutes a family group.