Note 73 — PART I

For a similar use of bow and harpoon arrow by the Bororo tribes in the Amazon valley, see W. A. Cork, Through the Wilderness of Brazil, p. 380. Our gaff, a descendant, possibly, of the unilaterally one-barbed spear, seems possessed of perpetual youth. The first description of its use in Angling in England occurs, according to Mr. Marston (Walton and the Earlier Fishing Writers (1898), p. 97), in T. Barker’s Art of Angling (1651), but according to Dr. Turrell, op. cit., pp. 85 and 91, only in Barker’s 2nd of 1657, “a good large landing hook.” From the definition, however, by Blount, Glossage, in 1657, “Gaffe, an iron wherewith seamen pull great Fishes into their ships,” its previous existence and employment at sea can be deduced.